6 Reasons Professional Real Estate Photos are Important

It should come as no surprise that photographs are a critical part of real estate marketing.

Now that every home on the market is accessible with just a few clicks of the mouse it's more important than ever to show a house in its best light - first impressions are everything in real estate.

Smart, focused real estate brokers understand the importance of using a professional photographer to highlight a home's best assets and minimize its flaws and there are lots of statistics to back up the value that comes from marketing a home using professional photos. Here are just a few of the ones we think are the most eye-opening:

• Studies show that online listing with professional photographs gets up to 139% more click-throughs than similar homes using amateur photographs.

• Online buyers say photographs are the #1 thing they want to see when they're looking for homes online and almost 100% of these buyers say photos are either "very useful" or "somewhat useful."

• Participants in studies pitting professionally-photographed homes against similar, non-pro photographed homes say the professionally done homes are worth almost 13% more (though in reality, there's no significant difference.)

• In those same studies, participants respond that they're over 7 times more likely to visit the homes with professional photographs than those without.

• Homes listed for $300,000 and up are statistically more likely to sell when marketed with SLR photos (as opposed to point-and-shoot photography.)

• Various reports say that professionally-photographed homes sell between 2 and 4 times faster than homes without professional photos.

Still not convinced? Take a look at the examples below of homes photographed using inferior cameras (i.e. cell phone cameras, point-and-shoot cameras) juxtaposed against their professional counterpoints:

The good news is, there are real estate firms out there who include professional photography with every listing they take on. That's just smart business! Before you choose a real estate firm to list your home, consider what kind of value you're looking for and what's important to you. We think professional photography should be on that list.