When you decide to go for an FSBO (For Sale by Owner) house-selling approach, you take on all the responsibilities that would normally have belonged to a real estate agent. One of the most crucial of those responsibilities is that of marketing your house effectively in order to attract buyers and eventually get them to sign the for sale by owner contract.
According to the 2019 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, almost half of all home buyers started their home search by looking up photographs. Nearly 90% of buyers who used the internet for their purchases asserted that photography proved extremely helpful in their search.
This proves that house photography will be a central part of your marketing strategy, so it is essential to get it right. For this purpose, this article will list down some tactics that will help you snap the perfect pictures for your house listing.
1) Make sure that each room is prepared:
No matter how pretty your house is, you will not be able to capture its true beauty unless all sections of your house are camera-ready.
To prepare your rooms for a shoot, start by decluttering and organizing every room before executing a deep-cleaning process. As per the National Association of Realtors, the top home-improvement recommendations made by listing agents were:
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- House cleaning.
- Carpet cleaning.
- Removing pets.
If you photograph your house without proper decluttering and tidying, things will appear out of place and will end up distracting potential buyers who view the pictures. You do not want the audience to notice a stack of papers on your study table or any dangling charger cords.
Even if your eye thinks that the house is ready to be photographed, the camera eye might not agree. Make sure to minimize distractions, create the perfect balance between a fresh and lived-in look, and allow each room's key selling-points to stand out.
2) Arm yourself with a premium camera and tripod:
A proper camera and tripod stand are crucial if you want to click enticing pictures. Sure, modern-day smartphones have amazing cameras, but they still stand little chance against the tried-and-tested DSLRs. Remember that you will be competing against hundreds - or perhaps thousands - of other sellers and should not forgo any chance to stand out from the crowd.
The high-definition pictures taken from professional cameras are crispier and clearer. As a result, such photographs allow a more vivid experience to the viewers, enabling them to imagine themselves standing inside your house.
Moving on to the tripod, it is important because it helps you keep the camera steady. When you hold the camera with your hands, there is always the possibility of a bit of movement, resulting in blurred or unclear images - a tripod stand will help you eliminate that undesirable possibility.
Image Text: Using professional equipment for FSBO photography.
Alt-text: Cameras for real-estate photography.
Image Description: A Canon camera placed on a table.
3) Prefer the wide-angle lens:
As the name suggests, a wide-angle lens provides a wider view and will therefore display more of the room compared to a normal lens. This property makes wide-angle lenses ideal for real-estate photography. According to the professional photographer Jeff Kolodny, "A good photographer will use a wide-angle lens that can show enough of the room without distorting the room too much."
Moreover, since you will be able to fit more of your room into the frame, a wide-angle lens will make your rooms appear larger and more spacious - another factor that will attract potential buyers.
4) Experiment with the photography angles:
Even if you cannot afford to purchase a wide-angle lens, there are other ways to maximize the frames' space. Doing so will require plenty of experiments with pictures and angles.
The manipulation of space is important - not to deceive potential buyers - but to assist them in vividly envisioning a property's layout and floor. There are certain ways you can make your rooms look more spacious:
Avoid shooting straight-on: Do not face the wall directly, as it will prevent you from displaying the room's depth and size. Instead, position the camera at an angle.
Set the camera up by your door: Setting up your tripod in the doorway will allow you to fit in as much of the room as possible. As a result, your rooms will appear large.
Explore as many options as possible: For each room, take plenty of pictures with varying focus and angles. You might have to go through hundreds of pictures before you can pick 'the one.' Also, only a computer will be able to portray the true quality of the clicked pictures, so do not discard any until you have viewed them all on the big screen.
5) Focus on lighting:
Without adequate lighting, buyers will struggle to make out the features of your rooms, not to mention that your house will appear gloomy and drab.
To avoid this, allow natural light to flow inwards by opening all curtains and blinds. Additionally, turn on all lamps and other light fixtures. In addition to illuminating dark corners, the interior light will make the rooms feel cozier and more comfortable.
As for the perfect time of the day for taking pictures, this will depend upon your house's weather and direction. Ideally, while taking pictures, you would want the sun behind you as this will result in well-lit and inviting photographs.
Regardless of the weather, perform your house photography on a sunny day - snowy, rainy, and overcast weather does not go well with real-estate photography.
To conclude, we understand that photographing and listing your house is no easy task. We hope that the tips mentioned in this guide will assist you in your house photography process and fetching desirable offers from interested buyers.
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