Good VS Bad Real Estate Photography


Point: "A picture is worth a thousand words."

A picture may be worth a mere 1,000 words in other circles, but in real estate, it enters the realm of deal or no deal.

I came across a couple of postcards in my mailbox from a few well, known, high end Realtors in the South Surrey Area. They were both advertising beautiful, South Surrey homes in the 1.3 million dollar range. As I also live in the same beautiful neighbourhood, I am always following what is for sale. The front of the first post card had a very nice photo of the front of the house, on the back, I see a picture of a patio set. Is the patio set for sale ? If so, I'm not going to jump out and buy it because it didn't look so appealing. The cushions were in complete disarray. It certainly didn't give me a warm fuzzy or make me fantasize about what it would be like to sit in a maybe beautiful back yard (not sure as the picture did not include a shot of the yard), sipping an ice tea while reading my magazines. The second postcard, an OK photo of the realtor, with just a little photoshoping, all the red marks on his face could disappear (another place Realtors should spend money on professional photography). On the back, a great large shot of the front of the house but the next three pictures made me shake my head. Excuse me, it would be nice if you could make sure the counter is clean so that I could see if it's granite or marble! Also, there's a pool, wow, but I can only see half of it, hmmm, I wonder if there is a diving board? The third picture, not sure what room in the house it was, just that there was a fireplace.

Now maybe I notice these things a bit more than others because I have a trained eye for this detail. It was very obvious from these photos that they were not taken by a professional. My question is why spend all this money on high gloss postcards and not spend the money on a professional phototgapher? My suggestion is leave the photo taking to the professioals.

Below I have layed out some examples in clear detail as to what the difference is between amature and professional photography. These photos were taken from a recent staging job I just finished.  I took the amature photos with my very expensive 28MM wide angle lens camera with the flash on. This camera cost me $650 at Costco. I took these photos for the purpose of taking inventory. 

My Shot...
You can hardly see the room, just the bed and a bit of the window. Your missing seeing a very nice feature of the room, the vaulted ceiling! See the whole room below 

 The Professional Shot.... WOW, the room looks huge, plus I can see the feature of the vaulted ceiling and little window above the big window. This shot is brighter, wider, all around a "wow factor" shot! I would definitely like to go see this house.

My Shot....
The room is nice but I'm not getting a buzz from it.

Professional Shot....

Grasshopper Green! Another wow! My son would love this room. Again, this shot is brighter, wider and also shows the cool vaulted ceiling feature.

 My shot...

Not the right angle to show the room off.  The reatures of this room are the fireplac and wall of windows and doors.  See in picture below.  The TV stands out more than anything else. 

 If you're selling a home, making a first impression on potential buyers happens way before they walk through the door. Every day, decisions about which homes to see , and which to skip are made based on what a buyer sees online or in print. If you can't get them in the door, you can't sell the house.

Make sure your pix get the clicks!

The professional Staging of this home was done by Urbane Decor. Please check out our website at www.urbanedecor.com for pricing and packages available.

The professional photos you see here were taken by the very talented Colin Perry of www.tordiaimages.com.