Tag: Preparing your home for photography

 

 

There are a lot of pieces that go into selling a home.  One important piece is making sure it is visually pleasing to the prospective buyer.  Here is a video I recently came across from White Orchid, which is a home staging company, that has some great ideas:

In this video the home staging business owner John Matthews shares a lot of great information.  One thing he said that really stood out was:

This quote really encompasses what every home seller wants to hear.  If you’ve already scheduled a real estate photographer to come photograph your home then that’s awesome!  Having high quality photography will really make a difference when selling your home.

However, making sure the home is staged correctly is another important factor since a professional photographed home that is not presented well will not provide the same results.

To really emphasize this point John says:

Here is an example of this in action:

Let’s pretend there are two houses on the same street, one is owned by the Jones family and the other is owned by the Sullivan family.  These homes are the same square feet with three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

The Jones family is pretty neat, although they do have two young children and a little bit of clutter around the house.  The realtor they hired does their own photos so the images are slightly dark inside, the colors aren’t quite right, and they appear to have been done quickly.

The Sullivan family also has to children but their realtor encouraged them to hire a home staging company to prepare their home.  The staging company used a combination of the Sullivan’s furniture and some special pieces that they brought in.  The realtor then hired a professional photographer who created beautifully lit photos and even included a twilight photo to really showcase the home.

Now both of these homes are on the market which the same sale price.

Which one do you think is going to attract the most interest from potential buyers?  

Clearly the Sullivan home is going to sell faster and likely for more money.

Home staging tips for selling a home:

Of course the most ideal situation would be to hire a professional staging company but if that is not possible there are a lot of ideas of things you can do yourself.  Here are a few tips from professional home stager Tori Toth:

Tori made several suggestions including:

1. Declutter
2. Pack away items you don’t use regularly
3. Clean up from top to bottom so it shines
4. Take care of any small repair projects before listing your home
5. Paint
6. Rearrange some furniture to maximize your square footage
7. Spruce up the front yard to give your home some more curb appeal

We have also put together a great property prep list that home owners can use to get their home ready for a photographer.  You can download this checklist here.