# How to shoot photos of your home for the real estate market



## ehMax

Globe and Mail has an interesting article on "How to shoot photos of your home for the real estate market"

Not advanced stuff, but some useful tips on getting proper looking photographs for listing your house on MLS. A lot of real estate folks take pictures, and quite frankly, they're awful. 

As someone who has browsed MLS a lot, I'm shocked to see how horrible and inadequate some of the photos are. 

Sale of a house can be dramatically improved with proper photos.


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## Lawrence

I like looking at the Quicktime VR images of some of those homes,
Loved the Quicktime VR of the Princess Margaret home recently.

Great time waster, Looking at things I can't afford, Or can't even win.


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## CubaMark

Has anyone found an article or comment, whatever, from someone at Apple about why Quicktime VR has been left to rot on the tree? Such a promising technology, but you'd never know it exists by visiting Apple's QuickTime page.

Even a search of Apple's site brings up (practically) nothing... certainly nothing current.

QuickTime X will not play QTVR files... you need to install QuickTime 7.

I found this Apple mailing list thread that discusses QTVR as being 32-bit only.

Apple's own QTVR info page is now dead.

If QTVR is out, what's "in" for 360º panoramics?


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## SoyMac

Photo quality definitely makes a difference.

I just rented an apartment (me, landlord), and most of the prospective tenants coming through asked about things that were clearly stated in the ad.
When I mentioned this as they were viewing, they said that they had not read the details in the ad, and had decided to see the apartment based only on the photos.


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## Oakbridge

I'm amazed at the number of things that the average person thinks that they can do themselves. This is right up there with 'anyone can represent themselves in court', 'install a home computer network', 'properly install a home theatre sound system', and 'fix a plumbing problem in the house'. Very few can do any of these things themselves and do it 100% correctly. 

Architectural photography is one of the most difficult types of photography there is. Why? Because in order to shoot a picture of an entire room, you require a wide angle lens but wide angle lenses, by the nature of their design, cause straight parallel lines to appear that they are not parallel. You also need to correctly light the room and the average flash unit is not designed to provide coverage to the width of most wide angle lenses.

Yes I'll agree that there are 'professionals' out there that do not have any talent whatsoever but if chosen correctly, a good photographer who has the right amount of experience taking the right kind of picture will be able to produce excellent results. Much better than any average person can create. 

It's also funny to see a Real Estate Agents doing their own photography at the same time they have been running an advertising campaign explaining why someone shouldn't try to sell a house themselves and should 'trust a Professional Realtor'. 

Maybe it is time they started to listen to their own advice and hire a Professional Photograper' to do the photography correctly.


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## FeXL

The cheapest business people I know of are real estate agents. They don't want to spend a dime on professional anything. When the market was booming this attitude may have worked. Now that the boom has bust, the few who are spending the extra buck are the few who are selling.

Besides, didn't you know? Any swinging d*ck with a camera is a fetagrafer these days...


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## Guest

I've seen a LOT of real estate agents trying to do their own photography lately .. it really shows in the quality of the shots. The GOOD ones hire a professional from what I've seen ... there is big value in properly representing the property, after staging it I think it's one of the most important things you could do if you're putting your property on the market. The four shots in the gallery are not great, and the 4th one (the outdoor shot) is HORRID.

Oakbridge: I feel lucky that I can do 3 out of the 4 of the things you list competently enough to keep me happy  That said I wouldn't try to represent myself in court LOL!! You have to know when to hire a professional and that's one of those times if ever there was one.


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## [email protected]

Oakbridge said:


> I'm amazed at the number of things that the average person thinks that they can do themselves. This is right up there with 'anyone can represent themselves in court', 'install a home computer network', 'properly install a home theatre sound system', and 'fix a plumbing problem in the house'. Very few can do any of these things themselves and do it 100% correctly.


Feeling pretty proud to have represented myself in court (successfully!) three times, installed dozens of home computer networks and at least another dozen home theatre sound systems as well as being able to plumb a whole house, let alone fix a problem.


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## chrisburke

There are some agents who will use pros.. I've been called to shoot a few houses around here.. But for the most part, they all do their own, and they suck


Sent from my iPhone 4 using Tapatalk


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## Lawrence

The agents appear to be using "Flash" for their virtual tours now.


