In the highly competitive real estate market (and especially in San Diego!), real estate agents and brokers know that they need every competitive advantage available when marketing their listings to prospective buyers. Showcasing your listing at the right price, with detailed and complete information, and high-resolutions photos are imperative to getting the most and best qualified offers on your property listing. This is especially important with the Internet and all of the available online real estate marketing and search websites, such as Zillow and Trulia (just to name a few).
Capturing the best real estate photos that showcase your properties features can definitely make the difference when potential buyers and their agents are viewing your listing. Your listing photos should highlight all the selling points of your real estate listing, such as the square footage, ambient lighting, floorplan layout, curb appeal, landscaping, available ameneties and community, just to name a few. More often than not, these are things that many real estate agents and brokers take for granted when marketing their real estate listings, opting for the speed and convenience of mobile phone photos versus the minor cost of having professional real estate photos to showcase their listings. Unfortunately, taking mobile phone or pocket camera photos is a common mistake of many real estate agents, and one that can cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars in potential real estate commissions.
So how do you choose the right real estate photographer? Here are a few pointers that every real estate agent or broker should consider when selecting a real estate photographer:
- Make sure your real estate photographer is shooting with the right equipment. A good real estatee photographer should be using a full frame camera, versus a cropped lens camera. This ensures that the real estate photos that they produce for you will reflect the actual room size, rather than cropped (shortened) views of your listing. The photographer should also be using a wide angle lens (preferrably 16mm-18mm). This will allow them to shoot the full room (no matter what size), and the wide angle gives the impression of a larger space.
- Lighting is a key factor when photographing real estate. Ambient (natural) light, coupled with the properties interior and exterior lights being on, is always best and the most natural depiction of any property. However, if additional lighting is necessary, a good real estate photographer will also have their own lights on stands that they can strategically place and control, allowing them to brighten up areas as necessary.
- Having the ability to shoot in HDR (high dynamic range) or using bracketing techniques is a useful and powerful tool for any good real estate photographer. Simply put, this means that, if necessary, the best real estate photgraphers will take multiple shots at different exposure settings, and then blend them in post production to produce the best possible image. You can always tell the different between HDR/bracketed photos and a single shot photo, as everything in the photo will be well lit and visible. For example, the interior room will be well lit, and you can still see the views outside the window.
- Offering a fast turn around time of their real estate photos to their clients is critical for any good real estate photographer. Time is of the essence, and the photographer you choose should be able to get you your final, edited photos quickly and in the right format, usually within 48 hours or less. Their final, edited photos should be high-resolution, straightened, sharpened, light balanced and compressed so that the real estate listing agent can post them online and showcase them on their social media without any problems.
- Every real estate photographer has to start somewhere, but hopefully the one that you select has some sample real estate listing photos for you to view before you hire them! You should always be confident that the photographer you are hiring can produce the types of photos you need to get the best possible price for your listing!
- And finally, every real estate photographer (and any professional photographer, for that matter), should have a good, strong, online reputation. In this digital age, people are always sharing their experiences with others. Having an online reputation and presence can help real estate agents and brokers feel more comfortable when trusting a real estate photgrapher to photograph their listings, as their photos can equate to hundres or even thousands of dollars in extra real estate commisions!
In addition to hiring the right real estate photographer to photograph your listing, I also like to recommend to my real estate clients to plan ahead for the shoot. You want your listing to stand out, so take the time to do just that. Whether the property is empty or staged, make sure that it’s clear of clutter, as clutter makes rooms look smaller and unorganized. Be sure to clean the windows, counters and floorspace, as minor things like window smudges and dirt can negatively impact a potential buyers overall impression of an open space. Have the yards manicured prior to your scheduled property shoot, so that the exterior represents the property at its best (and not it’s potential). Turn on all the lights in the house, both interior and exterior. Well lit areas increases the perception of open spaces, which is what you want. And most importantly, select the best time of day for your real estate shoot that will highlight the natural beauty and views of your property. Whether its as the sun sets or rises, you want to highlight that moment as a special feature of your property listing, versus when the sun is beating down through the windows!
Hope this information helps you achieve the best possible photos for your real estate listings!
Fotility Photography & Videography is a highly rated, published real estate photographer on Google Business, and people LOVE us on Yelp! Fotility Photography & Videography has been hired over 5,281+ times in San Diego alone, and many, many times worldwide (that’s right, Fotility offers professional destination photographer and videographer services)! PLUS, we now offer low cost, affordable Photo Print Packages! So let the Fotility team help you Feel, Capture & Share™ What Matters Most!
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