Picture This: How to Photograph Your FSBO Home
Selling a home on one’s own can be daunting. From cleaning and staging to listing and marketing, there are a million things to do before your home is ready to pass onto a new owner. After you have thoroughly cleaned your home, completed any necessary renovations and staged the space, photographing your home is the next step to creating a successful listing. While you would never want all your hard work to go to waste due to poorly shot photos, photographing a home for sale is different from informal social photography. As such, mistakes are frequently made by amateur photographers and FSBO sellers when their photos are posted in concert with a listing. Follow below for a few tips on how to photograph your FSBO home for the market.
5 Steps for Getting Started
#1 Clean Each Space
While offering a clean space to buyers is always important when selling a home, it is especially significant during this time. Prospective buyers will be more attracted to a clean, sanitized space -- particularly as we all wade through the COVID-19 pandemic -- so make sure to clean absolutely every space. Pay particular attention to reflective surfaces that might show fingerprints or other smudges. While cleaning for your listing photos might be purely cosmetic in the short term, it will remain significant over the course of the entire selling process. Over the last eight months, many open houses for homes on the market have been conducted virtually by agents. If you choose to conduct an online open house or post a video tour as a part of your listing, your home will need to be pristine.
If prospective buyers do choose to visit the home in person, cleanliness will be key. The article “Seven Tips for Selling Your House During COVID-19” notes that “disinfecting surfaces frequently will make potential buyers, agents, stagers, and sellers feel more comfortable entering the home.” Not only should sellers deep-clean carpets, grout and other areas that show grime for their listing, but they should also disinfect surfaces after each visitor. The article recommends cleaning “all surfaces with EPA-registered disinfectants (while wearing gloves and a mask to avoid breathing in fumes).” However, the article recommends, “be sure to air out the space before receiving potential buyers to remove any obnoxious smells.”
#2 Paint Dirty or Faded Walls
Painting the interior -- and exterior -- of your home is one of the cheapest ways to freshen and modernize each space. According to Elizabeth Weintraub in her article “Preparing Your Home for Sale on a Budget” for The Balance, few budget-friendly changes will offer as much bang for your buck as painting. Weintraub notes that “professional painters will likely charge anywhere from $300 to $500 to paint each room, but with a little patience, you can paint the rooms yourself.” For the interior, Weintraub suggests choosing a “soft color in a light brown tone (never white), and paint[ing] every room the same color.” Though Weintraub explains “the painting will go faster if you paint the ceilings the same color,” she recommends painting ceilings a lighter color as they will “really pop” if a contrast is created. Weintraub also suggests painting the facade of your home, including “painting or replacing the front door and buying new hardware.” She suggests painting the mailbox and your house number to make your home more appealing as people drive by -- e.g. increasing the home’s “curb appeal.”
#3 Invest in a Bit of Landscaping
In her article “Landscape your home to sell: 5 tips to save green” for Bankrate, Debbie Abrams Kaplan outlines the importance of landscaping your front yard or porch before photographing and listing your home. According to Kaplan, “when selling your home, landscaping determines whether your home feels inviting from the outside.” During the COVID-19 pandemic, prospective buyers are increasingly relying on “drive-by” visits and virtual open houses. As such, increasing curb appeal is incredibly important for both in-person visitors and those viewing your listing online. Kaplan writes that “curb appeal is important to 71 percent of homebuyers when choosing their abode, according to a 2013 National Association of Realtors survey.” Because “landscaping is a large part of that curb appeal,” the extra spending is more than worth it.
#4 Stage the Interior
According to the article “Tips for Staging Your House on a Budget,” staging your home properly can lead to better offers, a faster sale and an overall more effective listing -- both in person and online. The article quotes Vanessa McGrady in her recent article for Forbes in order to drive this point home. McGrady explains that “‘according to the NAR, for every $100 invested in staging, the potential return is $400.’” In her article, McGrady quotes home stager Betsy Wilbur, who has found that “staging can save you from a costly price reduction…[with] a staged home selling for 17% more on average than a non-staged home.” The article “Tips for Staging Your House on a Budget” explains that “staged homes not only sell for more than unstaged homes, but they also sell faster -- ‘statistically 87% faster than non-staged homes,’ according to Wilbur.”
