Here are 3 easy tips to making a small room look bigger…
1. Use the “3 Walls” Rule…
Including 3 walls in your composition helps show more dimension to a room by helping the viewer seem they are actually in the space. Compositions with only 2 walls also tend to focus on furniture. Remember you’re selling the space, not the dresser!
If you’re shooting a super small space (like a smaller bathroom) and you are unable to capture three walls due to the tight quarters, two walls are always better than one.
2. Try shooting at a slight angle….
When shooting at a slight angle to a room, the lines of the room help create visual depth to the room. This helps make the room look longer by adding perspective.
3. Use a Wide Angle Lens…
Wide Angle Lenses do just what they sound like they would.. they capture a wider view of the space. Wide angle lenses have been in Real Estate Photographer’s bag of tricks for a long time for this very reason.
Examples of using the 3 tips (the first photograph of each set is a shot not using the 3 tips, the second photograph applies the 3 tips)…
- This is an actual agent photo as seen on an MLS. Certainly not the worst photo we’ve seen, but it could use a little help. Though this appears as though it would be a little larger than the ‘typical’ bathroom, the way this is shot gives the feeling that the space might be a little tighter than it truly is.
VHT's professional photographers contacted the listing agent for the above property and re-photographed the same listing. As you can see, the wide angle lens helps a great deal in opening up the space, as does shooting at slightly more of an angle. If you look in the mirror you'll see that they've also captured part of the shower in the shot, opening things up even further. They've also made a point to capture part of the ceiling and a glimpse of the floor.
Here is another actual photo taken by an agent. Again, a very nice kitchen, far from being the smallest space we've seen. However, with the way this is shot, you get no feel for the size of the actual room...you're only seeing the cabinets and backsplash. Though those are nice, it would be even better to show them off while also showcasing the actual room itself.
Here again, VHT photographers contacted the listing agent and re-photographed the property. By capturing more walls and using a wide angle lens, they're able to showcase the entire room-- beautiful cabinets, backsplash, and now even appliances and floors included! They again also captured the ceiling, giving the room some height and really opening things up a bit.
This agent-shot bedroom appears small due to the focus on the large bed
By applying the three tips above, when VHT re-photographed the listing, the bedroom appears much larger
We realize the ‘every day’ listing will probably have much tighter spaces than the examples we’ve shown here, but by applying these 3 easy tips, you’re sure to give your listing a larger, more open feel that will be more attractive to potential buyers browsing online.
Every week we feature the good, the bad, and the ugly of real estate photography. This week we’re taking a look at how agents are showcasing the bedrooms within their listings.
Thank you to all of you who have been commenting on the photos— we love to hear your votes and comments on the worst of the worst and the best of the best! Have a great weekend!
WALL OF SHAME
- A Garfield comforter?! SOLD!! Apparently Garfield has selling strengths so powerful there’s no need to actually show the room
This Illinois home is listed for $359,000.
- Well that’s an interesting strategy… maybe if the picture is crooked enough, the room will magically appear larger…or maybe people will be so focused on the fact that it’s crooked, we won’t notice that we can’t see much of the actual room! This Michigan home is listed for $390,000.
Ok...standing OUTSIDE the room generally doesn't give you a great picture OF the room. And on top of that, to take it with the lights off (with very limited natural light)? Really? This $849,900 listing is located in Missouri.
Now it’s your turn to sound off! Leave a comment telling us which of these photos (top, center, or bottom) you think is the worst and why. We’ll tally up the votes and we’ll post the results of the worst ten photos of the month at the end of each month!
WALL OF FAME
Vibrant colors and a lovely view make this Florida property eye-catching. This property is listed for $569,000 by Sailfish Point Sotheby's International Realty. Click the photograph for more on this listing.
This Wisonsin listing gives a 'comforts of home' feeling in a beautiful tree-lined setting. It is listed for $875,000 by JoAnn Vetter of Coldwell Banker. Click on the photograph for more on this listing.
