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I was told that with the internet, 80% of the calls you receive about a home for sale is due to the pictures. And that people are using the realtor.com sort by number of pictures to help find a home in a specific area.
Is it worth it to pay a photographer, and if so how much is "Normal"
I do a great job on photos with a professional camera. It's good enough for the average to low end home.
But On very nice or high end homes, I do pay a professional photographer about $120 to shoot the house. It is well worth it on homes that show well, decorated tastefully, luxury, etc.
If you have a low end, badly furnished, vacant, etc home, It's not worth the money as long as the agent can do a fairly good job themselves.
I have a Canon 7D camera that takes great pictures and I use that for most listings. Luxury homes always have a pro take them and they run around $300+ depending on the size and number of shots (ie if you want twilight shots, etc). For a regular $200k home, most pros out here charge around $150.
Keep in mind that good photos pick up and enhance everything so if you have a cluttered home with floral print couches and wallpaper filled with roses, skip the photographer and spend it peeling off wallpaper instead and buying a couch cover.
… and HDR? Is this something I need to worry about?
I don't suggest HDR for regular homes. Only luxury. It makes regular homes look too good and I have found that buyers are immediately disappointed in the homes because they don't match the pictures. It's like going to a hyped up movie and you have no where to go but disappointment since it can't live up to expectations. The marketing of the house shouldn't be so much better than the house really is. It should reflect what the house really is for best results, IMO.
It makes regular homes look too good and I have found that buyers are immediately disappointed in the homes because they don't match the pictures.
Wow, that is exactly what I ran into… only I had no idea what was going on, I thought if you paid to have pictures taken you wanted the best
So @Silverfall, I'm a web developer/programmer that takes pictures for my web clients, and in turn am good at real estate. I take RE photos by referral, but want to branch out and help some of the lower end homes / smaller realtors sell. So I'm trying to figure out what is needed.
What type of idea do you have to help some of the smaller realtors? Maybe do Land Based Arial for their external? But not the internal? Hand hold internal shots and get the house done in 30min? You have identified my exact problem, I value your opinion (and others who know all about this )
You should check out the "Photography for Real Estate" (a/k/a PFRE) blog. Larry who writes the blog is always happy to answer RE photography questions and I've learned a lot by reading the blog that has improved my own photos and marketing abilities. There's also a lot of good information about property videos as well. Personally, I feel there's a larger market for videos currently as most agents think their photos are great (even though they're not), but most of them don't feel they're technically proficient enough to make a decent video.
The one thing I would caution you about with the PFRE blog is that 99% of the guys who comment are real estate photographers only. They're not agents. They're more artists. They'd probably tell you HDR photography should be used even when shooting a mobile home which I and I'm sure most agents would disagree with.
I always use a photographer (but my listings run $300-700K). For the lower end houses, I use a firm that does photos plus video tours for $90. For the more expensive homes, I use a photographer that charges $200 and up...a large luxury home would be about $350 and the sellers expect it.
Many agents don't use a professional and it is very obvious because most of the pics are horrible - dark, blurry, only getting a corner of the room, etc.
As a seller, I can tell you this: When I selected realtors to interview, I looked at their websites and listings. That was part of the basis of who I decided to interview.
When I interviewed realtors, one of the questions I asked was, "Who does your photos?" The answers were:
1. My boyfriend, usually. He's really good!
2. I've been doing this for years, and I take my own photographs most of the time.
3. I hire a professional because they are professionals at photography. I'm a professional at helping people buy and sell real estate.
Guess which one I hired?
End of story: In a tough Phoenix market, we had a showing 1.5 hours after it hit the mls and and an offer about 2.5 hours later. From an investor - so a lower offer than we wanted, but not a bad offer. We had 2-3 showings every single day (except Easter Sunday). After only Eight days, we accepted an offer at 1% below our asking price. The buyers were out of state, bought the house sight unseen, except for those photos. ( Their agent did visit and took a few additional photos).
The house closes in 1.5 weeks. They have no seen the house, and they bought most of the furniture, too. The sales price was slightly hire than what the other two realtors told us to initially put as the asking price.
Is it worth it to pay a photographer, and if so how much is "Normal"
I don't know how much DH pays, but he uses a professional EVERY time. I wondered about it because we have a very good camera, but he said the comparison is "NO Comparison."
He believes the photo quality is the difference between selling right away, and not. (Of course you have to have it correctly priced for the given market, too.)
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