The National Association of Realtors (NAR), in its 2020 report on homebuyer and home seller profiles, indicated that more than half of homebuyers (52%) found their home via the Internet. That said, the value of making a strong online sales pitch for your home cannot be underestimated.
And what better way to train potential homebuyers’ eyes toward your home for sale online than through high-quality listing photos?
Never underestimate the power of good photos to allow a potential buyer to form a positive first impression about your home. These can actually help them in determining whether to prepare an offer for your home or to move on to the next property in the listings.
To bring the real estate transaction toward the first scenario, here are some tips:
1. Don’t over-edit your photos
Software tools like Photoshop can help to polish photos and make them more eye-catching. However, too much photo editing may do more harm than good. Some buyers will be keen enough to see through the modifications and suspect something amiss with the house’s actual look. Others may be wowed too much by the edits then get utterly disappointed when they see the house with their own eyes.
Realtors in Charlotte, North Carolina recommend that you should always aim for a natural look and feel when enhancing photos digitally, just enough to make them stand out and get noticed.
2. Avoid over-staging
Whether it’s an impressive flower arrangement or a designer coffee table, using props can elevate the presentation of your home. However, it’s important to select the right props carefully to ensure that these don’t “steal the limelight,” so to say, from the real star of your staging endeavor – your home.
Remember that buyers usually go over listing photos pretty quickly and may decide that there’s too much going on in a particular space. Know that less is definitely more when staging prior to taking photos. If you want to emphasize space, it may be better to trim down on room décor and/or furnishings.
3. Ask yourself what you’d like to see as a buyer
It’s helpful to put yourself in the buyer’s shoes and see your home in a new light. Let this thought guide you as you walk around the home and explore ways on how to bring out a room’s features that your ideal buyer will be most attracted to. Based on the profile of your ideal buyer, what do you think would this person like to see in your listing photos?
4. Declutter your home
Remember that the goal is to attract buyers and to show them what they could potentially do with the space. That would be difficult for the buyer to do if the house is heavily cluttered with personal or family memorabilia.
Make sure clutter is out of a camera’s viewfinder before snapping away. Dust off surfaces and vacuum floors to keep dust particles from appearing in shots.
If needed, clean out lighting fixtures as well to ensure that light shines unimpeded throughout a room.
5. Enlist the help of a professional realtor
Work with Valarie R. Brooks Real Estate for more pointers on how to create stunning photos for your home listing. Our team specializes in a number of North Carolina communities, such as Charlotte, Huntersville, Ballantyne, Highland Creek, and more.
If you’d like to speak to and meet with the team in person, call us at 704.488.5458 or send an email to Valarie(at)ValarieRBrooks(dotted)com.