- This bright California home is listed for $1,550,000 by Erick Larson of Sotheby’s International Realty. Click on the photograph for more on this listing.
Sound off! Tell us which of these (top, center, or bottom) you think is the best photograph. We’ll tally up the votes and we’ll post the results of the top ten best photographs of the month at the end of each month!
Welcome to Week 7 of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly…Hope everyone had a fun Halloween weekend!
For any newcomers– Every week we feature the good, the bad, and the ugly of real estate photography. Our ‘Wall of Shame’ features the bad (…and oh yes, the very ugly…) photos that some agents are using for their listings. On the opposite end of the spectrum, our ‘Wall of Fame’ features some of the most stunning photography agents are using to market their listings.
WALL OF SHAME
Um...I don't think the house will bite...why not get just a tad bit closer-- would be nice to see more house than pavement! This home is listed for $350,000 in Indiana
What a nice door to showcase (seeing the actual room afterall is probably a little overrated, right? ;))... though we're not sure why it's been left open...perhaps people are in a hurry to leave when they view the house so we're making the exit easier?? This is a $490,000 listing in Connecticut
Unless this beautiful yellow lab comes with the house, probably best to focus on what people will actually get with their purchase! This was posted as a $228,000 home in Illinois.
Now it’s your turn to sound off! Leave a comment telling us which of these photos (top, center, or bottom) you think is the worst and why. We’ll tally up the votes and we’ll post the results of the worst ten photos of the month at the end of each month!
WALL OF FAME
This lovely home in Minnesota is listed for $599,900 by Deb Grimme with Edina Realty. Click on the photograph for more on this listing.
This gorgeous Wisconsin home is listed by JoAnn Vetter of Coldwell Banker for $719,000. Click on the photograph for more on this listing.
Complete with fantastic city views, this Chicago condo is listed for $299,900 by John Ketner of @Properties. Click on the photograph for more on this listing.
Sound off! Tell us which of these (top, center, or bottom) you think is the best photograph. We’ll tally up the votes and we’ll post the results for the top ten best photographs of the month at the end of each month!
For this week’s Halloween Feature we’re posting the Top 20 SCARIEST Real Estate Photos of the month! Last week we had said we would post the top 10 scariest…but there were just too many to choose from (which is scary in itself!) so we decided to go with the top 20 instead. The ‘top scariest’ are the kind of photos that make you stop and say, “Why?!” Why even take the picture…and worst yet, why actually post it when marketing a listing?? Prepare to be frightened!
We’ll be back to showcasing the good photography (along with the bad and ugly of course) next week. Have a safe and very Happy Halloween!!!
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Every week we’ll be featuring the good, the bad, and the ugly of real estate photography. Our ‘Wall of Shame’ features the bad (…and oh yes, the very ugly…) photos that some agents are using for their listings. On the opposite end of the spectrum, our ‘Wall of Fame’ features some of the most stunning photography agents are currently using to market their listings.
Be sure to also check back next week for our Halloween Feature… we’ll be posting the top 10 scariest photos of the month!
WALL OF SHAME
Um...nice trim, I guess??? Oh and look... there's a deck back there!! Probably not the best way to showcase the backyard of this $495,000 listing in West Virginia.
This was actually labeled "View from Living Room"... well, I guess you can make out part of the railing, a couple of trees, and some grass! This home is listed for $139,000 in Michigan.
Doing the dishes is important... getting a straight shot of one of the most important rooms of the house, without capturing the seller, is probably a little more important! This California home is listed for $628,000.
Now it’s your turn to sound off! Leave a comment telling us which one of these (top, center, or bottom) you think is the worst and why. We’ll tally up the votes and we’ll post the results of the worst ten photos of the month at the end of each month!
WALL OF FAME
This condo, complete with great view, is listed for $379,900 by Vikas Wadhwa of Urban Living Properties in Chicago, IL. Click on the photograph for more on this listing.
