It pains me to see listings that have terrible pictures — 99 percent of the time, online listing photos are going to be a buyer’s first impression of the home. If you have a crappy front picture on a “gray skies” day, what is going to make a buyer want to buy the house?

It is unbelievable how valuable your listing pictures are.

So, here are a few tips to improve your listing photos.

1. Make sure that the exterior picture is reflective of the season.

I live in South Carolina, where we don’t get snow very much. It kills me when I see a listing picture in the middle of March with a picture of a pile of snow in the front yard. It snows maybe twice a year in South Carolina. If you live in the Northeast, this is an entirely different story, but you get my point. Update your pictures to be reflective of the season. No snow when it’s 95 degrees outside.

2. Outdoor pictures have to have blue sky.

This policy is one that we have adopted in our company. We will have blue skies in the picture. No ifs, ands or buts. Check the weather the week before you list. If you know that it’s going to rain, find a day where you can get a sunny picture. You want the home to show in the best light, literally and figuratively, and I promise it doesn’t when it’s gray and raining.

3. Use a wide-angle lens.

If you are going to take pictures of your listings on your own, that’s great. But make sure you have the right equipment to do so. I shoot with a Nikon D7000 and a 12mm-24mm wide-angle lens. You don’t need to have the most expensive equipment on the market; you just need to know how to use it. Shoot from a lower angle in the corners of the room with a wide-angle lens. It will make the room look larger and more open.

“Aww, look how cute their dog is” is not something that is ever going to come out of a buyer’s mouth when they look at listing photos online. If anything, they’re going to have an issue with it because their brother’s wife’s sister’s mother-in-law is allergic to dogs, and that’s going to be a problem for the one time that said individual comes for a family reunion. Don’t give buyers anything to find a problem with (that you can quickly solve, at least). And please, whatever you do, don’t take a picture of a bathroom with you, the camera, and the flash in it.

These are just a few rules of thumb that you can follow when it comes to taking pictures of your listings. Better pictures lead to happier clients, and better pictures lead to more buyers, which lead to more sales.

Jay Luebke is a residential sales specialist and the visual coordinator with The ART of Real Estate in Columbia, South Carolina. You can follow The ART of Real Estate on Twitter @TheARTeam.

Email Jay Luebke.

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