Real estate photography

They say picture is worth a thousand words. What if a picture was worth a thousand dollars? Enter the realm of professional real estate photography. Every agent knows that having photos with a listing will help command a higher price, and sell the home faster.

What a number of real estate professionals don't realize is exactly how much value professional photographs can add to a listing. According to Redfin, listings with professional photos can add between $2400 and $116,000. They even put together this handy little graph to illustrate the whole thing.

Redfin also, mistakenly, attributes the added value to DSLR photography, as opposed to professional photography in general. While we do carry around, like, a billion dollars in equipment, it is not the equipment that makes a photo. It's the photographer. Consider the following:

The above two photos were taken with the same camera seconds apart from one another. Everyone can afford a DSLR these days. Most people can even afford the time it takes to learn to use it. But, pressing the shutter release is the easy part. What most people can't do is invest the time, money, and effort to choose the correct lens for the subject, develop compositional skills, and determine what's required to post-process the image.

Hiring a professional doesn't just save the agent's time. It provides higher returns, and higher-end clientele. Listings shot by professionals have, on average, 61% more page views, as well as a 47% higher asking price. It can prove to the client that the agent is really marketing a home, instead of just running through the motions to get yet another house to market.