This cozy New York home is listed for $169,999 by David Nilsen of The Corcoran Group. Click on the photograph for more on this listing.
This lovely home in Minnesota is listed for $449,900 by Barry Strelow of Edina Realty. Click on the photograph for more on this listing.
Sound off! Tell us which of these (top, center, or bottom) you think is the best photograph. We’ll tally up the votes and we’ll post the results for the top ten best photographs of the month at the end of each month!
WALL OF SHAME
Doesn't this just scream $1.1million? No? Not so much? Oh but it is! This listing is located in California
I have seen the light and wow is it bright!! About as bright as that nifty pink door that's blocking part of the shot! This home is listed for $499,900 in Maryland
Looove the glowing thumb in the corner! Well...at least something was well lit in the photo...too bad it wasn't the kitchen! This home is listed for $650,640 in Connecticut
Now it’s your turn to sound off! Leave a comment telling us which one of these (top, center, or bottom) you think is the worst and why. We’ll tally up the votes and we’ll post the results of the worst ten photos of the month at the end of each month!
WALL OF FAME
This lovely home is listed by Fahada Saad of Coldwell Banker in Florida for $5,300,000. Click on the photograph for more on this listing.
This beautiful condo is listed for $799,000 by Francesca Rose of Prudential Rubloff Properties in Chicago, IL. Click on the photograph for more on this property.
This property is listed for $675,000 by Nicholls and Kindberg of Coldwell Banker in Wisconsin. Click on the photograph for more on this listing.
Sound off! Tell us which of these (top, center, or bottom) you think is the best photograph. We’ll tally up the votes and we’ll post the results for the top ten best photographs of the month at the end of each month!
Over the years, I’ve had the good fortune to work in many industries–Custom Software, Online Design / Marketing, Automotive, Travel, Insurance, Venture Capital–each with very unique customers, markets and factors for success. The time and effort to learn each industry is daunting, but I’ve honed a method to maximizing my understanding of how an industry operates in the shortest amount of time, I call it “follow the money”. In the Real Estate business, the money trail has led me to some truly interesting discoveries. There are some obvious observations, like the fact that the unique flow of funds between an agent and a seller is what keeps the commission structure intact. Sellers typically only pay agents when a house is sold, thus the seller has no risk capital ‘on the line’ unless a transaction actually takes place. This leads to agents being very conscious of the marketing dollars they spend, hoping to both keep the seller happy, and sell the home. There are however, much more interesting conclusions you can make if you truly follow the money. Today, I would like to share with you some of my research and observations, and get some feedback.
The Residential Real Estate Industry is fueled by loans taken out by buyers. So, to understand the Industry, we needed to understand the buyer. I was shocked to find how little research the industry has actually done on buyers. Yes, I found a plethora of buyer surveys (NAR’s is particularly good – here), segmentation analysis and Realtor anecdotes, but I wasn’t looking for attitudinal information, I was looking for true behavioral research. What is behavioral information you ask? There is an offshoot of product research often called ‘human factors’ that studies how people interact with products, services or information. Researchers in this field often have advanced degrees in anthropology, sociology and human/computer interface design. This research is usually very specific – make information, products, or services very easy to understand and use. This is one area in which many companies, especially technology startups, often fail. Their product or service holds the potential to change an industry, but if customers can’t figure out how to use it, they will never be successful. Even when most companies commit to doing some research, they will often do ‘attitudinal’ research. Attitudinal research is exactly what it sounds like; you are asking people’s opinions on a product, rather than watching how they behave with the product.
The problem is that what people tell you in a survey, conversation, or usability lab is rarely what they actually do in real life. Many companies have learned the hard way; investing millions of dollars in new concepts based upon numerous surveys on what consumers are willing to do, only to find when they finished, consumers don’t actually use the new product or service because it doesn’t fit into their behavioral pattern. This can be clearly seen online in Real Estate. The so called “search” capabilities of the major online buyer aggregation site are so bad relative to their peers in other industries, I can only assume they either don’t have a budget for human factors, or don’t know what it is. Bottom line, most buyers start the process of looking for homes with Google, as it’s search process is the easiest to understand and use.
