The days of picking up the weekly circular to browse thumbnails of property listings is over.
Today, house hunting is similar to a dating app. Prospective buyers are flipping through photos and descriptions of properties on their phones, tablets, and laptops. If a house interests them enough, they may just click that little heart button to ‘favorite’ it. Then if they get an excited feeling in their gut, they may decide to pop in on an open house or schedule a private showing.
Today’s consumer lives online with everything they do! I’m guilty of it myself. I even got hooked into the convenience of doing my grocery shopping online. With such busy lives, we are all just looking for simple and convenient solutions to daily tasks.
Touring a long list of homes all day is just something most don’t want to fit into their schedules. So they resort to digital resources such as Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com to narrow their search down.
According to a 2017 National Association of Realtors survey, 95 percent of home buyers used the internet to look for property with 68 percent of them doing so on their phones.
A buyer’s first impression of a home is made from looking at those little snapshots on their phone. Whether they decide to schedule a showing or not depends on if the photos peaked their interest enough.
This fact makes your digital presentation more important than ever when marketing your property for sale!
I cringe a little inside each time I happen upon a property listing with photos obviously taken with someone’s mobile phone. The lower quality, unbalanced composition is underwhelming. It’s even worse when the distraction of laundry and dirty dishes makes its way all over the internet.
It’s a step up when a Realtor takes the photos with a nicer camera on a tripod, but it still doesn’t jump off the screen like a professionally photographed home does. I have a nicer camera and like to think I have a creative eye, however the quality of my photos are still not quite the same level that my photographer provides.
When selling your property, remember that it is a product in the housing market. Buyers are looking for their new home and they want to get lost dreaming about how their family will live in each space. You need to paint that happy lifestyle picture for them with your digital presentation.
Many of us resort to our smart phone to document our lives. Phone cameras have come a long way over the past few years, but there is still a significant difference between using a mobile phone and a high quality camera. A professional real estate photographer has equipment that far outweighs anything most Realtors or homeowners would own. However, the equipment is only step one.
Here are three reasons i use a professional:
Lighting
It’s important for home to feel bright, but not washed out. There is a fine balance between utilizing daylight, artificial light, and camera exposure. Most real estate photographers have specific times of day that they prefer to shoot to make sure they capture their exterior photos in just the right light. A photographer is also mindful of shadows and how to position indoor lighting in order to avoid any harsh lines.
Composition
Capturing that certain angle that pulls a buyer in is so important. Even though a homeowner may view a room each day from a certain angle doesn’t mean that’s the ‘money shot’. Having an artistic eye observe a space and position the camera correctly makes a big difference.
Take this image below of one of my listings in Collingswood, New Jersey. My photographer (Stephen Hoppe) found just the right angle to highlight the architectural lines in the roof. This particular view is visually captivating and is the one I used as my leading image for this listing.
Photo by: Stephen Hoppe
671 Princeton Avenue, Collingswood
Editing
Once the photo shoot is complete, a professional photographer will then spend hours going through each image to make sure it is cropped and balanced the correct way. A professional uses specific computer programs that allows them to pop color, adjust brightness, and edit photography imperfections. They will then deliver the images to the agent saved to the correct size and resolution to stand out both online and in print material.
In my opinion, property photos are the single most important marketing tool a real estate agent has. Great images are what grabs the attention of prospective buyers and entices them to want to see more. The more buyers you can get through the door, the higher your chances for a quick sale!
If you or someone you know is thinking of selling a home in South New Jersey or Philadelphia, I would love the opportunity to discuss how I can help! Click the button below to contact me!