How to take good real estate photos.

Here is an example of an interior home photo with “fisheye.”

Good real estate photos are an essential part of marketing a home. This holds true for the For Sale by Owner as well as the real estate agent. Most internet advertising sites will allow you to submit jpegs, and the photo is a powerful tool for stimulating a potential buyer’s curiosity. About 80% percent of home buyers who bought a new home last year used the Internet for searching. They stated that photographs were the biggest tool they used for searching for homes. Follow these tips and your house might even sell faster.

• Don’t spend a fortune on a camera. You do not need a ginormous amount of megapixels. Three or four megapixels is more than enough. Keep in mind that the internet only shows 72 dpi resolution anyway. You do not need to make your photos huge. Most of the photos on this site are about 480×320. This size will work well for Craigslist and similar sites. With this sort of photography, you don’t need a lot of bells and whistles; things like shutter lag, extremely high ISO, etc. are not needed. You certainly don’t need an SLR! If you are not a real estate agent, or don’t make a living by taking photos, you simply don’t need one. If you want a good cheap camera, get a Kodak “point and shoot.” I don’t care what the experts say. These cameras are idiot proof. You can’t beat the Kodak color. If you buy an expensive camera and you don’t know how to use it, your photos will prove it. You don’t need to spend a fortune on photo editors either. Most people think you should use Adobe Photoshop. There is nothing wrong with Adobe photoshop. I like Microsoft Digital image Pro because it is easier and I think it does a better job for this kind of work. If you are a full time real estate agent and take a lot of photos, then you might want to invest in more cameras with wide angle lenses and other options. This would be the subject of another post. But there are plenty of agents out there who use expensive equipment, and the photos look terrible. Just take a look at the MLS trash can!
• Pick the right time of day. Some experts say that an overcast day is better, but I think a blue sky always gives a happier feel to the photo. But if you shoot your home during the brightest part of the day, it will look overexposed or washed out. Mornings and evenings are best. If the sun is very low, the light will be more yellow, which can either add to the ambience of the home or detract from it, depending on the home. It’s worth experimenting with. If you are shooting the exterior of a home in low light, try opening all of the shades and turning all of the inside lights on. Most cheap cameras have some kind of nightime setting that will work well for this. Also, try to shoot when the sunlight is in the best position. You don’t want to take a photo of a home from the front when the sunlight is coming from behind it. Usually your best option will be to take a morning shot of an east-facing house, or an evening shot of a west-facing house. But don’t be afraid to experiment with different angles. Shooting photos from different angles will help emphasize different or unique features of the home.
• When taking exterior photos, remove as many distractions as possible. Move the cars and garbage cans out of the way. Hose down the concrete or blacktop driveway to bring out a richer color. Remove all toys and clutter. Also, beware of distractions that might be sticking up from behind the house. A photo of a high voltage power line pole that appears to be growing out of the roof is the kiss of death. It is usually a good idea to avoid including parts of the neighbor’s buildings in the photo. Be aware of partially drawn blinds that might be distracting. Do not include any people in your photos. Your exterior photo is the most important photo.
• Choose an interesting angle. Don’t shoot the front of the home from dead center. Boring. Get a slightly cornerwise shot. Experiment with taking the photo from a squatting position. Don’t be afraid to stand on top of your car.
• When taking landscape photos, photos of your lake shoreline, etc, don’t position the horizon right across the middle of the photo. Try placing it a third of the way down from the top or a third of the way up from the bottom (”rule of thirds.”)
• If you are taking a photo of a special feature of the home, don’t place it dead center in the picture. Borrrrrrring! Try placing it slightly off center. The “rule of thirds” applies here too, including positioning relative to the right and left sides, as well as the top and bottom.
• When taking interior photos, remove everything sitting out. Remove clutter, small kitchen appliances like toasters and can openers. Remove all toiletries, dish soap bottles, kitchen rags or towels, flour cannisters, just about everything. Remove personal photos. Remove all of that stuff hanging on the refrigerator door. Turn up the lights. Beware of taking photos of a window when the sun is coming directly through it; the window will look blinding bright but the rest of the room will look dark. Experiment with the shades or different angles to solve this.
• Generally speaking, photos are better when you are close to the subject. If you have to crop more than 1/4th of the photo, then you are probably too close to the subject. However, sometimes you may want to step back a few steps to show a feature in the context of its surroundings.
• Use a photo editor to correct fisheye.
• Here is a most important advice: Do not display too many photos. You are better off submitting only one or two good photos than dozens of mediocre ones. If any of the rooms look small in the photo, don’t use them. Some agents take photos of the toilets and beds. Generally, this is not a good idea. Use only the best photos. Do not display photos that do not tell the viewer anything about the house. Empty room corners usually don’[t add much to the viewers attitude toward the house. But you don’t have to show everything, either. The purpose of the photo is to tease the buyer and incite curiosity. The purpose is not to make the buyer feel overly familiarized with the property. If you submitted your personal photos to an online dating service, would you include shots of your armpits or nose hairs? Probably not. That is why I don’t like those 360 degree online fishbowl-looking tours. They show everything. Do you really want the buyer to feel like he as already seen the whole house? Sure, everyone thinks the technology is cool. But I don’t think it makes your house look better.

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