How To Get Buyers Swooning Over Your Home’s Pictures

If you’ve ever looked at real estate listings online, you know how important those pictures are for creating a great first impression. Buyers often look at a home’s pictures online as the first step in their search. They tend to gravitate to the listings that are well presented, staged and have great photos and tend to scroll past the ones that seem overly-cluttered or have lackluster photos.

If you want your home to look pretty and captivating to buyers, it’s very important to invest some time to bring it to it’s full potential before the photographer comes out, and your home make it’s debut on the market!

A few hours of cleaning, arranging, and decluttering can help your home’s photos come out beautiful and appealing for an attractive real estate listing that buyers are sure to notice and a faster sale! I promise, it will be worth it in the end!

How to Prepare Your Home:

Overall Tips in Preparing your Home for Photography

• Make sure that at the time of the photo shoot, there are no vehicles in the driveway or in the street in front of your home. The front of your home is very important when photos are being taken.
• Remove any large pieces of furniture in small rooms. Sometimes a large couch in a small room can hurt the photo and make the room feel smaller than it is.
• Turn on all the lights in the home and replace and lightbulbs that are out.
• Clean windows, shower doors, mirrors and anything else that shows the dirt on it.
• Open window treatments and tie them back if needed.
• Turn all ceiling fans, TV’s and computer screens off.

Kitchen

• Remove magnets and other items on refrigerator doors, sides and tops.
• Clear off the kitchen counter and de-clutter any surfaces.
• Clean appliances and keep the sink empty and clean.
• Bowls of fresh fruit or colorful centerpieces on the counter are a nice touch.

Dining Room

• Remove any clutter, dust and clean.
• It is a nice touch if you want to set the table with place settings, plates, wine glasses – make it look like you’re going to have a dinner party.

Main Rooms

• Declutter as much as possible.
• Removal all unnecessary furniture and decor.
• Take down personal wall hangings and family portraits – it makes it easier for buyers to imagine it being their home when they aren’t seeing your personal items.
• Leave a few non-personal pieces of artwork if possible, such as a landscape painting.
• Clear up any wires or cords if possible, behind the TV, stereo or electronics.
• Put away children’s or animal’s toys.
• Define the spaces – make them what they should be and decorate them accordingly. (I.E, if a formal dining room that is being used as a play room.)

Bathrooms

• Clean shower inside and out.
• Place your best towels on the rack.
• Remove any soap/shampoo/conditioner bottles from the shower and sink.
• Clean toilet and put seat down.
• Remove any hanging door racks.

Bedrooms

• Make up all the beds with your best linens.
• Pick up any clothes or misc. items on the floor.
• Clear all night stands and dressers, surfaces should be as bare as possible with the exception of a decorative item or plant.

Outside Areas

• Pickup and organize garden hoses, tools, children’s toys, basketball nets.
• Bring in anything that does not ordinarily belong outside.
• Open up patio umbrellas.

Extra things to consider

• Replace dead plants.
• To make things easier on the photographer, try to have pets contained during the photo shoot.
• Clean pools of debris.
• Paint outside trim if necessary. Consider adding a coat of paint or stain to the deck if it’s needed.
• Pressure wash the siding if necessary.

I know this seem like a lot, but I promise, it will be worth it in the end! When you’re ready to sell your home, i’d be happy to walk through it with you to help determine if there’s anything else that can be done that will make a big impact on your home’s marketing, and your bottom line. Simply shoot me an email, even if you’re still a ways out from being ready!