Shooting for Realtors

[David Whatley]

I happen to read one of the trade online mags for Realtors and ran across this today. She then refers to another article she had done a week before, that I can only get access to part of, but I have placed that here also.

Todays Article:

Last week, I wrote about the value and the need for professional photography for marketing homes for sale. That doesn't mean that real estate professionals should not take pictures. They should take pictures, and lots of them.

Ordinary snapshots taken with a phone or almost any digital camera and shared over the Internet are a great way for real estate professionals to use social media. Photography is not about the camera and it never has been.

Cameras don't take pictures -- people do. People love to look at pictures, and when we share them they are social.

Photography and real estate go together very well, and there are several uses for everyday snapshots that anyone can take with a camera phone or an inexpensive digital camera. They do not need to be professional-quality images like those needed for marketing our listings.

Photography is a great way to demonstrate knowledge of a neighborhood. It shows potential clients that you know your way around and understand the community. Take a picture of a street or a building or any local scene that someone might find interesting or even ordinary.

Posterous works well for mobile blogging and sharing pictures of the ordinary or not-so-ordinary as you go about your day. I have a friend who takes pictures of pizza with his phone and posts them to his Posterous blog with comments about the pizza. He has quite a following and I am one of his followers, eagerly awaiting his next pizza post.

Flickr is a great place to share photographs. There are groups on Flickr that share photographs on every topic I can think of. Some groups are built around neighborhoods and special interests like dogs or houses. People sometimes forget that Flickr really is a social network composed of micro communities built around sharing images.

I discovered the value of photography on my local real estate blog years ago. People like to see real estate and not just read about it. They like to see neighborhoods, roads, bridges, parks, houses and restaurants.

That's the content that's missing from so many large, third-party real estate websites. It is unique content that a local real estate agent can easily provide.

The most popular photographs on my sites are of local parks. It isn't because of the quality of the images -- it is because I am one of the few sources for park pictures. Pictures of local landmarks and historic sites are plentiful, but pictures of neighborhood parks are rarer, and people love our parks.

Each Saturday I post a picture of a bowl of oatmeal. I take the picture with my phone in a local restaurant and share it on Posterous, Twitter and Facebook. I have been taking the oatmeal picture for years and the photos have a following and get comments. The pictures take almost no effort on my part. I post them before the oatmeal gets cold.

Recently, when I was looking at the analytics for my Facebook business page, I noticed that the posts that feature photographs get, on average, three times as many views as the posts that are all words or just have a thumbnail. It doesn't seem to matter if the photograph is a good one or a random snapshot taken from my car window. On my personal page the updates that include pictures get the most comments.

Noncommercial digital photography is inexpensive and easy to learn. One of the best ways to learn is to read the manual that comes with the camera. It contains a wealth of information, including how to take photographs without a date stamp on them.

Most cameras have settings for different types of photography and lighting. Learning how and when to use the settings will help make the pictures better.

And it's not just about learning your camera's features. Photography skills tend to improve with practice. I take about 10,000 photographs a year. People ask me how I find the time. It is simple: I keep a camera with me most of the time. My pictures are often unplanned and they don't always turn out, so I just delete them and take more.

There are some great resources on the Internet for learning digital photography. One of my favorite websites is Digital Photography School. There are tips for taking pictures and reviews of the latest digital cameras. Another great resource is YouTube.

I learned how to use my camera by watching a YouTube video. There are some excellent video courses on YouTube by professional photographers.

Pictures have become the cornerstone of my marketing efforts. When I don't know what to write on my blog, I post some pictures and a few words. Photographs are a fast, easy and inexpensive way to generate unique content.

Last Weeks

Last month I was asked if I would give a presentation on photography for Realtors with tips on how to photograph homes. I decided to look at the photographs in the MLS to get some ideas on where to start.

It did not take long to find a blurry partial dining room picture taken in a dimly lit, half-million-dollar home and a picture of a family room with part of a human body and an entire dog in it representing a $300,000 home.

