Find out the four services that every real estate photographer needs in their toolkit.
Virtual staging has changed the real estate industry, for the better. Realtors today understand that their listings are competing with many other forms of media to win the attention of prospective buyers. Chances are they’re scrolling through their phones when they see your listing in their social media feed. That’s your one chance to make a great impression, so you need to maximize your opportunity. That’s why photographers are turning to virtual staging to transform empty rooms into warm, welcoming homes that people can visualize living in.
Virtual staging is rapidly becoming a skill that every real estate photographer needs to be able to offer a client – whether they do it on their own or through a partnership with a virtual staging company.
Competition in Real Estate Photography is Increasing
As the market gets tighter and the economy contracts, there is naturally more and more competition to provide great real estate photos for every single listing. Photographers are starting to do more work for less pay, driving down their margins, and forcing them to find new products and services to offer their agents. Sooner than you’d like, it’s going to be harder and harder for photographers and agents alike to settle for photos of empty rooms when the competition is offering virtual staging, floor plans, single property websites, and a walkthrough video on every single home that they are selling.
As a real estate photographer, it’s time to offer more products and services above and beyond your standard photos, or else you risk getting left behind.
Professional Real Estate Photos are Not Enough
As a real estate photographer, having the ability to offer virtual staging provides value to your clients, additional revenue to your bottom line, and a potential edge over your competition. By virtually staging a room you are taking a huge burden off the real estate agent who no longer has to worry about staging the property in order to generate usable images for marketing.
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Four New Real Estate Marketing Services You Can Offer
There are four additional services that today’s real estate photographer needs to be able to offer to their clients
- Virtual Staging: This is the art of taking a good photo of an empty room, then adding virtual furniture, plants, and accessories to it to give it a welcoming look. The virtually staged image is then rendered into a high-resolution image with additional editing techniques to enhance the shading and lighting, making it look as realistic as possible.
- Floor plans: Serious buyers want to be able to know the dimensions of a property before they buy. As a photographer, you can go the extra mile and fulfill that need for your client by creating a 2D or 3D floor plan that they can share with a prospective buyer.
- Single Property Websites: More and more agents want to display their assets on a single property website that showcases all the features of the home in an exclusive online setting. If you have the ability to build single property websites for your clients, then you are one step closer to securing more work. Choose a single property website company that allows you to upload photos, floor plans, amenities, descriptions of the property, maps, neighborhood information, and includes lead capture forms to help your agents make the sale on their listings.
- Walk Through Videos: With the dramatic changes taking place due to COVID-19, more and more real estate agents are looking to virtual marketing to help sell the home without increasing additional exposure and foot traffic through the home itself. Walkthrough videos are quickly becoming a great tool for agents to use in order to give potential buyers a personal perspective of the home, without ever having to step foot inside.
It’s vital for real estate photographers to start adding extra products and services in order to keep up with changing technologies, economies, and demand.. Let the photographs be your starting point – then keep adding extras that make your client’s life a little easier and/or adds more value. The more value you add, the more loyal they will become.
Take the time to research and select great outsourcing partners so you can evolve from simply being a photographer to being a real estate marketing agency.
To get started with a photo editing and virtual staging service that will help transform your business, sign up with PhotoUp today.
