Doing Your Own House-Selling Photos

[Ross365]

Briefly, I have reasons for wanting to take my own pictures for a house sale. Has anyone done this and how hard is it to do?
I have a Nikon D70 camera, and various sites on the web say you need a wide angle lens of this or that specification, which I'll need to acquire.

My house was built in the 1960's and is quite small but on a biggish plot; I'm pretty certain that it will sell to people who will gut it completely and extend it (it's the only house on the street which hasn't been extended). So being able to see the quality of the brush stokes on the paint in the 3rd bedroom won't be critical, I think they'll be looking more at the floor plan and the plot layout.
Any thoughts welcomed.

 

[selectedgrub]

Drones and telescopic van mounted aerials are popular for indication of the boundary lines and positioning of the house on the land.

 

[skotl]

I took my own pics with a D40 and a 28mm lens when we sold the last house in 2011. Came out great, even if I do say so myself!

Don't go too wide or you'll defeat the purpose with distorted walls at the edges.

 

[gaz1]

i have pmed you with a link to a direct sales advert

take a look at it and observe how an estate agent does it

 

[Ross365]

Thanks for those comments. For the plot, I've got a picture taken from a small plane some years ago.
@skotl I take it that was a fixed lens; it's easy to get the impression you must have a zoom.

Thanks for the pics of the house being sold; I guess a pro may always get best results, but I'd be happy with adequate results .

 

[frank horton]

ross
it's a sellers market but if u want to get top prices get good photo's.....
regardless if it's gonna get redeveloped.....
hardest job is to get noticed and bodies thru the door......
I'm looking to buy a 3 bedder in the Uk for investment purp....and u wanna see the crap out there....
even the estate agents are gen hopeless.....
we sold our 7 bedder via ebay believe it or not......

good luck....

 

[voipio]

A decent wide angle lens is a must, so 20-24mm focal length, if using a camera with a full frame sensor, and 18-20mm ish on cameras with smaller image sensors.

See this article, for example:

The Best Lens for House Photography in 2020

Short blog answering what's the best lens for house photography? Including analysis of Canon, Nikon, Tamron and Sigma wide angle lenses.

www.focalagent.com

We had an estate agent taking photos recently, and they were using wide angle lens, tripod, and bracketing exposures for creating high dynamic range images, and for flattening out the dark and light areas in post-processing. Image quality is everything. Lighting matters, too. It usually helps to have all the lights on.

Decent software will help. Look at the HDR Image Creation section, in the link below, to see what I mean. Generally, the "premium" high end houses get this treatment, but even a less well appointed house will benefit.

Luminar Neo - Easy Photo Editor | Software for Mac & PC

Download Luminar Neo - photo editing software for PC and Mac! Simple photo editor with AI that helps edit your photos as you imagine it in your eyes

photolemur.com

 

[slim_boy_fat]

Use a tripod where at all possible, and take many more than you think necessary - then you can choose those which show the various rooms to their best advantage.

Consider what time of day is best for natural light and turn on table lamps etc to avoid dark/dull areas. If you have an open fire or log burner think about lighting it (yes, I know it's Summertime....).

Good luck.

 

[skotl]

Thanks for those comments. For the plot, I've got a picture taken from a small plane some years ago.
@skotl I take it that was a fixed lens; it's easy to get the impression you must have a zoom.

Thanks for the pics of the house being sold; I guess a pro may always get best results, but I'd be happy with adequate results .

Yep - fixed length. I also had a 20mm but ended up having to crop the edges because of the fisheye on the walls.
unlike the great outdoors most houses have straight walls so it’s more pronounced!
If you’re going to buy a lens specific for the job get a 10/14 to 28 zoom - that way you can try it out yourself and go with what works best.

 

[Arc Tourist]

If the neighbour's house's look nice, try to get them in a photo also.

 

[Morrisman]

When I sold my house last year the EA came round with an iPad to take the pics.

And everybody who came to view said it looked far bigger than they expected.

It sold immediately, full asking price. I was,convinced it should have gone up in value more than 20k in the 15 years we had owned it, especially considering I had built this in the back garden.

 

[badabec]

I'm looking to buy a 3 bedder in the Uk for investment purp....and u wanna see the crap out there....

I could sell you my three bed in Blackpool already tenanted (and up for sale), but I don't want to fall out with you!

 

[Kayos]

We are looking to buy, seems they use the wide angle lens to make small rooms look bigger

Also travertine, why so many people think it looks good in a bathroom is beyond me, there are hundreds of different tiles yet 90% of the houses we look at have at least 1 bathroom clad in the hateful stuff

 

[Ross365]

Yep - fixed length. I also had a 20mm but ended up having to crop the edges because of the fisheye on the walls.
unlike the great outdoors most houses have straight walls so it’s more pronounced!
If you’re going to buy a lens specific for the job get a 10/14 to 28 zoom - that way you can try it out yourself and go with what works best.

Yes, I'll take a look on ebay and see what I can find and get a bit of practice in. Always interesting when you take pictures of your own house

 

[armalites]

Sadly the big issue is 95% of people cannot see beyond the norm and that is why people will totally ignore houses because they don't like the colour of the walls.

If you have something you think needs to be marketed in a certain talk to an agent and tell them what you want, a decent agent will tell if they agree and give you good feedback.

It really is a sellers market at the moment especially if you live somewhere that you have space, we are seeing people move to our rural area when they haven't physically viewed a property and driving prices up

 

[Ross365]

I think this will be a project house; someone will buy it, gut it and extend it (there's 30ft to play with an one and and not quite so much at the other, and lots at the back). The house occupies 10% of the plot. I actually talked to an architect about the idea of demolishing it and building two separate houses. Someone else might try that, but not my sort of thing.

 

[Chriso996]

A long time ago I used to work for a marketing company, we worked for multiple estate agents drawing up floorplans and taking photos.

From memory we were using Nikon D50s with a wide angle lens, always with a tripod and separate flash unit.

In terms of composition, we only ever showed two walls in a shot, simple tip but often the difference.

chris

 

[voipio]

The trick to viewing images taken with wide angle lenses is to put yourself at the relative point where the camera was when the image was taken. This usually means putting on some close reading glasses and getting up close to the screen. Suddenly, it is possible to see the view in proper perspective.

 

[skotl]

Sadly the big issue is 95% of people cannot see beyond the norm and that is why people will totally ignore houses because they don't like the colour of the walls...

Great point. We drove past our current house for a year, looking at newer, shinier, cleaner (more expensive!) houses. Eventually, I said "let's go look at the ugly house with an open mind."

The garden was bracken and gorse, some of it ~20ft high climbing up the walls and onto the roofs off the hill behind the house. The rooms were tiny, with "dentist's waiting room" blinds, horrible grubby carpets and everything was either painted brown or dark orange. Even the ceilings were pine cladding, painted dark brown!
It had been on the market for a year and the photos were terrible, albeit the house was worse.

A ton of imagination (and not some insignificant dosh) over the last nine years and we now have a beautiful home. The money we saved on the initial purchase, compared to what we thought we'd spend on newer houses further up the road, was ploughed into extensions, kitchen, bathrooms etc.

So definitely recommend looking at a house with a developer's eye.

Edit: found some pictures from original house listing!