Guide to taking great listing photos
Taking great photos of your home is one of the MOST important things you will do during the flat fee listing process. Other than the pricing, location, and condition – Photos will either make the buyer want to see more, or will turn them off!
It’s a simple fact that buyers look at photos first, before anything else, and they will either be interested in learning more about your home, or they will pass onto the next house. As a For Sale By Owner (FSBO for short), this is where we see the most mistakes. — You only get one chance to make a great first impression.
Here’s a simple guide to taking great photos of your home:
The Digital Camera »
Choose a decent quality digital camera for your listing photos. Do NOT use a cell phone, disposable camera, or other such device as they will most likely produce inferior quality pictures. It’s best to use a camera that has either a built-in “Wide Angle” 22-24 mm lens or a nicer quality camera that has a changeable 18mm lens. Also a powerful flash is a must – lighting is super important. Using a wide angle lens will capture more of the room than a typical 35mm lens.
The best setting for your digital camera is 1.2 megapixels, since that will keep the size smaller and the resolution will be suitable for displaying them on the web. Many cameras these days have 10-12 megapixels, so be sure to change the resolution down before you start your photo shoot.
The Photo Format »
It’s best to use “landscape” (horizontal) style photos, as all realty websites display photos in this manner. Do NOT use portrait (vertical) photos because they will either be cropped down, shrunken, or distorted by most real estate websites.
Your photos should be in .JPG format for use on the web. This is usually not a problem since all digital cameras output the photos format to .JPG. So do NOT send .GIF, .BMP, .TIFF or any other formats because your listing broker will most likely not be able to use them.
The preferred size for your listing photos is 640×480, and standard 4×5 format is best. Do NOT send panoramic photos as they will be useless to your listing broker. If you don’t know how or don’t have the software to resize your photos, you can can use this nifty website to resize your listing photos online.
Preparing & Staging Your Home »
Preparing your home for photos is a critical step that many folks underestimate. Take your time and go through each room you plan on shooting, clear out any unnecessary furniture and clutter, turn on all the lights, and open the blinds. Clean off the refrigerator — no magnets, photos, or kids drawings! Remove all unnecessary items and appliances from the kitchen counters. And if shooting the bathroom, be sure the toilet seat is down.
You can read more about Staging Your Home on our Blog — Click Here »
Lighting Tips »
One of the biggest problems in taking your photos will be lighting. We recommend always turning on all lights and using a flash, especially when you take inside photos during the daytime. The reason? The light coming through the window will be what the camera focuses on, so by compensating with inside lighting/flash, it will even out the lighting in the photos.
When shooting the exterior, its best to do it on a sunny day, to show off the blue sky in the background. Make sure you plan ahead and only take photos when the sun is behind you.
If your back yard or front yard only gets the sun later in the day, then shoot that photo later. This will help to reduce shadows and sun glare.
Which Rooms To Photograph »
You are going to want to include almost all rooms in your home in your photos, but consider the most important rooms first. You should definitely include:
- Exterior front view
- Living room
- Family room
- Den/Office
- Kitchen
- Dining room
- Master bedroom
- Master bathroom
- Exterior backyard
- Garden/Deck/Patio area
In some of these rooms you will want to include multiple angles of the same room. A good example is when you have a kitchen/family room combination. You’ll want to show them separate and also a wide shot with how they flow together.
Organize Your Photos »
Be sure to organize your photos in a flow that makes sense. You should rename the photos to make it easy for your broker to upload them in the order you want.
Here is and example: Lets say you have the following… frontview.jpg and livingroom.jpg and you want “frontview” as number 1 and “livingroom” as number 2, just edit the file names to 1-frontview.jpg and 2-livingroom.jpg. Do the same for all your photos that way your broker will know what order you want.
About Author:
Fred Romano is a top listing broker in Connecticut and has been working with CT For Sale By Owners for many years. His expertise in leveraging online marketing for a reasonable low flat fee allows his sellers to save half the commission or more compared to traditional brokers!
Hello- You’ve raised several important points in your article. Home staging will almost always result in a better sales price and speed up the sales process. Many sellers tend to under-value the value that home staging will bring.
Terrific work! This is the type of information that should be shared around the web.