Engaging the services of a real estate photographer has many advantages.
The best real estate agents know when it’s time to call in an expert. Done right, a good real estate photographer makes your business more efficient, so you can focus on what you do best. Property listing photos are almost always better handled by a professional. Why? It makes a difference to buyers: More than 9 out of 10 buyers in 2020 ranked photos as the most valuable feature of websites in the search for a home, according to the National Association of Realtors. Keep reading to learn more about the potential benefits in hiring a professional real estate photographer.
You save loads of time and money
Maybe you’ve already thought about investing in your photography equipment. If you want to take this approach, you should know what to expect.
The cost of doing it yourself is more than the dollar amount you might pay for equipment. All photographers have to learn that taking good photos is a skill that takes time to build.
You have to dig into complicated photography techniques to achieve a professional look. As the technology improves—and it always does—the uphill battle to keep up with trends and learning curves only gets steeper.
If you think there’s nothing a little Photoshop can’t fix, remember that editing photos requires an entirely different set of skills. There is no magical piece of technology that replaces the input and decision-making skills of a trained real estate photographer.
You could spend hours of your time fussing over which buttons to press and when. Would doing any of that make you a better real estate agent? Probably not—Your time is most efficiently spent elsewhere.
You attract more high-value buyers
Professional quality photos make the difference in how quickly a home receives bids, and how close—or how much higher—offers are to the original listing price. Professional photography adds more value than repairing, painting, and landscaping a property: 73% of real estate agents ranked it as a top home improvement item.
In virtual real estate, you’re often communicating without ever saying a word.
Fine-tuning how your online listing looks is like dressing the part in real estate: It influences the way people feel about you and think about your business. Most impressively, photos can be the deciding factor in someone buying a house ‘sight unseen.
The team at Havah knows that no two properties are the same, so we offer different photography packages: Standard & Luxury. What’s the difference?
In a Standard photo package, viewers have all of the information they need to get a basic sense of what the house is like. This is an effective way to list a property when you’re on a budget, or the property has few to no natural light features.
However, Standard photo packages aren’t the best choice for properties with large windows, skylights and tall ceilings with natural light. That’s because cameras only capture one subject and its light source at a time. Our Luxury photo packages address this problem with a different approach.
HDR
In a Luxury photo package, we use a technique called High Dynamic Range (HDR) bracketing. To put it simply, HDR bracketing blends multiple takes of the same image into one. This creates one photo that’s as true-to-life as possible, with all of the vivid colors that the naked eye can see. It’s the perfect choice for capturing the inside and outside of a room—especially one with a view.
As an added bonus, all Luxury packages include a virtual dusk shot, which is always an instant favorite for clients. A virtual dusk photograph shows the glow and warmth you can see from the outside of a home, blanketed by a dazzling twilight sky. This can make the difference between a property that sits and one that sells.
Looking at your photos is as close as some buyers will get to a viewing without actually being there. Not only will you get more prospective buyers—their offers will be more competitive.
You age-proof your business for the long run
People contact real estate agents for guidance and representation in a busy market that’s full of surprises—for better or worse. One of the only things that has not changed about this industry is high trust in a real estate agent.
Your level of professionalism, experience, and tech-savvy real estate resources will resonate with new buyers and sellers for years to come.
Effective communication as a real estate agent means understanding the housing market and guiding hopeful people through it. The preferences of buyers and sellers may change, but for now—and the foreseeable future—people want to work with people.
Your real estate clients need you for a lot more than taking photos of a property and listing it. When you can provide a good experience as a real estate agent, referrals to the local “proactive agent with a great photographer” can expand limitlessly.
You may even re-write the handbook for successful real estate agents.
Work With a Real Estate Photographer
Forget what you think you can save doing it all yourself, because you have so much more to gain. With the help of a trusted real estate photographer, you may never run into a lack of opportunities again.
It’s better to work with a real estate photographer whose priority is to deliver you high-quality photos at the most reasonable price.
