When buyers look at home listings online, they only spend 20% of the time on the listing and agent descriptions each. They spend the other 60% of the time looking at the photos.
This means that your real estate photography needs to be top-notch in order to catch their attention.
Have you been thinking about using professional real estate photos, but aren’t quite sure why real estate photography is essential?
Let’s take a look at 10 real estate photography benefits.
1. Your Photos Are the First Impression a Buyer Gets of Your House
80% of house hunters start looking online, so your listing photographs will be their first impression of your home. If the first impression they get leaves quite a bit to be desired, they probably won’t follow up and view your home.
If you simply take a few photos of your house with your cellphone, you’re not putting yourself at an advantage.
The quality of photos is seen by the viewer as directly related to the quality of the home listing. Whether this is conscious or unconscious, most people will assume that a home with professional photos is nicer than one with a few casual snapshots.
Do you want your home to appear classy, elegant, and refined? Professional photos can accentuate the qualities of even the most basic house, in a way that piques the curiosity of home shoppers. Your photographs are the gateway to getting buyers to step foot in your front door, without which you’ll have a tough time making the sale.
2. Professional Real Estate Photos Get More Clicks Than Amateur Photos
You have to remember that when people are searching for houses they are quickly skimming dozens of images. You need your house photos to catch their eye so they click and read more about your lovely home.
Using professional photos will draw more attention to the listing of your house. This means that you’re widening the pool of potential buyers.
When you’re selling a house, it’s vital that as many potentially interested people see your listing as possible. Using professional photos ensure that your house doesn’t get lost in the crowd. It also helps protect your listing from terrible photos.
3. It Could Help Your House Sell Faster
Considering that having professional real estate photographs can help you get more people to look at your listing and more people to come out for a showing, it’s not terribly surprising that it could help your house sell faster.
And why wouldn’t you want to sell your house faster?
Selling a house is an incredibly stressful process. Not only are you moving and either buying or renting elsewhere, but during the showing process, you’ve got to keep the house impeccably tidy and clean. You’re also often tasked with leaving your house when you might otherwise be home in order to let prospective buyers wander through.
The cost of hiring a professional real estate photographer is surely offset by how much of your own time you’ll get back, not to mention your peace of mind.
4. Everyone Else Is Doing It
I know, usually, you’re not supposed to do something just because everyone else is doing it. In this instance, though, along with a long list of other benefits, it could be quite detrimental for you to go against the grain.
While there are certainly MLS listings with a handful of tilted, blurry cellphone photos, professional real estate photographs are increasingly popular.
Depending on the price bracket of your home, it’s possible that every other home at the same price point will have professional photographs. In this instance, you’d be setting yourself back quite a bit to have lower-quality photos than similarly priced homes.
Even if your home is in a lower price bracket, professional real estate photos will make your home stand out to prospective buyers. Why not be a full head above the crowd if you have the option?
5. Removes Stress and Time From Your Plate
Let’s face it, you have a lot going on.
Whether you’re trying to tie down financing on a new place, waiting to hear back about that apartment you applied for, or starting a new job in a new city, few things are more stressful than moving. Actually, studies consistently show that moving is one of the most stressful life events that people typically go through.
By expecting that you’ll take your own photos, you’re just lumping one more thing onto your very full plate. Hiring professionals let you put your attention where it is most vital. Otherwise, you run the risk of spreading yourself too thin.
Taking real estate photos can be incredibly time-consuming if you aren’t a professional with experience and a set workflow. Think of every room in your house, all the features of your backyard, and that multiple it by how many pictures you’ll have to take of each spot in order to get the right shot. It’s quite the time commitment!
6. Professionals Will Get the Right Angles and the Lighting Just Right
Sure, anyone can take a photo of a cute puppy, but getting the perfect photos of a house is actually pretty complicated.
For an amateur to take the pictures, it might never occur to them that the angles of the photo are important. A professional photographer will know to get their camera level on a tripod and be experienced in how to do this quickly and efficiently.
Lighting is equally important, and it may be difficult to know how to use lighting to your advantage if you aren’t a professional. For example, while it’s good to take photos on a sunny day so the house is well lit, this often means windows within the frame are overblown. If you don’t know how to deal with this, your shot will not be nearly as high-quality as it could be.
