I used to shoot photos of homes after I staged them, for the real estate agent to post on the Internet. Curious, I went to a home buying/selling chat space to poll recent home buyers about the role the Internet photos played on their experience. I asked:
(1) Did you tour homes with NO or very FEW Internet photos?
(2) Do you prefer photos or virtual tours?
(3) Close-ups: useful or annoying?
The answers have been grouped and edited for brevity (don’t miss the Additional Comments at the end, and an excellent TIP!):
Q. Did you tour homes with NO or very few Internet photos?
A. When there are no photos, I tend to believe that there is something to hide.
A. We’ll make our house-hunting trip in a couple of weeks, but we’ve looked at bunches on the Internet. Some photos make me leery of touring the house: one had half the photos of the yard and workshop, the rest were of the kitchen. Why are they hiding the rest of the house?
A. I found it curious when a listing said “beautiful kitchen” yet didn’t show it.
A. Only if I know the area, I may drive by and then decide.
A. I actually decided to look at the house I ended up buying because I was impressed by the picture of the finished garage.
A. I didn’t tour homes that lacked listing photos.
A. I want to see what the inside looks like before I waste my time. I’m not all that picky, but I have some “must haves”.
A. We appreciated a lot of pictures—the more the better. We were hesitant to look at a place that didn’t have many, and lack of any kitchen pictures was a definite red flag.
A. An empty bedroom picture is a waste. Okay, maybe it is reassuring to know the walls aren’t neon green, but as a buyer all you see are two beige walls.
Q. Do you prefer photos or virtual tours?
A. Virtual tours are too slow for me and are generally a waste of time. They don’t show anything better than what the still photos do, and they show rooms I am not interested in. I can speed over photos but not a virtual tour.
A. I prefer photos, at least half a dozen to determine whether I’d like to view the home in person. Virtual tours often look distorted, particularly when a camera is set in the middle of a room.
A. I prefer pictures that show proper room sizes. I HATE the wide-angle crap!
A. Still photos rather than the panoramas. I also check the aerial views.
A. I like a good picture of: the front and back of the house; pictures of the barn, workshop, pool, if any; kitchen; fireplace.
A. I like lots of pictures and only view the virtual tour if I’m very interested.
A. I want to see pictures even if the rooms aren’t good, like an outdated kitchen. We enjoy fixing up houses so a kitchen that needs some remodeling means a new kitchen is in my future!
Q. Close-ups: useful or annoying?
A. I don’t like close-ups without an additional full-room view.
A. Close-ups? Couldn’t care less. I prefer wide, establishing shots that give me an idea of room size and sight lines. I can’t think of anything I’d need a close-up of before viewing a house if the description covered major points.
A. Mostly annoying, but if the close-ups are of unique features, a distinctive built-in, or architectural details, they are helpful. Otherwise, I have wondered if the house had issues, or was so boring that all they had to show was this lame close-up.
A. The more pictures the better. Close-ups are fine.
A. Close-ups can be annoying if you have a long list of potential properties to get through with limited time and they’re interspersed with photos of key rooms. Like if you really just want to see the living areas, kitchen and bedrooms and back yard and the photo tour gets to the kitchen and there are close-ups of the faucet, backsplash, appliances, floor tile and lighting when you just want to see the dining area next and you have to keep clicking, it gets irritating. It’s fine if there are a lot of photos of a home, but it’s better if they’re “big picture” types of different views of the rooms.
Additional comments:
A. The homes we toured were suggested by our realtor. There was only one or two that I saw online beforehand.
A. I wish there was a way to identify the room when it’s empty…is this the LR, DR, BR, Master???
A. One thing I’d like to see is a floor plan. Sometimes photos don’t show how rooms are in relation to each other. A bad layout is a deal-breaker for me.
A. My pet peeve is a listing that doesn’t give a clue as to the location of the master bedroom (up or down?).
A. Photos can deceive. The single most important visual aid for me is the mapping tool [such as Google Earth]. An aerial or bird’s-eye will show me the proximity of a house to noxious elements and incurable defects, like big noisy highways, cell towers and train tracks, or being across the street from a commercial building with a big parking lot. These were automatic deal breakers for me, and I immediately disqualified these homes for consideration.
So, there you have it, straight from the Buyer’s Mouth. The bottom line: your photos are only as good as your subject. I get your home ready for the photos and walk-throughs. Schedule your appointment today!
As promised…
Cynthia’s Tip:
There’s usually a flow to the photos—front, interior, exterior. Often, a screened-in porch, outdoor kitchen or tricked-out garage ends up being photo number 16 or later. If the rest of the house is ordinary, a buyer might click out before seeing all of the photos, and miss the desirable space. It’s okay to go out of order: include the desirable space in the top five photos.
You might also like: Do Nicknamed Houses Sell?
Copyright © 2022 by Cynthia Gentry Black, Home Staging by Cynthia, LLC in Kansas City.
All rights reserved. No portion may be shared, reused or republished in any format without express written consent of the author.
