Tag archive for "real estate photography" | Blog.PropertiesOnline.com

What to Know About the Luxury Real Estate Market in These Uncertain Times

Tips to Making Your Seller’s Home More Photogenic

Let’s face it, unless you’ve won the luxury home marketing lottery, chances are your latest listing is facing some presentation challenges. Bric-a-brac explosions, dated décor, and even cluttered, dirty surfaces are all par for the course in the listing photos game.

Unfortunately these photo flops can quickly turn would-be buyers off. Is there any way to work around the norm and find a magical solution to better photos for video usage in real estate marketing?

Tips to Creating a Picture Perfect Home:

• Get the seller in on the gig.
If sellers want top-dollar (and who doesn’t?), explain to them the importance of letting go of a few things momentarily and putting in a little elbow grease so they can make the most of their sale (and upcoming home purchase). Ask them to bring in an honest friend to point out things they’re ‘not seeing’ anymore.

• Cut clutter.
70% of surface items should be hidden (where the camera won’t capture), including family photos and knickknacks, fridge magnets – even paper goods and small appliances. Consider ditching many small items for a large centerpiece or trio.

• Let the light shine in.
Natural lighting creates a high-end look, adding depth and highlights. (This includes lit fireplaces!)

• Brighten up the boudoir.
Use a handheld steamer, add pillows and throws, and make the bed look as neat as possible. Secret tip: Soft textures and muted colors work far better than TV-test-pattern spreads.

• Lower artwork.
Hang art lower, emphasizing more horizontal pieces, to camouflage low ceilings, or show off high ceilings with huge vertical art.

• Boost curb appeal.
Move cars, rake, mow, and especially prune trees that obscure the home. Take covers off everything (like grills) unless hopelessly damaged.

• Treat pets like kids.
Remembering you love your own most – leave them out of photos.

Put video usage in real estate marketing to work for you with those beautiful photos. Uncover the latest video-builder tool from Properties Online today.

Let Property Movies Deliver Customers to You Like That Drone.

Commercial Real Estate is Using Drone Photography and Video in New Ways

You already know drones are great for capturing expansive property views and neighborhood amenities in the residential real estate sector. However, drone video usage in real estate marketing is also an integral facet of commercial real estate. In fact, the commercial sector is becoming increasingly dependent on these midair marvels, with the construction and infrastructure sectors contributing $45B of their $127B market value.

What Commercial Shots are Drones Cashing-In On?
Drone technology is constantly used for determining property maintenance needs, as well as to assist with tasks on construction sites – but their real value to the commercial sector encompasses far more than aerial photography. They are also used to collect intelligence, surveillance, and analytics data. And the drone industry is capitalizing on this.

Mini-Miners
Adding miniaturized versions of sensors to collect a variety of data, drone manufacturers are creating commercial products capable of collecting a massive amount of data in just hours, rather than weeks, storing terabytes of video in a single flight. They are particularly adept at completing those tasks that are dull, dangerous, or dirty – dubbed the “three D’s” of robotics.

Going Where No Man Has Gone (Or Wants To)
Today’s drones are designed with sensors for use surveying massive expanses of land, including cracks and crevices not typically accessible by man, collecting historical data alongside industry clues toward future challenges. But all this data collection comes at a price…

Barriers to Entry
The massive amounts of data collected by drones creates processing, storage, and transfer challenges, most recently solved with cloud-based solutions. And cumbersome Federal Aviation Administration certification and regulations leads to many firms renting equipment or drone services to circumnavigate such headaches. Luckily, however, skilled third-party providers are affordable and abundant in services.

Ready to take a cue from the commercial sector and put video usage in real estate marketing to work for you? Check out the latest video offerings from Properties Online today.

What Experts Want You to Know About Drone Use in the Real Estate Industry

Don’t Crash & Burn: Using Drones for Real Estate Photography

Welcome to the future of real estate selling, where tiny, pint-size planes can give you an edge. Much like your listing photos and videos, when it comes to using drones to boost the popularity of your properties, it pays to aim for high quality.

View from above
Touted by agents as the most important new technology affecting real estate selling since the Internet, video tours bearing dramatic drone photography have become the weapon of choice for high flyers, showcasing large landscapes, unbelievable views, and breathtaking exteriors in a way never before possible. In the wrong hands, however, results could disappoint.

