Preparing your home for real estate photos

Preparing your home for real estate photos takes time, but can be a critical step to getting your listing sold quickly. The role of the real estate photographer isn’t to design and stage your home, but rather to capture it to get the best pictures for marketing your real estate listing.

Less is more

If there is one time to practice the “less is more” mantra, this is it. Declutter all spaces. If possible, pack up everything you don’t need for the next several months and put away in an off-site storage place. If you have a garage, this could be the perfect spot to store unnecessary items since the interior of a garage is not typically photographed. The thing to remember here is that you want to showcase the space and not all the stuff in the space. Ideally, you want the potential buyer to feel like they have room for all of their possessions.

Get rid of eyesores

Make all the minor repairs that you’ve been meaning to do but haven’t had time to accomplish. Hole in the ceiling? Carpet stains? That pile of debris in the back yard? Mold in the bathroom? (Yuck!) A few quick repairs and attention to unsightly matters can do wonders for your real estate listing photographs. The take away here is that you don’t want your potential buyers to create a list of repairs or improvements that would devalue your asking price. Need some help with these things? Check out a go-to team at your fingertips Need to get rid of that junk? Check out full-service junk removal

How to make a home “photo ready”

Real estate photographers usually book several photo-shoots each day, and typically only allow up to an hour for the photography. In order for the photographer to efficiently capture your listing pictures, here is a simple checklist for preparing your home for real estate photographer:

• Clean the whole house/apartment (vacuum carpet, mop hard floors, clean countertops, clean windows)
• Turn on all lights and lamps
• Replace burned-out light bulbs
• Use light bulbs of the same kind in a single room such as all incandescent or all compact fluorescent or all LED
• Turn off ceiling fans
• Turn off TVs
• Turn off computer screens
• Open blinds and window treatments to let in light and showcase views
• Remove personal photographs or replace with general landscape/object photographs
• Remove religious and political items
• Make all beds
• Remove small floor rugs and doormats
• Hide all shoes and jackets in closets
• Tips from Redfin

If you still need help with preparing your home for real estate photos, then contact us, we’re always glad to help.