Yes, I know…. This graph looks very confusing. Let me try and explain: The horizontal axis is time; the farther out you get on the horizontal axis, the longer a buyer has been looking for a property. The vertical axis is just a numerical number that represents two things.
With the Blue line, the vertical axis represents property attributes – specific physical characteristics unique to a property. So, the earlier in the process a buyer is, the less detail they seem to look at for each property.
With the Gold line, the vertical axis represents the number of properties they browse through. As you can see, buyers seem to scroll through less and less properties as they start to hone in on the right property as they get closer to doing showings and making purchase decisions.
I’ve broken down this behavior into what I think is four logical phases that a buyer seems to go through before finalizing a property purchase:
Browse –I like to call this the discovery phase of the process. A buyer will typically look at hundreds of properties to get a basic understanding of the market, and what is available. I’ve also referred to this part of the cycle as the ‘gathering’ phase. In this phase, as you can see, a buyer limits the number of property attributes they look at; they typically only care about 3 things:
- Location of property
- Price of property
- What it looks like
Buyers are inundating themselves with lots of properties to understand what they can expect given a price and location. One interesting note is how important the photo of the property seems to be in this phase – if a picture isn’t appealing, it will often be dropped out of the buyers list of potential properties to take to the next phase.
Search – Once a buyer gets a basic understanding of the market, they start to hone in on the key attributes of the property they believe are most important to them. They have shifted from gathering to hunting. They now have a basic idea of how much they want to spend, and may have started to focus on a specific geographic area. They are ‘making their list’. There is more detail on what ‘makes the list’, but we’ll get to that later.
Discriminate – This is typically when a buy side agent enters the picture. A customer has some properties they are interested in seeing, they may have even been to an open house or two. The number of property attributes they examine starts to increase geometrically, while the number of properties actually considered drops dramatically.
Buy – A buyer is deciding between 3 or fewer homes, all of which likely have they key property attributes which fit the buyer’s needs, are within the same geographic area, and are priced similarly. The process typically shifts from rational decision criteria, to more amorphous, often emotional feel of one property over another. Again, this is when a great agent, that has high emotional intelligence can connect a property with a family, and turn it into a home.
What does all of this mean? Well, for agents and brokerage firms, if you’re spending ANY money on marketing you should make sure you really understand these behaviors, or you are more than likely just throwing your money into the wind. In the coming weeks, I’ll try and provide more detailed information for each of these lifecycle stages, what buyers seem to be doing, and how a great Realtor or broker can best take advantage. In the meantime, I’d like to get some feedback! I’ve already seen really smart agents tend to ask customers questions to get an understanding of where a buyer is in the process, but is there anyone out there that already incorporates any of this into their business?
Thank you for all of your emails and social networking comments regarding our Wall of Shame/Wall of Fame pictures! A few have asked to see some Shame/Fame posts that are a little more ‘middle-ground’ in terms of the listing prices of the homes. Believe it or not, some of the Wall of Shame pictures HAVE been ‘middle-ground’ in regards to list price and sometimes have even been on the higher-end side, but you would never know it because the quality of the photograph is just THAT bad!
A couple of pictures have been low-income homes…but that leads to a couple of questions…
Is it ever a good idea, regardless of price point, to take and post pictures of garbage or dark corners/dark rooms that show absolutely nothing or pictures that are so fuzzy you can barely make out the shapes of things? Is it ever professional to take pictures solely of the family pet (which we have seen–see the Behind the Lens post on September 16th) or allow the sellers to stand in the shot or to be a part of the picture in mirrors or with an accidental thumb on the side of the photo?
