We’ve all heard (and probably said) the overused cliché “a picture is worth a thousand words”, yet in the world of real estate, a picture can literally be worth several hundreds of thousands of dollars. We are bombarded daily with the latest and greatest ads from Apple and Samsung, touting their newest iPhones and Galaxy S-whatever series, all of which have amazing new cameras and more megapixels, lenses and space zooms than you can handle. Simply head to your local store, drop $1,000+ on the phone, open the box and you too can be the next Ansel Adams or Annie Leibovitz, producing professional quality images instantly. It’s really just that simple, right? Not so fast…
Unfortunately, many Realtors® also fall for these marketing messages and then pass their ‘awesome photography skills’ along to their clients. As the Seller, you sign the listing agreement, and the agent whips out their iPhone, snaps a few shots of your home and voila, you’re live in the MLS and your home is officially on the market before you know it! Great…except your images…well, they’re not so great, and in many cases, they’re downright terrible. Need some proof? Just Google ‘bad real estate photos’ and sit back and enjoy some truly awful marketing. Want some real-world examples? Take a quick visit over to www.TerribleRealEstateAgentPhotos.com or www.BadMLSPhotos.com. Terrible lighting, awkward angles, over-exposed windows, blurry images, the infamous ‘agent trying to hide from the bathroom mirror but they still got caught in the photo’, fingers over the lens – the list goes on and on.
While some of these images are downright hilarious, the sad reality is that these images are likely costing you (the Seller) a small fortune because prospective Buyers and their agents are the ones viewing these horrible images online. With today’s technology, the first ‘showing’ of your home is done online via a cell phone, tablet, laptop, etc. Buyers and their agents are deciding to see if your home is worth ‘seeing’ in person simply based on the images they view online. I tell my Sellers that when a Buyer shows up to their home, it is actually their ‘2nd showing’ as they are coming by in person to verify what they saw online. The fewer the Buyers that show up to your home, the fewer the offers, the less competition and all of that leads to a lower sales price on your home.
I cannot stress enough how vital image quality is to the successful marketing and ultimate sale of your home. So many agents bypass this critical first step in marketing a property. They end up doing a huge disservice to their clients by fumbling the marketing job at the very beginning by having unprofessional photos, or worse yet, they try to save themselves some money and take the images themselves.
I enjoy photography as a hobby and even took a black-and-white photography course in college where the professor was a student of Ansel Adams. I learned a ton in that course, but I also learned to stay in my lane – I’m a professional Realtor® and not a professional photographer. Let the pros stick to what they do best. I’ll do a great job of selling your home in the Tampa Bay market, but I know that I also need to hire only the best professional real estate photographers to take amazing photos of your home. That formula, along with my other marketing resources, allows me to get you top dollar for your home!