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## DempsyMac

thanks this was very interesting, as I am about to put my house on the market and I have tossed around the idea of shooting the photo's for my realtor. I think that the key in these photo's is that you don't have to have the best gear or the best quality photo (although those help of course, especially the latter) but rather that you are showing off the features of the house.

I have been watching houses around us a lot and I find it really funny that there is one realtor in our area that loves posting photo's of things in peoples houses, they do it in every house, a nice lamp or something, I just don't get it, it has nothing to do with the sale of the house at all.


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## Max

If it's a nice lamp or sofa and it looks perfect in the house, the realtor knows exactly what he or she is doing. People - potential buyers - unconsciously make associations in their minds. Doesn't matter if the lamp won't come with the house - the picture did its job in that it gave the house a glow. For the same reason the people in car commercials are beautiful/handsome and have perfect teeth. It's about selling a dream and dressing up something common.

You might simply be thinking of it too literally. Trust me, there are lots of people who will respond to a house that's been artfully fluffed - whether it's simply pictures of it or you're walking through the real thing, entertaining the possibility that you could be calling it a home.

Folks make connections without even knowing they're doing it. Those connections can have positive or negative implications. A good realtor tries to leverage impressions in their favour; if that means putting nice furniture or colourful flowers in a house, so be it. The investment tends to be worth it.


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## Paddy

Oakbridge said:


> I'm amazed at the number of things that the average person thinks that they can do themselves. This is right up there with 'anyone can represent themselves in court', 'install a home computer network', 'properly install a home theatre sound system', and 'fix a plumbing problem in the house'. Very few can do any of these things themselves and do it 100% correctly.


With the exception of representing ourselves in court, either I or my husband have done all of the above - and competently, I may add. 

I agree that way too many real estate agents either attempt to do the photos themselves (and do it badly, with little point and shoot cameras no less) or hire really slipshod "pros" who have no business calling themselves professionals. Having seen so many bad photos, when we sold our last house in Massachusetts, I did the photos myself. I have good Canon DSLRs, a tripod etc. and I worked hard at it; getting the lighting and angles right, making sure there was no visible clutter etc. (It's truly amazing what you'll see in a photo that you simply do not notice in real life!) 

Net result - a very complete and representative photo gallery and we got an offer over asking on the first day (this was NOT Toronto - this was completely out of the norm, and we were very lucky, as the real estate market crashed about 5 months later). The agent said that between the time the listing went online at 5 p.m. on the Friday and he started showing the house the next morning, he had many, many enquiries, which he said he thought had a fair bit to do with the quality of the photos. So, I'd say, if you know what you're doing and have suitable equipment, by all means give it a go. If not, demand that your real estate agent use a pro. You're paying big bucks to these people in commissions - they should absolutely be using a little of that to hire a professional photographer.

The other thing that drives me nuts with the MLS listings is how many agents stick their photos up there stretched. I've seen entire galleries where every single photo is stretched. I have to attribute it to complete idiocy (and some sort of resizing quirks with the MLS content management system) rather than a deliberate attempt to make a 17' Toronto semi look like a McMansion, but you see it over and over again. Of course, the MLS software is awful (made much worse when they "improved" it a couple of years ago - ask any agent) but that's a whole 'nother story.

There are lots of bad real estate agents out there. There are also some very good, very competent ones. Many of the bad ones seem to be oblivious to the fact that a vast majority of their clients do their own searching online, and therefore it is imperative that the online presentation show the listings to their best advantage.


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## kps

When we were selling our Toronto home, my agent brought in a professional stager and a pro photographer. The tog did a good job on both the pics and the VR tour. I asked my agent what it cost to get the photography done and when he told me $150, I just knew I would not be considering doing that kind of photography myself. LOL

I'm more likely to deal with an agent, either buying or selling, who takes their job seriously enough to hire pros to help sell the property. When I see horrid images of the potential property, I have reservations about dealing with that agent.


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## jay_vw

Thanks for postings this, as I too will be listing our house within a few months. Myself & wife have also noticed the lack of good quality images on MLS.....


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## eMacMan

Real Estate photography can be quite challenging. It is not just about the gear but also knowing how to use it. In some cases cases being able to use existing light then colour correcting just some areas of an image works better than flash illumination. In the digital era knowing how to stitch images or create interactive virtual tours can be every bit as useful as owning a super expensive, super wide angle lens.

FWIW most realtors really do suck at doing their own photography but are unwilling to spend the bucks on a pro. OTH they do not get paid until/if the home sells. Most pros are unwilling to wait several months for their paycheck or worse yet swallowing their time if the home does not sell.


