Marketing Your Home Today – Part 3
By Tanya Nazariya (Owner of Brilliant Staging & Design)
Hello my lovely followers!
My last several blogs have been about our current market, preparing a home for sale and marketing your home. In my last blog I went into detail on staging and its importance in marketing and selling your home. Now we need to discuss a couple other highly important topics. Photography and Real Estate Agents. These are both important topics so we will cover Real Estate Agents in my next blog. Good Staging is only one prong of getting your home sold. You need to have the home ready prior to staging, have it photographed professionally then priced properly and marketed by an amazing Real Estate Agent. Selling a home is a science. Let the experts handle it and I promise you will be happy you did. So yes, spend the money on staging your home and the 3% on a good Real Estate Agent! And for the love of all things good- have it professionally photographed. Selling a home is not the time to be stingy. Invest in the sale of your home and you will reap the benefits. As discussed in our last blog, doing it right the first time will save you a lot of time, money and stress. It is never fun to have to start all over again after your home sat on the market for 6 months because you thought you could do it yourself.
Real Estate Photography
Remember the first impressions and psychology stuff we talked about in my prior blogs? Well the photographs are the first thing potential buyers will see before they even step foot in your home. They better be bright, clear, captivating and inspiring.
Good Equipment
Choosing a good photographer is as important as choosing a good stager.
Real estate photography is tricky. You need the proper equipment to capture the entire room and not just a corner of it. Please hire someone who not only takes great photos but someone who knows how to edit them properly. I die a little inside each time I stage a home only to see terrible photographs posted on MLS. Sometimes the colors are way off, the angles are terrible or the entire balance is wrong. There is science and art to real estate photography just like any other form of photography. Someone who takes beautiful headshots may not produce beautiful real estate photographs. You don’t want your photos to be 75% ceiling! Better yet- how about this photo?
(Real photo posted on MLS)
But this person owns a good camera and even a fancy tripod!! ?
Skilled Photography
The photographs of your home should tell a story and create an emotion. A good photographer will know how to capture that tricky shot (like a tiny bathroom with a mirror).
Does the photographer know how to photograph a home that has been staged? This is another big one. Some photographers might do great with empty homes. But photographing a beautifully staged home takes more time and experience. They need to be able to capture the mood the stager created in the
space. I love photographers who can take a creative shot that makes someone feel happy or cozy inside.
Angles are another tough one. Getting the proper angle of a room is extremely important. He or she should be able to capture an entire room without the photo looking distorted. It doesn’t make sense to have photos where the key selling features aren’t the focus of the photo. Many photographers out there take a picture of the room from one wide angle and call it good. Find someone who can take multiple, creative angles giving people an idea of how the home looks when you walk in from different parts of the room.
The photographer should know what time of day is best to photograph your home based on where the windows are located and what geographic area you live in. Consider hiring someone who specializes in drone photography. This is especially important if you live on acreage or if you live near an exciting area like a park or a body of water. The drone photos will give people a better idea of how much land they are actually buying and how far away they would be from the neighbors.
Good Photo Editing
And as I mentioned earlier, make sure they know how to edit and process the photos. Taking good photos is only half the job. Find someone who produces bright, crisp and airy photos. The new trends all go for bright, white photos. Old-fashioned photographers will over saturate colors making them look fake and obnoxious or over expose the photographs to the point where details are not visible anymore. You don’t want your home to look dark or “yellow”. The majority of the population is looking for homes that are bright and open with lots of natural light. Your home should appear this way in photographs. Remember- you are trying to entice buyers to show up to your open house, with your online photographs.
As with stagers, do your research on the photographer. Check out their portfolio. Interview them in person; are they personable and knowledgeable? Do they put together virtual tours or other marketing material? And please do not go with the lowest bidder. This is the biggest mistake people make with ANY service. They hire the lowest bidder and end up losing money in the end. You want it done right the first time. These professionals are here to make your home sell faster- don’t be a penny pincher! A good photographer will have more expenses to cover: expensive equipment, expensive editing programs, possibly employees etc. And a good photographer spends a good amount of time on each job- taking multiple shots of each room, some fun creative ones, drone, editing etc. It’s worth the money trust me!
Follow me on Instagram and Facebook for more tips, tricks and photos @brilliantstaging. If there is any topic in particular you’d like to read about, please don’t hesitate to ask. I take all questions to heart and want to help people understand staging, real estate, and design.
3/20/2019
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