Real estate photographer – do you really need them?

Real estate photographer, a professional real estate photographer – why in the world do you need them?

Sure, you can save a few hundred dollars by taking the photos yourself, why not? It wasn’t long ago the DIY photos were the norm. But today you can no longer get away with doing the photography yourself approach.

So what’s changed in recent years?

It basically comes down to the exposure (no pun intended) that today’s buyers have had to high-quality photos online. They’re used to scrolling through their Facebook newsfeed and seeing great images and video, they look at their favorite Instagrammers and their YouTubers, and all they see are great photos and videos of food, kittens, people and houses.

In other words, today’s buyers are now much better educated on image quality than they used to be. Keep in mind, today more pictures are taken than any time before. So when they go to their local website to see what homes are currently for sale in their area they want to be impressed. They don’t bother clicking on the poorly presented home, or the bad photo, unless they are looking for a bargain. Instead, the buyers will quickly scroll through the images, and just like a Tinder user, they’ll ‘swipe right’ on the houses that get their attention, and they’ll ‘swipe left’ on the homes that look bland.

There’s an app called Doorsteps Swipe that works just like this, where homes are swiped right or left based on that main photo.

So when you put your home on the market today it’s so important that you make a really positive first impression. In fact, according to a study by Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, it takes less than 50 milliseconds to form a first impression, and that’s going to be largely dictated by the visual elements the viewer sees, not the written elements since they don’t have time to read that much in just a fraction of a second.

Remember in the old days, that first impression used to come from an actual visit to the home, but these days it’s the photos, the 3D tour where the buyer can move around the entire home, and the video tour.