Giving Your Listing Its Best Shot

June Fletcher of the Wall Street Journal recently published an article expressing her frustration with the quality of typical MLS photos.  Real estate agents are not photographers, and are not paid to be photographers.  They are paid for their market expertise and marketing/selling ability.

The listing photo can go a long way in gaining more traffic (online and in foot) to a listing.  Agents who opt not to hire a professional photographer should study the basics of good real estate photography, and invest a little into a decent camera and photo editing software.

In the article, Fletcher expresses her dissatisfaction with the quality of MLS images, and offers a few basic staging tips.

Since nine out of 10 home shoppers begin their search on the Web, according to the National Association of Realtors, I’m appalled that some sellers don’t make much of an effort to make their houses presentable and visually appealing. After all, listing pictures are your main mode of advertising. If the pictures are poor quality, or don’t show every room of your house, as well as front and back views both of and from the house, many buyers won’t bother to visit.

Of course, in these tight times, many sellers don’t want to spend upwards of $1,000 a day to hire a good architectural photographer (unless the house is worth millions). Instead, they rely on their agents to take the photos, which are usually taken hastily with a handheld digital camera. And since agents aren’t required to take photography courses to get a real estate license, it’s not surprising that the results are often poorly framed and lit, grainy and washed out.