A recent study by Redfin estimated that only 15 percent of listings are marketed with professional-quality photographs, and found that the homes featured in those listings sold for closer to their asking price than those shot with point-and-shoot cameras.

[camera shy]

A classic case of someone in an industry writing something that they really don't know what the hell they are talking about. She contradicts herself several times and the article from the week before has statistics that are in direct contradiction to her current article.

[Stargazer77517]

Vickie is a realtor, and some of the photos in the MLS listings are pretty bad.
I have done some photo work for some of the houses she had that were done before with a cheap P&S. They had been on the market for over 120 days with little to no interest. These were not homes in bad neighborhoods, or homes needing a lot of updates, nice desirable homes.
I did a few HDR images of the interior and a couple of the outside right after sunset with outside lights and interior lights on to show her broker the difference. He was impressed....BUT the problem was he didnt want to pay for them. Its an extra cost to the bottom line and as the profit margens shrink most real estate offices are not willing to loose that bit of extra cost. I have heard that one of the leading real estate companies has been using pro photographers for a bit now. So maybe it will catch on, who knows
Calif realtors have been using this type of photography for commercial real estate for a while, and it has proven that better photos did make a different for corp buyers. (and has recently spilled over to the residental markets as well but its too soon to see if that will make a difference).
As stale as the market is I would think that one would want every advantage one could use to market the home to protental buyers, esp to out of state buyers.

[d2creative]

I shoot homes, but would never shoot for a realtor, nor would they hire me.
They are too darn cheap!

[Tom]

Originally Posted by d2creative

I shoot homes, but would never shoot for a realtor, nor would they hire me.
They are too darn cheap!

+1


I looked into that back when I was starting during the RE boom and they were cheap then. I can't imagine how cheap they would be in a depressed market.

[TxTowman]

$5.00 a house is the local rate here.

[suerenee]

We about to list our home in Round Rock (near Austin). My Realtor says she pays a "pro" $50 per house. She photographs the home and uploads the photos on her virtual tour site. I agree that some people are cheap but some people know and understand the value of the work professionals do. Of course, her father was a photographer so she views it all differently than some folks.

[d2creative]

Originally Posted by suerenee

We about to list our home in Round Rock (near Austin). My Realtor says she pays a "pro" $50 per house. She photographs the home and uploads the photos on her virtual tour site. I agree that some people are cheap but some people know and understand the value of the work professionals do. Of course, her father was a photographer so she views it all differently than some folks.

I'm confused... are you saying she DOES respect the industry???
For a full home shoot for an architect taking up around 2 hours of shoot time, I'll charge at least 10x that and I thought THAT was cheap.

[suerenee]

Originally Posted by d2creative

I'm confused... are you saying she DOES respect the industry???
For a full home shoot for an architect taking up around 2 hours of shoot time, I'll charge at least 10x that and I thought THAT was cheap.

I agree it's under priced...but there is someone out there willing to do it for that price. That doesn't mean that she doesn't value pro work, she just found someone to work for peanuts. She said her gal is the pro for her entire office so she has a volume deal worked out.

[KD5NRH]

Originally Posted by d2creative

I'm confused... are you saying she DOES respect the industry???
For a full home shoot for an architect taking up around 2 hours of shoot time, I'll charge at least 10x that and I thought THAT was cheap.

Most of the listings we looked at when we were buying had 2-5 shots max, and they were pretty standard; one from the curb, one in the living room, maybe the kitchen, and one or two of the house's best feature. Judging from the quality, the photographer would have been a fool to turn his engine off for the time he spent inside, but even doing it well wouldn't have taken that much longer.

Of course, if you're shooting for non-local buyers who need a lot more incentive to either buy based on the photos or include that house in whatever limited time they may have to come to town and look in person, you'll need more, but these were targeted mostly at people in the area.