Buying a Starter Home

Selling Your Home? Tips For Getting Pictures

7 February 2017

Capucine Leroux

If you're getting ready to list your house for sale, you'll want to start thinking about how to optimize your sale listing. One of the things that your real estate agent will probably tell you is that homes with many high-quality photos are more likely to sell. Before you invest in a real estate photographer to do your pictures, there are a few tips and tricks that will help you do them yourself. Here are a few things to think about if you're going to try to photograph the house on your own.

Think About How The Listing Will Look

One of the things that many people overlook when they're photographing a home for sale is how the pictures are going to appear when they're uploaded to the listing site. Remember that most listing companies will use thumbnails until someone clicks into the listing and the image gallery. In most cases, the thumbnail image for the listing is the primary exterior shot. Make sure that you take a lot of time to stage this picture.

Pick a time of day when the sun will be behind your head so that you don't get glare in the picture. This ensures the best light, without hot spots. Clean up the yard so that it looks neat, clean, and well-maintained. Don't have any debris in the pictures. You might even want to wash the siding and the windows before you take the picture. For the best thumbnail of the exterior, shoot it in landscape orientation.

Choose The Time Of Day Carefully

Don't try to do all of your pictures at once. You need to consider the lighting effect both outside and inside when you make your plan. Early morning or twilight hours would provide the best lighting for exterior pictures, especially if you turn on the interior lights to reflect in the windows. However, if you try to shoot interior pictures during this time, you'll end up with low-light images.

Plan your interior pictures for a time of day when it's brighter so you can capitalize on the natural light as much as possible. Watch the sun and how it falls on the house for a day or two so you can identify the time of day when it's the most direct in the windows. That way, you can plan your interior pictures for times when the light is at its best.

Line Things Up Straight

One of the biggest mistakes that you can make when you shoot your interior pictures is not getting the verticals lined up properly. If you're not familiar with the term, verticals refer to the straight vertical lines in your rooms, including corners, door frames, and more. Make sure that you line up the camera properly and avoid using a wide-angle lens. That way you don't risk having the verticals distorted.

Don't Underestimate Pricing

Remember that great photography alone won't sell the house. If you overprice the house, you're still not going to sell it. You need to be sure that the home is priced according to the actual market value, not the appraisal value. It's normal to want to believe that your home is worth the peak market rates, but if the market itself won't bear that price, the home isn't likely to sell very easily.

These tips will help you to get the pictures that you need to sell your home. Talk with an agent at a local real estate services company to find out more about your home's market value and the best pictures to use to sell the property. He or she can even help you find a real estate photographer to help you get the shots that you need.

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