January Real Estate Photo Fails

If selling your house is a new year’s resolution, it’s important to spend some time planning how you will photograph your home’s features to attract potential buyers. Cleanliness, need vs. want, and angles are all important when photographing your home. Here are 12 photos that do not follow these guidelines and have made our January photo flop list. Enjoy!

In case you forget how to do the dishes, the instructions are kindly pinned to the dishwasher.

You’ve cat to be kitten me.

We built this room with our bear hands.

Looks like a shorts wearing kind of day.

That’s one strong air vent.

Where’s our bed? -Pillows.

One island or two?

Bin down! I repeat BIN DOWN!!

Plenty of room for storage in this house.

Mirror-ception.

You’ll love all the light this home lets in when you open up all the doors.

Some say cool, some say creepy.

In our first version of real estate photo fails for 2017, it’s easy to get caught up in the humor behind what we found. We wanted to focus on these big take aways for real estate agents who are continuing or resolving to start shooting their own photos this year:

Cleaning up a little is easy, but goes a LONG way

Imagine taking pictures of your property like doing a showing for thousands of people. If you knew you could go to a property ahead of time to make it look great before every showing, you would do that, right? Pictures you take will be on display for potential buyers to scroll through until that house sells. As a real estate agent, doing things like picking up tipped over trash cans, taking down tape and other papers stuck to things, and moving trash out (at least) out of the frame of the picture are simple tasks that will help you sell faster.

Think about “need vs. want”

In your mind as a real estate agent, go through your house before you start taking pictures and think about what NEEDS to be shown vs. what you or the seller might WANT to show. Pictures with rooms full of doll/stuffed animal collections and piles of boxes might add a picture or two to the profile of the house, but is that adding or detracting from the interest of the buyer? Even if a seller insists on showing a certain room or aspect of their home, gently (or maybe sometimes boldly) advise them to show the best, often times most basic features of the home to draw more buyers out to see the property.

It’s all about the angles

It isn’t just an old cliché for a real estate agent to say that good photography is all about the angles. In many ways, it’s one of statements that will always hold true. Even the most beautiful, eye catching aspects of a home like oversized islands, included appliances, and large living spaces can be turned into detractors in the mind of the buyer. An easy fix for you, the real estate agent? Take as many pictures of the specific features you want to highlight for the seller. Once you have a list of a few things you know you need to show, you are guaranteed to catch the right angle (no pun intended) if you take enough pictures of the same thing.

As the busy time of the year for each real estate agent approaches, it’s important to be on top of your game to stay ahead of the competition. As your client base grows, remember we can help fill the gaps in your business that you need. From real estate photography, to a guided marketing plan, to full-fledged marketing, the Marketing Desks can help make your business go faster.