When it comes to selling your home, online marketing is a huge part of the modern property industry. And there is nothing quite as important as quality interior and exterior property photography to show your biggest asset at its best, and get all those potential viewers clicking on your property details.
Worryingly, some agents don’t use professional photographers for your marketing images and worse still, some will use their mobile phones to capture your property in all its glory!
This is real example of how Coalters’ photography (on the right) compares to another agent’s
David Hurworth, is Coalters’ Photographer & Energy Assessor: “I know from experience that you will only get a good response on Rightmove if the photos are appealing. I’ve seen images taken by other agents which aren’t lit well and don’t show off the key selling features to their full potential – there’s no excuse for this! Photographs are one of the most important aspects of property marketing”
At Coalters we have dedicated in-house professional property marketers who invest a huge amount of time in producing images that grab the attention.
Trust us though, it’s not quite as simple as buying lots of expensive photography equipment and pointing it in the right direction. Here are seven things you need to know about property photography:
- PREPARE TO PRESENT: preparing your property for photographs can make a huge difference to the finished product. Just a little bit of de-cluttering can help show the space off to its full potential. So hiding away storage boxes and the dreaded exercise equipment is a must. The exterior photos are just as important as the interiors, so don’t forget to move cars and wheelie bins!
- LIGHTING IS EVERYTHING: Bright and punchy images always look best when viewing thumbnail photos online and even the lightest of houses can look dark if the photographer doesn’t know their onions! Our property marketers have specialist equipment to balance out the windows and darker interior spaces and ensure your property is represented properly in the photographs.
- IMAGE QUALITY: We will always use a tripod for all our interior property photography. To capture all that important light we often need to use long shutter speeds on those darker winter days (and sometimes summer too!). A tripod is the only way we can capture the images sharp every time.
- SUNSHINE ON A RAINY DAY: A blue sky can go a long way to making the outside of your house that little bit more appealing. Much as we’d love to only photograph properties on bright and sunny days that just isn’t realistic in the UK! So our property marketers use a little bit of clever editing to add a gentle blue sky to those pictures from overcast days.
- ON THE LEVEL: Straight walls must appear straight! This may seem like the most obvious thing in the world but if the camera is pointing slightly up or slightly down the room can look like it is falling over. Keeping the camera at an appropriate level for the room, everything can be shown within the photo whilst still looking nice and level.
- LENS SELECTION: Using the correct lens can make all the difference. Estate agents can take a lot of flak for using extreme fish eye lenses to make rooms look HUGE, but whilst it is important not to go too wide, a good quality wide angle lens will give the interested party a decent internal view of your property. Showing the available space is paramount to showing off your home
- THE FLOORPLAN: A clear and accurate floorplan can hugely compliment your property photography. Gone are the days when a floorplan is a nice little additional extra on the marketing details. Any interested viewer will be looking for it as soon as they’ve flicked through the photos and be immediately planning how they would have the internal space laid out.
Our photographer Dave doing his thing!
Wondering how much your property is worth?
Try our instant online valuation tool to satisfy your curiosity! Alternatively, let our valuers are always on hand if you’re thinking of selling in the near future. Just give us a call on 01904 655222 or complete our valuation form here