7. Real Estate Photography Pros Will Create the Perfect Composition
In photographs, 3-dimensional spaces are presented on a flat 2-dimensional surface. When taking a picture, there is an infinite number of possible compositions to the final outcome. Professional photographers are able to make advanced decisions about how to best compose photos of your house to make the best impression.
Taking real estate photography is not a purely mechanical task. There is an artistic and creative aspect to it, and this is vital to capturing the attention of potential buyers.
8. Post-production Is Essential in Real Estate Photography
When a photographer comes out to shoot your house, they’re going to take way more pictures than actually end up on your listing.
It doesn’t matter how many pictures are taken, what matters is the handful of photos that are selected to accompany your MLS listing. Much like the curator chooses to include only a select few pieces of artwork to create an exhibit, the professional photographer is carefully creating a collection of photos of your home that tell the best visual story.
Beyond just choosing the photos, the images of your house can be enhanced through digital editing. The color can be enhanced, lines sharpened, and edges cropped off, among many other things.
When you’re paying a professional real estate photographer, you’re not just paying for them to take photos. You’re paying for the whole package, which includes this incredibly vital post-processing step.
9. You’ll Get More Offers on Your Home
Of course, if you’re house is ridiculously overpriced based on your local market, no pictures will help you. Similarly, professional photographs can only go so far if the home was not prepped to be photo-ready before the shoot.
That being said, the more people who see your listing, the more potential showings and offers will come your way. Amateur photos will mean fewer clicks, fewer eyes on your listing, fewer showings, and fewer offers.
If your house sits for too long on the market, you may have to consider making price reductions or retaking photos professionally. On the contrary, with professional photos, it’s possible you could get enough people interested at once that you have your pick of offers.
If your house is priced right and photo-ready, all you have to do is get your home in front of the right people.
10. They Have the Right Equipment, Techniques, and Experience
If you or your agent are going to take real estate photographs, chances are you’re just going to use your smartphone. Even if either of you has a nice camera and all the right equipment, it’s unlikely that you are as well-versed in photography techniques as a professional.
Real estate photography requires a high-quality camera, flash equipment, a wide-angle lens, a tripod, a drone for aerial photography, and more. If you don’t already have this equipment, it would be quite expensive to obtain just for one photoshoot. If you opt to take photos without this equipment, your photos will suffer for it.
Professional photographers know the ins and outs of how to take great real estate photos. Learn more about our team here!
What Should You Look for in a Real Estate Photographer?
When hiring a real estate photographer, you’ll want to put some care into choosing the right person for the job.
Look for professionalism and a portfolio of quality real estate photography. If someone seems to mostly do weddings, portraits, or lifestyle photography, they most likely are just trying to make a little extra money. Real estate photography is a specific type of photography that requires specific techniques and equipment, so you’ll want someone who specializes.
Photographers should also be properly licensed and insured on the off chance that any equipment was to get damaged, someone got injured, or the property was damaged by the photographer. Drone pilots need specific licenses, so be sure to make sure they’re above board.
Of course, you’ll also want to consider the price when it comes time to hire someone. You might be wary of an extremely cheap or discount photographer. This is not the place to cut corners.
Most professional photographers understand the worth of their time and they, therefore, price their photo service accordingly.
You will want to find out if there are any additional costs like licensing fees. Some photographers also might charge extra for prints of your house photos. It’s possible they could even charge for you to post them on social media or charge monthly or annual fees as you use them in your MLS listing.
Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, you’ll want to choose someone you feel you can work well with. If your personalities simply don’t seem to mesh, you might opt to hire a different photographer.
If you’re a real estate agent, you’ll ideally find a photographer that you’ll work with over and over again. Keep an eye on how the photographer interacts with your clients and make sure to hire someone that is reliable and dependable.
It can be worth it to spend a little more money in order to get the highest-quality photos possible. A professional real estate photographer will know how to make your rooms look bigger and your house look nicer. When the most important thing is creating foot traffic through your home, your real estate photographs are not where you want to try and cut corners.
Professional Real Estate Photos Are Worth Every Penny
Considering that professional real estate photos can help you sell your home faster and for more money, it seems silly to not go this route. Who wants to have their house sitting on the market for months at a time, particularly when there is a way you could help the process move quicker?
Are you considering hiring professional real estate photographers for your listing in the Houston area? If so, click here to receive a price estimate today!