5 Reasons Agents Need a Professional Photographer
What Do Buyers Look at?
Professional photography is an extremely powerful real estate marketing tool. By hiring a photographer to create high quality photographs you are not only marketing the property, you are marketing yourself as a real estate agent. Branding yourself is important in real estate. Professional photography will help agents to stand out from their competition. It’s important to showcase the home with an emphasis on best lighting and composition because viewers spend a good portion of time browsing the images. On average viewers spend 57 seconds on the images overall. The goal is to keep them there longer with professional photos to achieve the ultimate goal, which is selling a house quickly. Continue reading to see my 5 reasons agents need a professional photographer.
1# Faster Sales
It’s the listing pictures buyers see online that is often the first barrier of entry. According to the Wall Street Journal, listings with professional photos got 61% more views than those without them. Not only that but they spend on average of 10 days less on the market. Redfin visually demonstrates how professional compared to amateur photographs are presented with corrections to color cast and lens distortion.
2# Command Higher Price Point
On average, a study showed that homes listed between $200,000 and $1million sold for $3,400 to $11,200 more compared to similar listings without professional photographs. If you’ve listed a home with gorgeous views, lots of natural window light, and an open layout, then presenting these features looses impact if the images have distractions. The buyer wants to see what all the home has to offer. The photographer can communicate these features to the viewer more effectively. Without clean and clear images the viewer is more likely to keep scrolling to the next listing that has professional photos.
3# Agents Don’t Need a Professional Photographer
This is a common misconception. For some listings, it’s easy to ignore the reasons agents need a professional photographer. Cell phone cameras have improved significantly over the years but they are unable to capture the full range of typical lighting scenarios in a home. They are also quite limited in the amount of editing they can handle. Professional photographers are able to mitigate this with a technique called HDR bracketing. This is where they take 3 different exposures on a tripod, each one with different lighting, and merge them together into one final image. This ensures that highlights are not blown out or that the shadows don’t become too dark.
4# Professional Photographers Know What to Avoid
There is an extensive list of check items that photographers watch out for when photographing a home. They know what to include in the shot. Just as important, they know what to avoid. Lines need to be vertically straight, window reflections and glare can be tricky, composition needs to be symmetrically balanced, and color temperatures need to be white balanced. When available window light mixes with incandescent light bulbs sometimes the colors can shift in unpleasant ways.
5# Professional Photographers Have the Technical Skillsets
Real estate images can be approached a number of ways to achieve a very specific look. Photographers have to know lighting and optics inside and out. With real estate photography, the goal is to get as much information about the home in as few shots as possible and still have a clean appearance. These specific wide angle listing-shots require certain lenses that minimize barrel distortion. They also require knowledge about lighting techniques since a lot of photographers will use studio lights on-location.
Conclusion
Make a long lasting first impression. Photography is a universal language that communicates the level of sincerity an agent has about their listing. Don’t ignore the reasons agents need a professional photographer and settle for sub-par photos that communicates “carelessness”. Real estate photography is very cost effective way to sell a luxurious property that home owners remember them by. Book your appointment for a quick photo session that could save you a lot of time and increase revenue.
