6 Photography Secrets to Make Your Home Stand Out

When listing your home online to sell, the right photos can make a big difference in attracting buyers interested in your property. Here are six photography secrets to making your El Dorado County real estate stand out from the other listings on the market.

One of the most important things you can do is stage your home before taking pictures. When staging the exterior of your home, maintain landscaping by trimming trees, mowing lawns, and sweeping off driveways and walkways. If your home is dirty from bad weather, power wash the walls to make them look new. Also, take down any loud or potentially controversial décor that would deter buyers from considering the home.

For the inside of your home, start with a deep clean, especially of reflective surfaces like glass or metal. Depersonalize by taking down family photos and eccentric or accent decorations to appeal to as many buyers as possible. Then stage your home, particularly the kitchen, living room, and master bedroom, in a way that highlights your home’s positives.

When photographing your El Dorado County real estate, think about how the lighting affects the photos. Generally, buyers are looking for a light and bright house, so you’ll want to wait for good weather before taking any pictures. For photos of the outside of your home, make sure the sun is directly in front of the house, as this sets you up to have the best contrast in a photo.

For the inside of your home, try to balance natural and artificial light. You don’t want a home’s inside to look darker than its outside, as it will appear worse to buyers. Try not to shoot towards uncovered windows, and experiment with which blind and curtain combination makes the best shot. Although you can use artificial light to highlight certain features of the room, artificial light also makes photos more difficult to develop.

Photographing the interior of your home can be trickier than the exterior, as there are several more rooms and angles to consider. When photographing the exterior of your home, one of the main concerns is the position of the sun. However, you should also think about keeping the horizon line level in the shot unless you’re trying out a more inventive angle to capture the property better. Also, focus on exterior details like the pool, fire pit, or architectural designs to capture a good shot.

When you’re taking pictures of the interior of El Dorado County real estate, make sure to take photos from an angle to best capture the room’s size and highlights. Instead of shooting a photo from the doorway, try kneeling in a corner and angling your camera up towards the rest of the house. Take photos in the morning, afternoon, and evening to judge what type of natural light best accentuates the room. Also, include the room’s floor to complete the shot.

Shooting a photo at the correct angle helps buyers looking for El Dorado County real estate to imagine what the home is like without having to drive to it and see it in person. For exterior pictures, you may want to take pictures using a drone to capture the home’s full scale. For the inside, take photos that show off a room’s depth and space, as buyers are interested in spacious areas that they can design themselves.

Just because it’s more typical to take pictures that make your home look large doesn’t mean capturing some close-ups is out of the equation. Although you shouldn’t take too many, if there’s a feature of your house you want to be sure buyers see, like a backsplash or an architectural design, then showcase it with a close-up photo.

It’s definitely possible to photograph your home yourself, but hiring a professional photographer can help your home pictures truly stand out from the rest. Professional photographers have the experience to know what angles will work for a room, how to prepare a room to take the best photos, and what equipment to use to capture those shots. You may not have the time or energy to learn effective photography skills while staying on schedule with selling your home, which is why hiring a photographer can be a good choice.

Not only will a professional photographer have the experience to take a good photo, but they’ll have the correct software and skills to edit the photo, so it looks its best online. Having a poorly edited photo that’s oversaturated or doesn’t have enough contrast can ruin a well-taken photo. Buyers will also notice when a photo is and isn’t professionally taken and often lean towards the former.

Overall, it’s important that the photos you take intrigue the buyer by telling them a story about the house. The pictures you take should facilitate a buyer’s vision of how they can form their lifestyle into the space. Organize your photos in naturally sequential order, as if buyers were walking through the home themselves. Staging a home helps with this, too, as an inviting living room or a comfortable-looking bedroom can increase buyer intrigue.

Although you want to build a story through the photos you take, you should stick to what the property can actually offer its future residents. Use current photos, and don’t overdo it with post-production. Photos are a way of getting a buyer into a door to make an offer, and if the photos don’t look like your property, a buyer isn’t going to be interested in the house.

With these six tips in mind, you’re ready to take photos of your home that will stand out on the market. When you’re ready to begin selling your home, contact local agent Kristen Haus to guide you through the process.