Poor Real Estate Photography Can Loose a Seller Thousands!

Poor real estate photography is one of my biggest pet peeves!

In a world where everyone is on the internet and 90% of home buyers search for a home online it just baffles me that many people and real estate agents think that the quality of real estate photography doesn’t matter.

Poor lighting, bad angles, amateurs with iphones and just an overall disregard for presenting a home properly has me shaking my head. But I guess what baffles me even more is that some home sellers don’t seem to mind, or maybe they don’t know there are better options out there. Here are my biggest pet peeves regarding poor real estate photography:

Poorly Lit House Pictures

You have to see the product to buy it! Poor lighting not only makes this difficult, but it gives an over all dreary feeling the pictures of the home. I don’t know about you but looking at something like that doesn’t say buy me!

Which picture do you like better? What one will have a better chance at getting a response from a home buyer? I took a picture of my own listing with my iphone to show you an example, however poor real estate photography is rampant in the industry.

Terrible House Photos Taken by the Agent

Just because everyone has a fancy smart phone that takes pictures doesn’t make them a photographer. Simply shooting a few pictures with a smart phone and slapping them online shows one of 3 things:

1. The real estate agent doesn’t understand the 21st century home buyer and the importance of good house pictures.
2. They’re too cheap to afford a professional photographer (in that case see point #1)
3. The realtor actually believes they can do it just as well as a professional and are willing to bet thousands of your client’s dollars on it. Instead of focusing on what they should be doing best- negotiating deals, they’re a jack of all trades, master of none.

Complacency

If a seller believes that home buyers will see past poor photos and come to see the home anyway they’re misleading themselves. I can tell you from my experience that it’s difficult to get buyer clients to look past bad pictures and see a home, even when I know that it looks better in person and would be great fit for them.

At the end of the day, real estate photography and additional services such as real estate video are just some of the many things that separates the good from the great in real estate.

If you can’t impress buyers and make an emotional connection because of poor real estate photography, it can cost you thousands on the sale.