For this week’s Wall of Shame and Wall of Fame, we have noted the listing price on all the photographs. Enjoy!
WALL OF SHAME
Nothing attracts high-end buyers like a dark dining room and a big cage acting as a 2nd table/room divider (is that a very large cat behind those books?)! This is an $870,000 listing in Illinois.
And on the other end of the spectrum... a dining room so bright you probably shouldn't look directly into it without protective eye wear. This is a $489,000 listing in Connecticut.
This home in Miami comes with a cute child who enjoys napping in his free time...and it is all yours for only $600,000!
Now it’s your turn to sound off! Leave a comment telling us which one of these (top, center, or bottom) you think is the worst and why. We’ll tally up the votes and we’ll post the results of the worst ten photos of the month at the end of each month!
WALL OF FAME
Agent for the above listing is Suzy Thomas of Prudential Rubloff in Chicago, IL. List price is $425,000 (click the photograph for more on this listing).
Agent for the above listing is Mimi Ryerse of Edina Realty in Minnesota. List price is $480,000 (click on the photograph for more on this listing).
Agent for the above listing is Louis Price of Coldwell Banker in Michigan. List price is $575,000 (click on the photograph for more on this listing).
Sound off! Tell us which one of these (top, center, or bottom) you think is the best photograph. We’ll tally up the votes and we’ll post the results for the top ten best photographs of the month at the end of each month!
Every week we’ll be featuring the good, the bad, and the ugly of real estate photography. Our ‘Wall of Shame’ features the bad (…and oh yes, the very ugly…) photos that some agents are using for their listings. On the opposite end of the spectrum, our ‘Wall of Fame’ features some of the most stunning photography agents are currently using to market their listings.
WALL OF SHAME
Step awaaay from the Photoshop! The above listing is in Chicago, IL
And with this lovely home you get a heaping pile of trash! Congratulations!! The above listing is in Washington D.C.
There are just no words for this one. The above listing is in Kansas City, MO
Now it’s your turn to sound off! Leave a comment telling us which one of these (top, center, or bottom) you think is the worst and why. We’ll tally up the votes and we’ll post the results of the worst ten photos of the month at the end of each month!
WALL OF FAME
Agent for the above listing is Sean Aikman of Sotheby's International Realty in Connecticut (click the photograph for more on this listing)
Agent for the above listing is Manley Stockton of Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate in Georgia (click the photograph for more on this listing)
This home is listed by Sailfish Point/Sotheby's International Realty in Florida (click photograph for more on this listing)
Sound off! Tell us which one of these (top, center, or bottom) you think is the best photograph. We’ll tally up the votes and we’ll post the results for the top ten best photographs of the month at the end of each month!
Every week we’ll be featuring the good, the bad, and the ugly of real estate photography. Our ‘Wall of Shame’ features the bad (…and oh yes, the very ugly…) photos that some agents are using for their listings. On the opposite end of the spectrum, our ‘Wall of Fame’ features some of the most stunning photography agents are currently using to market their listings.
WALL OF SHAME
Yikes! That is the stuff nightmares are made of.
The above listing is in New York
No worries… you can sit there and pay the bills, I’ll just shoot around you.
The above listing is in Florida
What year was that even taken? And is that a ‘cow skin’ rug by the table??
The above listing is in Florida
Now it’s your turn to sound off! Leave a comment telling us which one of these (top, center, or bottom) you think is the worst and why. We’ll tally up the votes and we’ll post the results of the worst ten photos of the month at the end of each month!
WALL OF FAME
Agent for the above listing is Margaret Baczkowski of @Properties in Chicago, IL.
Agent for the above listing is Takuma Kondo of Keller Williams in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Agent for the above listing is Mark Grieger of Coldwell Banker. Listing is located in Greenwood, Minnesota.
Sound off! Tell us which one of these (top, center, or bottom) you think is the best photograph. We’ll tally up the votes and we’ll post the results for the top ten best photographs of the month at the end of each month!
