There was a time when you or your real estate agent would snap a few quick listing photos with a cheap disposable camera, and that was good enough. But not anymore, thanks chiefly to the Internet. Buyers shopping for homes today has become its own version of “online dating” & the very first place most buyers will see your home is online. First impressions matter! With nearly 90% of prospective buyers shopping online, quality photos of your home matter & you will certainly be competing against homes with professional listing photos. Listing photos impact the sale of your Kansas City home in several key areas: whether it sells at all, how quickly it sells, and the selling price.
General Observations About Listing Photos
According to the National Association of Realtors, 89% of buyers who searched for homes online reported photos as the most useful feature on the listing sites they visited. But those listing photos absolutely must be top quality. So if you don’t use a professional photographer (which we advise for almost all cases) and take the photos yourself, then you at least need to make sure it’s DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) photography. Most of the home owners we work with who are downsizing in Kansas City want to maximize the profits on the sale of their home. For this reason and years of experience, we only utilize professional photographers who specialize in compliant real estate photography. Our go-to photographers take real estate photos every day and you can tell. Their work reflects it. We also have had home sellers who wanted to have their family member portrait photographer take their listing photographs. It’s just not the same (believe us, we’ve tried!) – we love portrait photographers & let them stick to what they know best.
Across all price levels, sellers who use DLSR listing photos are far likelier to sell their homes within 6 months than those who use point-and-shoot or cell phone photos. For example, 64% of homes in the $4000,000-$500,000 range sell in less than 6 months with DLSR photos, but only 46% of homes with point-and-shoot photos sell within that six-month period. For high-end, luxury homes in the $1,000,000+ range, those percentages work out to 35% and 30%.
In addition, with the evolution in digital photography equipment and the rise of more sophisticated online platforms, virtual tours have become increasingly important as a selling tool. Simply put, virtual reality and virtual tours allow realtors to better serve their clients or out of town buyers. Digital images are perfect for a quick, professional showcasing of a home’s features, and virtual tours are great for buyers searching for homes long distance.
So, then, if you want a quicker sale, it pays to pay for professional DSLR listing photos. When you are planning to downsize in Kansas City and work with us to sell your home, we coordinate, orchestrate and hire professional real estate photographers to capture your home as part of our marketing package covered by us.
Listing Photos for a Quicker Sale
As a general rule, professionally photographed homes are more likely to sell, more likely to sell at a better price, and will usually sell more quickly. As we mentioned, because most buyers begin their home search online, this is now an imperative part of the home buying process. Homes with quality online listing photos generally sell faster. The photos get buyers to visit the home because they have a fairly good idea of what the home is like beforehand.
Here’s some statistical proof regarding the quicker sale of homes with quality photos as against those with poor photos:
- $400,000 homes sell three weeks sooner
- $1,000,000 homes sell four days faster
Quality Listing Photos for More Money
It’s a given that listing photos impact the sale of your Kansas City area home & beyond, and sharp photos have the greatest impact. The necessary sharpness is achieved through the use of a professional camera with a good lens, proper lighting, and an experienced real estate photographer. None of these elements can be neglected for impactful listing photos.
Whether you’re photographing a living room or the front yard, the sharpest photos get the best results. According to one relevant real estate study, homes with the sharpest photos (in the top 10%) sold at or above the list price 44% of the time. And homes with photos of just average sharpness sold at or above list price only 13% of the time.
So do your listing photos impact the sale of your Kansas City home? You bet they do. Quality photos can help you sell it faster and at a better price. But you still have to know what to do with those clear, sharp photos once you have them. You have to know the best online venues where they will have the most sales impact.
