How to Take Pictures of Your House to Sell

In today’s digital world, reaching a massive audience is easier than ever when it comes time to sell your house. Yet it still remains difficult to attract a wide variety of people who are truly motivated to buy property, not to mention luxury homes.

The best way to ensure you connect with high-value, committed buyers is to distribute top-quality listing photos. In this task, you’re not alone. We’ve put together an expert guide on taking pictures of your house to sell below, providing you with everything you need to know about the subject. Let’s dive in!

Removing excess paperwork, books, artwork, and odds and ends will help your home look more spacious and welcoming to buyers. Decluttering also makes it easier for potential buyers to imagine what living in the house will be like for them and their families. If they’re distracted by all your personal mementos and family photos, it could lead buyers to think that you still have a connection to the property, which may be off-putting.

You can either stage your home yourself or hire a professional company to manage this step in the selling process themselves. Either way, your goal with staging is to freshen up the interior design style so it can compete with other hot properties on the market. Walk through each home room and determine which furniture pieces need to be replaced or repaired. Consider speaking with an interior designer to get tips on the current trends in decorating homes like yours.

In today’s digital world of luxury real estate, there’s very little room for sellers to take mediocre pictures of their property. Most luxury homeowners go all out with their listing photos, including printing them on high-quality fliers and displays. Unless you are a skilled photographer yourself, it’s usually par for the course to hire a professional. They can also work hand in hand with your home stager to design rooms that will attract all the most fashionable buyers.

If, on the other hand, you possess a high-quality DSLR digital camera and the experience to use it, you can save a considerable sum by shooting photos yourself. Make sure to read up on what makes a good listing photo and what may be a little out of place. Play around with the angle of your shots to create photos that emphasize the size and spaciousness of the property.

No matter how beautiful your floor lamps, reading lamps, and candelabras may be, natural light is the best light source for listing photos. Aim to take your photos after noon when the light filters in the windows with a slightly diagonal angle. Choose a day with a little bit of sun cover so the light isn’t too brutal, or experiment with covering the windows in a variety of curtain fabrics like cotton or silk.

It’s important to emphasize the special selling points of your home over those elements that may appear a bit more conventional. Organize your listing photos with the exterior shot first, followed by the kitchens and bathrooms. These are the rooms that luxury homeowners are most likely to be interested in. But you can also draw buyers’ attention to certain parts of each room. Place your camera beside the vanity and use it as a frame for a photo of the tub if those parts of the room are special. Shoot photos of the kitchen with the stovetop in the foreground and the cabinets in the distance to remind buyers of the size of the kitchen.

Don’t be afraid to take multiple (or dozens) of photos of each room. You’re likely to discover later that a shadow covered a certain part of the living room or a speck of dust disrupted a bathroom picture. More photos are always better than fewer photos, especially since you can delete as many as you want later on. If you’re wondering how to take pictures of your home to sell, this is a great piece of advice.

All the best modern digital cameras will allow you to save your photos in the largest format available, called ‘RAW.’ Most of your listing photos will be viewed by buyers on large computers with all the best software, so it’s almost necessary that you take those photos in the most high-def format. If your camera doesn’t allow you to save RAW photos, consider renting one that does for a few days from your local photography studio.

There isn’t just one way to take professional real estate photos. Given enough time, anyone can take a top-notch picture of their home. But certain colors can make it much easier. The most important colors to avoid are those made by light bulbs with different temperatures and those that occur when too much natural light enters the frame. In general, use colors that stress a particular time of year. Use brighter and warmer colors if your home looks best in the summer. If your home really shines in the fall and winter, opt for cooler, whiter color schemes.

We hope this guide on how to take pictures of your house to sell will be able to help you better prepare for having guests at (and ultimately offers on) your home. If you have any questions or want to learn more about real estate in Texas and Florida, reach out today! Contact Local Life Realty for more information.