Twin Cities Real Estate: Why professional photography in real estate?

Is it important to have professional photography done when selling your home?

The online listing is both the first "showing" of your home and the "lasting impression" so the photos are crucial.

Ameture photo - dark, all garage

Professional photo - bright, balanced photo showing detail

Photography is not just an important element of real estate marketing; it’s fast becoming the most essential one. More than 92% of today’s house-hunters use the internet to research properties (according to Realtor.org), and these prospective buyers rank photography as the most important tool in searching for a home online. With so much information available online these days, you only have a few seconds to grab potential buyers’ attention.

Great photography can draw a buyer in. Bad photography can turn them away. A professional photographer has the skill to show a property at its very best.

When you put a home on the market, you’re competing against lots of other properties.
If those properties are highlighted with attractive, well-lit and well staged photos and yours isn’t, you’re going to have more trouble getting potential buyers in the door. This could cause your home to sit on the market longer than it would have otherwise — making what would be seen as a “fresh” property look stale.

A better-photographed home will sell faster because more people are enticed to visit the home and people know what they are getting before they even set foot in the home. The first impression is essential. If homebuyers aren’t sold on the images, they see online, chances are they will move on. It can also affect their perception of a home prior to seeing it. A good photograph will have a positive emotion associated with the home.

Emotion is the No. 1 trigger of the affluent buyer, so use it to your advantage. A good photo can speak not a thousand words, but a million words.

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