Knowing when to deplane
As agents welcome sellers aboard, it pays to keep in mind the listing should be more than just in-flight entertainment. Drones are useful, but should never be used to shoot ALL the content. Certain images are not well-suited for a fly-by, specifically:

• One size does not fit all
Standard shots commonly seen in listings, such as street-level views, or in-home shots are best taken by hand from certain angles to improve the look of the home.

• How small is too small?
Avoid drones for smaller interiors, such as condos or apartments.

• Even drones can run into a problem
Homes hidden by trees or buildings.

Flying high
Ensure drone success by hiring a professional. Drones require a pilot’s license, and a lot more than RC car skills. Expect services to cost more than a land-loving photographer, as they involve taking the time to splice multiple clips of raw footage. Be sure your contractor employs a “3-axis gimbal” drone for steady, flowing shots. Later on, you may want to take a course, earn your own wings, and fly your own shoots.

Real estate selling have you reaching for the sky? Properties Online is always on the cutting-edge, with the drone tips you need for success. Take your business to a higher level. Contact us today.

First Impressions are Everything: Draw Potential Buyers in with a Welcoming Interior

How to Stage a Home for Listing Photography

Listing photos for a home can make-or-break the potential of getting prospective buyers to book a viewing appointment. Do you know the real estate photography and home staging tips and tricks for playing up the strengths of your saleable listings?

Want great listing photos? These tips and tricks are tried and true …

Lose the clutter.
When professional stagers prep a home for market, they typically get rid of half of a home’s “stuff.” This includes too much furniture, one of the main contributors to a cluttered look, as well as closets, a high priority sales item. Sellers reluctant? Ask what’s worse: Clearing clutter – or missing an opportunity to sell?
Lighten up.
Great lighting adds a warm, welcoming feel. Ditch a dreary ambiance by aiming for 100 watts per 50 square feet.
Don’t fear furniture relocation.
Temporarily moving furniture, art, and accessories can help you set the stage for superior real estate photography.
Repurpose catch-all spaces.
Most homes have a room that’s the equivalent of the kitchen junk drawer. Repurposing it to an office or reading space, for instance, adds value and helps buyers better envision space.
Practice the art of illusion.
Paint smaller rooms the same color as adjacent rooms for a seamless look that’ll make the space seem bigger. Matching drapery to wall color will also accomplish this.
Be a little odd.
Accessory groupings of three items of varying sizes and textures are more appealing to the eye, as is wall art that varies by pattern, grouping, and height.
Don’t be too bold.
Neutral and soft wall colors are more appealing than bold ones, which can turn-off buyers.
Finish what you started.
Nothing scares buyers away faster than unfinished projects, missing floorboards, and huge drywall holes. Fix it. It’s less than price deductions.

Listings a little underexposed? Get the help you need with Properties Online today.

Lighting Is the Key to Creating Dramatic Real Estate Listing Photos

A professional real estate photographer’s creative use of computer technology to market his services is attracting the attention of both the real estate and technology worlds. Using JavaScript code to apply the mouse-over effect to online photographs, Dallas-based real estate photographer Lance Hames has come up with a unique method of displaying before and after photographs that is both startling and striking. It’s an effective marketing tool that is earning Hames’ website HomeSnappers.com national recognition.

Hames’ website is worth a look not only for its novel application of real estate marketing tools; but also for its dramatic illustration of the difference between amateur and professional real estate listing photographs. If you study the before and after photos displayed on the website, it’s hard not to notice the striking difference that lighting and photographic angle make in creating real estate listing photos that will appeal to home buyers. That’s an important consideration when deciding whether to hire a professional photographer or snap listing domain photos yourself.

There are a lot of bad real estate listing photos on real estate sites and bad photos don’t sell houses. Buying a home is a visual experience and attractive listing domain photos attract buyers. With a suite of attractive photographs, real estate agents can easily create stunning real estate videos of individual listings using Virtuet. Included as a free service with any Properties Online website product, Virtuet allows Realtors to create professional-looking real estate videos that can be embedded in listing domains, Realtor websites and blogs or posted to Facebook or YouTube.

Professional real estate photographers have the expertise, camera and lighting equipment, and software needed to create clear, bright, well-staged listing photographs; and many Realtors find their services instrumental in selling homes. But even if you don’t use their services, real estate agents can learn from their techniques. Look at the before and after photos on Home Snappers again. In each photo the photographer has enhanced natural lighting and stepped back to reveal as much of the room and, when rooms flow into each other, nearby area as possible. Two simple things; huge difference!

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