6 Tips on How to Photograph Your FSBO Home
#1 Determine Who Will Take the Photos
Before you take any photos or purchase any equipment with which to photograph your home, conduct a bit of research to determine whether it would be more cost effective and practical to hire a professional photographer. The Zillow article “Real Estate Photography Tips for Home Sellers” notes that “professional photography for real estate usually costs $150-$200, though prices may vary based on where you live.” While those working with a listing agent will almost always have professional photography and marketing included in their representation fees, FSBO listings do not have the same luxury. Because -- as a FSBO seller -- you will pay out of pocket for photography, it is best to weigh one’s options before deciding. If you decide to search for a professional photographer, Zillow recommends making sure they have a “strong resume...an impressive portfolio…[and] the right equipment.” The article notes that professional real estate photographers should “at a minimum...have a DSLR camera, a wide angle lens and a tripod.” Professional real estate photographers should also have a “good reputation” as supported by listing agents and brokerages. If you decide to photograph on your own, follow the next five steps!
#2 Consider Purchasing a Real Camera and Tripod
In her article “Take Better Real Estate Photos” for HGTV, Shannon Petrie explains what to buy and how to use your new equipment to your advantage. Petrie recommends against purely using your iPhone or other cellular device to shoot real estate photos, as they will not be high-quality when compared to a professional camera. Shannon Petrie suggests buying any “point-and-shoot digital camera with five megapixels or more” to produce stunning photos. She warns against buying “top-of-the-line equipment” for a single project, but does recommend investing in a “digital SLR” if you are willing to spend a bit more. This is because digital SLR cameras offer “more settings and allow you to use a variety of lenses.” Lastly, make sure to purchase a tripod to avoid taking any unclear or shaky photos.
#3 Flood the Space with Natural Light
Alexa Collins explains in her article “How to Take Real Estate Photos that Will Sell Your Home 32% Faster” for HomeLight how to optimize light for real estate photography. According to Collins, real estate photography should be conducted solely on sunny days when clouds cannot cast shadows on the property. Mid-day is best for interior shots while outdoor shots “are best taken at dusk” when outdoor lighting and landscaping can truly shine. Collins writes that FSBO home photographers should “avoid cloudy, rainy, and overcast days, as they can cause bad lighting and an uneven white balance.” Photographing on overcast days will require you to adjust the aperture and balance on your camera, making the process all that much more complicated.
If you want to take particularly perfect shots, Collins suggests shooting each room based on how and which time of day the light filters in. She writes that “you want the sun to be behind the camera so that colors are illuminated.” Each room should have enough natural light to offer contrast between colors and fixtures but not so much light that the room appears flattened. All in all, Collins writes, “you should never rely on artificial lighting in a room, unless the house is dark itself and every lightbulb in the room is the same.” However, layering light fixtures with natural light is a great way to add depth to a space, so be sure to include table lights, pendant lights and floor lights.
#4 Keep Angles in Mind
In her article “Take Better Real Estate Photos” for HGTV, Shannon Petrie explains how to adjust your position to take the best photos possible. For interiors, Petrie explains that “the best way to show off a room is to shoot from a corner or doorway to include as much of the room as possible.” Photographing from corners “provides context and makes the room look more spacious than a tight shot does.” For exterior shots, Petrie recommends that FSBO home photographers “stand at an angle to the home rather than straight-on.” This placement is preferable because it will allow “buyers to see the home’s depth.” Wherever possible, keep unattractive items that are not germaine to the quality or condition of your home out of view. When photographing the home’s facade, Petrie especially recommends blocking out any “objects that obscure your home, like poles and wires.”
#5 Take More Photos Than You Think You Need
The Zillow article “Real Estate Photography Tips for Home Sellers” recommends including “22-27 photos in your listing,” but emphasizes that these twenty-five photos should come from a much larger set. Take photos from lots of different angles, racking up the count on your camera to fifty or more photographs. Zillow notes that “while you’ll only need to post 22-27 photos with your listing, you’ll want to take many more than that, so you can pick the very best images in editing.”
#6 Touch Up Photos, But Don’t Be Deceptive
In her article “Take Better Real Estate Photos” for HGTV, Shannon Petrie recommends lightly touching up photographs before uploading them to your home’s listing. She writes that “after you've chosen your best photos, you’ll probably find that they need a bit of tweaking.” You might find that one room in the home appears much darker than it is in reality. On the other hand, you might find that several shots need to be cropped to exclude odd distortions that do not actually occur.
To edit your photos, Petrie recommends using “free online photo editing tools like Picnik and Snipshot.” She notes that these tools “are easy to use and allow you to crop your pictures, adjust brightness and contrast, and correct colors.” However -- as you adjust your photos -- you should bear in mind that editing to deceive a prospective buyer in any way will only hurt your chances of selling your home. Be as honest as possible about your home’s condition and features while still playing up the best elements of your home!
By following these steps, you will be well on your way to creating a FSBO real estate listing sure to capture attention and encourage buyers to visit!