It’s Time to Get a Professional Real Estate Photographer

When I first started as an executive assistant, I was in charge of taking the photos of our listings and uploading them to our MLS. For some of you, this is probably part of your job description. Let me tell me you why it’s time to let a pro take the pictures.

Amateur Photo

Professional Photo

The amateur photo was taken by the previous listing agent. The professional photo was taken by our team’s professional photographer and our team got the home sold. The sellers fired their previous agent because the spent 258 days on the market with no offers. Our team sold it in 58 days.

EVERY buyer makes the decision to look at a house based on the photos. Your amateur photos suck. I don’t care how much you play around with post-processing. I don’t care if you have a tripod and a fisheye lens. You don’t have the equipment and you don’t have the eye to take the kind of photos that buyers drool over. (Ok, maybe some of you do, but for the most part 99% of us are not good at this because it’s not our full time job.) You want photos that look like they could be in a magazine. That’s what attracts buyers.

So, photo quality aside, you also don’t have the time it takes to take the photos yourself. 30 minutes (give or take) to get to the house, an hour to shoot all the photos (90 minutes if the seller is home and wants to talk to you about everything), 30 minutes back to the office, and another 30-60 minutes post processing the photos to get them looking just right. So that two and a half to three and a half hours spend just on the pictures. In our area, we get 25 great professional photos for $100.

Remember, the photos are THE most critical part of marketing. Why do you think Facebook posts with photos get so many likes? Why do you think Pinterest, Instagram, and Snapchat are so popular? If you want to any kind of marketing, the photos are what’s going to get clicks on your Facebook ads and on your website.

And please, please, please…don’t put the house on the MLS without photos. All the third party websites pick up the MLS feed overnight (or sooner!) and your listing goes out without photos. All the buyers whose agents set them up on an auto feed through their MLS now receive an email in the morning with that listing that has no photos. And they choose NOT to take the time to look at it.

Are YOU ready to give up taking the pictures? Or does your team have a professional photographer and you love it? Let me know in the comments!