New Camera and Staging Homes to Sell

I’ve been operating with this really old clunky digital camera for the last 5-6 years. It’s a Kodak easyshare with an incredible 3.2 mega pixels. I used it a ton for my former profession as a commercial property inspector.  It actually took a pretty decent picture, and the file sizes were so small it made uploading pictures to the internet a breeze…..

but lately I’ve been looking at some MLS listings and noticed how nice and crisp the photos were looking of agents who were using newer cameras…. and I started to get a little picture envy. So I went out and picked up the latest and greatest Kodak Easyshare from Wal-Mart. This camera has 14 Mega Pixels and a 4x wide lens that really fits the whole room into each picture.

I am really picky about the photos we use for our finished rehabs…. I usually will take about 50-60 photos of each house and then pick the best 15-20 to use for all the online pictures.

I think your pictures are one of the most important parts of selling your house. With pretty much every buyer nowadays looking at properties online, you’ve got to have amazing pictures to really draw the buyers interest. Nothing baffles me more than when an agent uses dark, fuzzy off center photos in a property listing…. I just don’t know what they are thinking!!!!

OK…. back to my new camera…… I’ve got to say that I’m really impressed with the photos this camera is taking. It’s a really cheap camera from WalMart but the pictures look like a million bucks.

Here are some recent photos I took of some of our staged homes:

Staged Home For Sale Springfield MA

Staged House for Sale

Home Staging

Dining Room Staged

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Wow…. those are some incredible looking photos!!!!

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Now if you’re still holding onto your old camera, like I was, check out the difference between the two.

Living Room pic with Old Camera

Living Room Pic with New Camera

The new camera is really wide and it fits in so much more of each room. It also makes every photo really bright… even when there is not too much light, which is what you want!!!! Nobody likes looking at dark pictures!!

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So that brings me to my next point; staging. I’m really digging the way our homes are looking fully staged. I think we’re gonna try to stage every house like this. They come out looking incredible and the staging just accentuates how awesome our rehabbed homes are!!!!

When you put together the new camera and the staged homes, our pictures are looking killer, and thats what sells houses!!

Staged Master Bedroom

Staged Home for Sale

Staged Living Room

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Ok, time for one more comparison…. check out the staged pictures vs. the unstaged pictures:

Unstaged Living Room/Dining Area

Staged Living Room/Dining Area

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So there you have it….. if that’s not enough incentive for you to upgrade from your old 2.0 Mega Pixel camera and maybe start fully staging your rehabbed homes, I don’t know what is!!

 

And now time for the most important lesson from this Blog post………. Your pictures are incredibly important!!!!!! so Don’t Screw them Up!!!!  🙂

 

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Comments

  1. Pictures are important but equally important is what you are getting in or keeping out of the picture. Getting the right pictures at the right angle really makes a difference. Some people just snap pictures without much thought. Then they realize after that the tree limb blocked the roof or they left the toilet seat up. Leaving the seat up is one of my BIGGEST annoyances. No one wants to see that.
    Anyway, I know that you are not afraid to get in the middle of the road and crouch way down or stand on a chair to get the right pictures. So my added advice is to get a good camera and give yourself a little more time to get the right pictures.
    Enjoy the weekend!
    Dominic Kirchner II
    Hampden Homebuyers #1

  2. Nice work, Matt!

    The place looks spectacular.

    Danny

  3. James Walsh says

    WOW. Nice pictures, Matt. I guess that’s the incentive I need to go pick up a wide lense camera and stop using the camera on my droid for our listing photos.

    • Jim,

      The droid actually takes pretty decent pictures….. but for something as important as your listing photos I would use a real digital camera.

      A good one is super cheap, stop by WalMart and check them out.

  4. Dennis Gross says

    I agree 100%—–poor, or no pictures, really affect the initial impression of the home. When working with buyers, they often will skip over a home w/o pictures. Unfortunately~~for the seller~~it could be exactly what the buyer wanted to purchase. For what little effort it takes to shoot pics and load them onto a MLS listing, Craigslist, etc, the payback is tremendous. Staging, as you do, makes them pop !! Keep stroking.

    • Very true Dennis.

      When I see a listing with no interior photos I just assume that the inside needs work, that’s why there are no photos…. even if it’s not the case.

      Thanks for the comments!!

  5. Wow, what a difference. Pictures look great! Been thinking of getting a new wide lens camera for a while … You just pushed me over the edge … Thanks!

    • Go for it Russ!!!

      A good camera is really cheap nowadays, check out Walmart. You can pick up a really nice camera for around $100.00.

  6. Kudos! As you know, you only get one ‘shot’ at a first impression….

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