Stiff competition still exists for homes on the market in Litchfield County CT. The photos I use are so important when we are selling your home, they draw potential buyers in, or send them screaming and running in the other direction.
I am one that disagrees with using my phone or iPad for photos, they just don't come out good enough, not professional enough. I need a lens that I have control over and I don't care what people think of their phones capability, I just feel it is unprofessional to use mine for marketing photos.
I then spend quite a bit of time making adjustments like making sure they are straight, tossing out photos I think are bad, making sure the lighting is good, etc. These photos are not ones of my friends and family I am posting on Facebook, these are professional photos.
Think of the marketing photos as head shots for your home!
You need to actually prep your home for the photos. You should have already de-cluttered and cleaned. After all, you are selling your home. If you were going to have a head shot done to compete with others for a job, what would you do? Would you fix your hair, make sure your face was clean, put on a decent outfit? Make up for a woman, a good shave for a man might be in order. Jewelry is carefully considered.
Your house is no different. Start from the outside in! And let me say again, many of these are also important for the showings, but let's get the buyer interested in seeing the house from the photos!
- Get the yard cleaned, grass cut, weed the flower beds, cut overgrown hedges.
- Move the garbage cans out of the way.
- Could you use some plants by the front door?
- Set up outdoor patio furniture to look its best. Invite people to sit there and enjoy!
- Make sure there are no cars in the driveway.
- Clean off surfaces. Yes, all surfaces. We all keep things on surfaces but you need to remove them for the photos. Dressers, counters, bathroom vanities, tables, desks, coffee and end tables. Remove as much as you can. Personal items in photos are distracting!
- Set the kitchen/dining room table if you can. If not, place one nice thing in the center. Flowers, some simple centerpiece.
- Check the corners of the room, if you have things leaning in the corner, remove them.
- Some people love stuffed animals on beds, but not for the photos!
- Don't forget to stage the bathrooms! Nice towels, clean vanities. If you have a clear shower door, don't leave bottles of shampoo or soap lined up along the floor or shelves in the shower. And don't forget to clean those glass doors! Even if you have a shower curtain, I often will open the shower curtain to get shots of a nice shower.
- Look out your windows and see what the view is! If you can see something that doesn't look right such as kids toys littered all over the yard it's very possible the camera will pick it up.
Remember, the photos I take of your home are marketing photos, no different than head shots sent to agents by professionals competing for jobs where looks matter! Because let's be honest, looks matter when you are selling your home!
Litchfield County Connecticut Real Estate. Photos sell a home!
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