The Bad
I would say that there is no one single thing that can ruin your chances at a prospective buyer than having terrible real estate photos. I can say as real estate broker, and professional photographer, that I cringe at how bad some of the photos can be. I step into the shoes of a buyer when looking at properties, and when I see bad pictures it doesn't make me want to visit that home. So why would you think anyone else would bother going if your pictures don't look inviting?
These pictures will be publicized all over the Internet including websites like Zillow, Trulia, and Redfin just to name a few. In fact, the pictures that your real estate agent provides the multiple listing service is what will be broadcast to the world. Let that sink in for a minute.
What makes a bad picture? Perhaps it is lighting. Perhaps it is composition. Perhaps it is a terrible understanding of photographic principles. Perhaps it is orientation. Any one of these things or any combination of these can ruin your photography.
My ultimate favorite is when I see a car side mirror in the picture. Are you selling real estate or are you selling your car? Or even better, when the lighting is so bad that you can't tell what is what.
Below are a few egregious examples.
Above we see an example of bad lighting and bad composition. The photographer could have waited until the golden hour to take this shot. He also could have composed it better. You almost have merging on the right hand side. All in all, this is a terrible picture. Who would want to come and preview your property? No one that is who.
I can also tell you that this picture wasn't taken with a DSLR. This was taken with a simple point a shoot camera. A seller is paying big bucks to have their home sold by a professional real estate agent. If the seller wanted inferior pictures, he might as well do it with his iPhone.
Below is another terrible picture. There are so many cars in the driveway it's difficult to even see the house.Put yourself in a buyers shoes, would you want to go preview this house? I mean how many people live there? Is it safe?
Why You Need Professional Pictures
The Good
Now that we have gotten what it is to have a bad real estate picture we will focus on what makes a great real estate picture.
The first thing that you'll need is to have a full-frame DSLR camera. This will capture the most amount of real estate possible. It also will give you a bigger file that way you can tweek the image. Just a little bit goes a long way.
The image above was captured with Canon 5d Mark iii. This picture came out beautifully. The composition is right on the money with tact sharpness.
I would also like to point out that the photograph is not overly processed. This creates a real world representation of the home. I hate when pictures have an over processed sky. Is the sky really purple and orange like that? I didn't think so.
Can you tell that the sky is polarized in a terrible way? The sky usually never ( at least I've never seen it ) that way in real life.
Conclusion
It is my professional opinion that having good photos of your home will bring you more money. And who doesn't want more money? Also, having bad pictures tends to delays buyers from coming in. Think about it like this. If you're a serious buyer, you're going to want to check out the houses that have nice pictures. If all else fails then you'll take a look at every thing else on the market.
If you hire an agent that doesn't use a professional photographer, get yourself another agent. Because if they skimp on the photography, which is not that expensive by the way, then were else will they be skimping?
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