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## kyoru

haha there is a job opening for someone to take real estate picture here, I'm tempted to apply but if they pay $150 I would definitely not take up the offer. Way too much time to drive to a location to take pictures and edit them.


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## jmartins

*about topic*

Its informative one it should provide a lots of information related to topic also provide more information related to topic.


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## flowin

Make sure to use a wide angle lens. A high quality one will not give you the fisheye look, in which the straight lines aren't straight, instead it will merely increase your viewing area while maintaining the image quality.


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## Guest

flowin said:


> Make sure to use a wide angle lens. A high quality one will not give you the fisheye look, in which the straight lines aren't straight, instead it will merely increase your viewing area while maintaining the image quality.


Depends how wide the lens is. A super wide angle (i.e. something < 20mm) will pretty much always have some sort of curvature to it no matter how expansive/high quality it is, especially if you have a full-frame camera.


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## Wintel Devotee

I've seen the results of some super wide angle lenses (down to 10-17mm) and there's a lot of distortion. 90 angles looks very acute (<< 90 degrees) for example. Nothing like fisheye (which i have one of).

As far as angular distortions go (convergence of paralles lines) For any one interested, Phase One offers a corrector in the Capture One Pro 6.1 s/w that is quite nice as far as fixing it all goes.


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## DempsyMac

Hey everyone thought that you may enjoy seeing the photo's of my house that just went on the market. My realtor shot them, and I think did an okay job, not what a pro would have done but good enough to get us a lot of traffic in our first week on the market.

My House for sale


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## chrisburke

Trevor Robertson said:


> Hey everyone thought that you may enjoy seeing the photo's of my house that just went on the market. My realtor shot them, and I think did an okay job, not what a pro would have done but good enough to get us a lot of traffic in our first week on the market.
> 
> My House for sale


I'm pleasantly surprised.. I actually expected crappy photos.. but your agent did a great job.. the agents around here SUCK at taking photos.. and sadly they have no interest in paying someone to make their listings look good.. which makes me kinda sad!


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## [email protected]

Trevor Robertson said:


> Hey everyone thought that you may enjoy seeing the photo's of my house that just went on the market. My realtor shot them, and I think did an okay job, not what a pro would have done but good enough to get us a lot of traffic in our first week on the market.
> 
> My House for sale


Photos don't work on iPhone (iPhone 4, 4.1)...


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## DempsyMac

Liam, I know it almost made me not sign with her, but she said that her IT guy is working on it? Not sure if that is true or not but yes I was worried about it, the good news is that we are getting lots of traffic so I am not freaking out about it


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## Oakbridge

Trevor Robertson said:


> Liam, I know it almost made me not sign with her, but she said that her IT guy is working on it? Not sure if that is true or not but yes I was worried about it, the good news is that we are getting lots of traffic so I am not freaking out about it


Interesting that her portrait pic works fine, but the pics of he house don't.


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## Guest

Trevor Robertson said:


> Liam, I know it almost made me not sign with her, but she said that her IT guy is working on it? Not sure if that is true or not but yes I was worried about it, the good news is that we are getting lots of traffic so I am not freaking out about it


You can tell her to tell her IT guy it's a problem with loadScript() (and that he should probably not rely on stock dreamweaver things to actually work properly)


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## DempsyMac

Thanks mguertin, I have passed that along.


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## DempsyMac

mguertin said:


> You can tell her to tell her IT guy it's a problem with loadScript() (and that he should probably not rely on stock dreamweaver things to actually work properly)


Well I passed along your suggestion and they have now fixed it and had this to say:

Tthere was no issue with the loadScript() method. It was fine. Not easy debugging on an iPad since you can’t actually see the source code the browser is working with, or step through the javascript as it’s running or anything, but I was able to isolate the issue to the fact that ios was interpreting our photo URLs as phone numbers because of all the digits, and it was inserting an additional href for a tel in the middle of our photo paths. I went and found out that there’s a metatag available to tell ios to not do that, so I included it in the header for the listings_detail.php file. It only seems to be an issue in this file because of the way the photo paths are being loaded into the document via javascript.

Just in case anyone is interested, this it he meta tag I needed to add:
<meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no">


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## Guest

Hmm interesting. When I ran the debugger on my ipad it came back and said it failed at loadScript() ... oh well. Glad it's worked out and that's good information to know.


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