Real Estate Property Marketing Plan To Sell Your Oklahoma City Home — Part 6, Photography

This is the sixth post in the series “Real Estate Property Marketing Plan To Sell Your Oklahoma City Home”.

From our comprehensive marketing plan:

5. High quality, professional photography for marketing. The language of real estate is photography. We are strong believers that property images are one of the most critical items in real estate marketing. 88% of buyers search online for their new home and the photos are what attract them. Bill has studied real estate photography extensively, owns professional gear and has graduated from the Photography For Real Estate workshop in Denver CO. Please compare the difference of professional real estate photography to what the typical agent provides with a point-and-shoot camera.

Today’s post hits my passion — real estate photography. As you will see as we progress through this marketing plan, a lot of emphasis is placed on online advertising of your home. What speaks louder about your home online (and in print) that great, professional quality photographs. If you shop online every product you see has great photography – except homes! And homes are generally the most expensive items you’ll find online.

I take a great deal of pride in my real estate photos. I’ve always had photography as a hobby, but within the last couple of years decided I really wanted to improve my real estate photos. So, I’ve been studying and following the Photography for Real Estate Group on Flickr. Perhaps the best thing I’ve done is attend the Interiors Lighting Workshop hosted by Scott Hargis and Thomas Grubba in Denver last summer. That was a great experience to work with a number of professional real estate photographers. The bottom line is I don’t use a point-and-shoot camera and run through a house shooting snapshots. I normally spend about 2 hours photographing a home and at least another 2 hours processing the photos in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. Here’s a slideshow of photos of some of my current listings:

Today’s MLS stats: 9,025 active listings. 529 (6%) don’t have a photograph. Another 944 (11%) have only 1 photo. 4,232 (47%)  have the limit of 12 photographs. Only 1,700 (19%) offer a virtual tour. 16 homes over $500,000 and 4 over $1 million don’t have a photo. Are you kidding me????? I can’t believe a seller would stand for that.

Last year I read a great blog post by Frank Borges of FranklyRealty.com titled “Buyers! Don’t Skip Photoless Listings. Save $15,000”. In it he asserts that listings with all the photos allowed sell for more money and in less time. In fact, their average $400,000 house sold for $15,000 (3.8%) less than one without photos. I ran the numbers for the Oklahoma City MLS to see how we compared. Our average listing without photos sold for just over 3% less and took 4 weeks longer to sell than a listing with all allowed 12 photos.

Then there’s the subject of bad MLS photos. There are a number of blogs dedicated the bad photos from the MLS. I thought about doing one for awhile but decided I didn’t want to offend anyone. One of my favorites is from Norm Fisher and his “Unbelievably Bad Real Estate Photos Hall of Fame” (click and enjoy!). I find it hilarious! Also, here’s a funny YouTube video:

People frequently ask what I shoot with. I use the Nikon D700 and their 3 top zoom lenses: 14-24mm f2.8/24-70mm f2.8/70-200mm f2.8. I have 6 off-camera flashes: Nikon SB-600’s and SB-800’s. I also use a Canon G-10 with a 16’ painters pole for elevated shots. And, as I mentioned, I process with Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop.

Sellers – don’t accept ‘no photography’ or bad photography. It’s far too important!

Series Index

Part 1 – Introduction
Part 2 – Pricing
Part 3 – Staging
Part 4 – Pre-inspection
Part 5 – Repair/Paint/Clean
Part 6 – Photography
Part 7 – Room Dimensions
Part 8 – Neighborhood Photos
Part 9 – Video
Part 10 – Single-Property Website
Part 11 – MLS
Part 12 – Listing Syndication
Part 13 – Virtual Tour
Part 14 – Property Flyers
Part 15 – Sign & Lockbox
Part 16 – Online Classifieds
Part 17 – Property Blog Post
Part 18 – Featured Listing Websites
Part 19 – YouTube
Part 20 – Trulia Pro
Part 21 – Facebook
Part 22 – Twitter
Part 23 – Open House
Part 24 – Direct Mail
Part 25 – Market Update