5 Reasons Why You Need Great Real Estate Photos

Are your real estate photos hurting your sales? Great photography is more important than ever when selling a house. A few years ago, realtors were the only ones who viewed photos of homes on internal MLS listings, but with the rise of buyer facing home search sites such as Zillow, Trulia, and Redfin, potential buyers are looking at houses before even contacting their agents. This means buyers are making judgments on houses before they even step up to the front door. If your listings don’t have enticing photography, you could be losing buyers and potential sales. 

Whether you’re taking the photos yourself or hiring a photographer specializing in real estate images, here are 5 reasons why you need to have great photography for your listings:

1. First impressions are key – as stated above, most potential buyers are starting their search online instead of reaching out to realtors. If they don’t like a listing's images, they’ll never make the next step of contacting you for a showing. Dark photos, poor angles, and out of focus shots are all turn offs for potential buyers. Even if the home is amazing in person, bad photography will encourage prospects to pass over the listing to something more appealing.

2. Society is becoming more visual – with the explosion of social media and sites like Instagram and youtube, visual interpretations are becoming more important. A well-lit, nicely composed image of the features they’re looking for will bring new buyers in the door much faster than a description of those same amenities. Having impressive photography makes their decision to view the home in person a no brainer for the buyers.

3. Create excitement and interest – What makes this particular home special? Photos highlighting interesting features can set the home apart and give the buyers a reason to set up a showing. So many people only show the basic home photos. Take advantage of that great fireplace or view or layout and be sure to post a photo of it.

4. Beating out the competition to get buyers in the door – This is especially important in planned neighborhoods or new developments where the homes are fairly similar.  Why should buyers walk through your home instead of the one down the street? Having better photography than the competition can help entice those buyers to walk in your door first.  

5. Making a lasting impression – Many buyers are so excited when walking through the homes that they don’t take their own photos to help them remember which places they liked. This means they’re going back to sites like Zillow to remind themselves what the houses looked like. Make sure you leave them with the best possible impression of your listings.
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There you have it, 5 reasons why you need to consider having great real estate photos for your listings. Not a great photographer yourself? Consider hiring a real estate photographer to provide you with images to bring those buyers to see your listings.