These are the photo mistakes that come up most on listings. Several of them cost nothing to fix.
1. Shooting it on a phone
A phone can't light a dark room or hold the view through a bright window, and its ultra-wide lens bends the walls at the edges of the frame. We wrote a whole post on why smartphone photos fall short.
2. Dark rooms
Michigan gives you a lot of gray days, and wooded lots make it worse. Turning on every light helps, but overhead bulbs alone leave the corners dark and turn the walls yellow. The fix is several exposures per room blended together. Every order we shoot includes that HDR editing.
3. Crooked lines
Door frames that lean and walls that tilt make a room look uneven. It happens when the camera is tilted up or down to fit more in. Shoot with the camera level, and straighten the verticals in editing.
4. Skipping the prep
This one costs nothing. Before the shoot, ask the seller to:
- Clear the kitchen and bathroom counters
- Put away personal photos, mail and medication
- Make the beds
- Hide trash cans, cords and pet bowls
- Move the cars out of the driveway
Our pre-shoot checklist is free, and you can put your own branding on it and send it to every seller.
5. Missing the best features
If the house has a finished basement, a new kitchen or a screened porch, make sure each one gets its own photo and isn't just visible in the background of another room. Tell the photographer what the seller is proudest of before the shoot starts.
6. A weak front photo
The front exterior is usually the thumbnail, so it decides whether buyers open the listing. Watch for cars in the driveway, bins at the curb and a dull gray sky. Every order we shoot includes blue-sky replacement on the exteriors. More on this in interior vs exterior photos.
7. No aerial
For lakefront homes, big lots, wooded lots and corner lots, the drone shot shows what ground photos can't, like where the property line runs. Drone photos are included in every residential package we offer. Here's when it's worth it and when to skip it.
8. No twilight photo on a house that suits one
Homes with outdoor lighting, a pool, a lit patio or big front windows look best at dusk. Every order includes one virtual twilight image, a daytime exterior edited to look like dusk. For a real shoot at dusk with the home lit, book twilight photography.
9. Too many photos, or too few
A listing with only a handful of photos makes buyers wonder what's missing. Four photos of the same bathroom wear them out. Cover every room once, show the outside from a few angles, add the aerials if the lot is worth seeing, and cut the duplicates.
10. Editing too much, or not enough
Oversaturated grass, glowing windows and HDR that makes the walls look gray all read as fake, and buyers feel misled when the house looks different in person. Under-edited photos look flat and dim. Aim for photos that look like the house on a good day.
