Professional photography is becoming a must-have!
The growing importance of the Internet as a marketplace for real estate has come to mean that a single photograph on a listing sheet just doesn’t cut it anymore.
A study by a Seattle real estate agency, reported in REALTOR, an association magazine, found that professional photos and videos are increasingly necessary in the marketing of houses in the $300,000 and up range.
If that’s true, it might explain why more and more agents in the Williamson County market are having their listings professionally photographed.
“I think if I didn’t do it, it would be like shooting myself in the foot,” said Fran Harmon of Bob Parks Realty, who has been using professional photographic services for about three years.
Harmon is convinced that professional photo galleries, virtual tours and videos have helped her sell houses, including one she recently had in the Franklin Green subdivision. Priced in the $200,000s, the owners received multiple offers within three days after she posted the photos on the Web.
She said she usually buys all of the pictures she needs for a listing for less than $100. She recently used HomePixMedia service to photograph her listing at 445 Beauchamp Circle in Franklin. The Spring Hill company will take dozens of photos, create a property website, a mobile property website and a Craigslist ad flier all for $70 if the home is no bigger than 3,000 square feet. For bigger houses, the company adds $10 per 1,000 square feet; for an additional $20, the agent can get a video of the house.
“It’s just what the market here will bear at this time,” said Jay Winter, who started up HomePixMedia from a home office nearly four years ago. For Winter, who also works for a Christian music publisher, his company is a part-time endeavor.
For her Beauchamp Circle listing, a four-bedroom house priced at $469,900, Harmon has 22 photographs that are posted in connection with the listing page for the house at www.realtracs.com. Also on the page is a link to HomePixMedia’s website, where there’s a more detailed photo gallery and a video with a music overlay. At that site, there’s also a link to Harmon’s website as well as a link to YouTube, where the video of her house is available, along with lots of others.
YouTube is popular
Someone who has the time and inclination can watch all kinds of real estate videos from Williamson County on YouTube.
Some of them are surprisingly entertaining, such as the one ShowcasePhotographers.com, a Franklin company, created for a Mediterranean-style mansion for sale at 371 Jones Parkway in Brentwood. While the camera lovingly meanders through the opulent interiors of the 6,591-square-foot house, a recording of Diana Krall crooning “S’ Wonderful” sets the mood.
The company set another of its videos, one of a log cabin for sale at 4379 Arno Road, to “Wild Horses” — the Susan Boyle version.
Formerly known as ShowcaseByAgent, Showcase Photographers was established five years ago by Dan Raper, who is now expanding into the Houston and Dallas markets as well as the Gulf Coast area. “The YouTube videos are relatively new for us,” said Raper, who used to work in product development for BP Oil. “I think the videos are popular if you have already kind of fallen in love with the house and you just want to see it again or show it to someone else.” They also are a boon for “lookie loos” and real estate junkies. Raper said his video of Alan Jackson’s massive former home on Moran Road that was for sale last year received so many hits, the server nearly crashed.
One of Raper’s personal favorites is the video he created for a log cabin that was for sale at 6134 Fire Tower Road in Nashville that was owned by the author of the Willie Nelson hit “Mama Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.” The song was used to perfectly accompany the video, which can still be seen on YouTube.
A matter of perspective
One of the most sophisticated services available to agents or sellers is an interactive floor plan, which allows the viewer or potential buyer to see every room, bathroom and hallway from multiple perspectives, providing the most-complete version of an online tour possible.
The interactive floor plans offered by Showcase cost $119.
It’s an expense that an agent may judge worthwhile on more expensive listings, such as the $869,900 house that Nancy and Marty Warren recently listed at 10 Portrush Circle in Governors Club. The interior of the house is photogenic, having been professionally decorated from top to bottom, so the photos look more like a spread in House Beautiful than a real estate advertisement.
Warren said that particular house was not staged specifically for the Internet, where most of the buyers are browsing, though most of her listings are. “I think the professional photographs are one of the most important things that we do,” Nancy Warren said.
The Warrens, who are with Fridrich and Clark Realty, have been using professional photographers for five years and have been buying the interactive floor plans for almost all of their listings for the past three years. “It’s a little bit more expensive, but we think it’s worth it,” Nancy Warren said.
The story of the house
“This market is so wide open, it’s like picking ripe apples off a tree,” said Raper, whose wife’s real estate business inspired him to create his real estate photography business.
It’s all about using the visual nature of the Web to “tell the beautiful story of the house, and to entice those buyers to come in and see it,” he said.
Grown by word of mouth, Raper said his company averages from 30 to 40 photo shoots a day in summer, at the height of the real estate season. Winter estimated he has photographed about 150 houses since he started his business, most of them in Brentwood. The weak economy hasn’t stood in his way, either. “It seems like I’ve been getting busier as the market has gotten worse,” he said.
Strategy Shift Keeps Construction Alive
There are several examples of new subdivisions in Williamson County that were stalled by the recession, but 2-year old Sunset Park isn’t one of them.
There are now 17 families living in this Nolensville neighborhood on Sunset Road, and there are seven active home construction sites, which almost seems like a building boom.
Of those seven homes under construction, four are under contract, according to sales agent McClain Holloway of Battle Ground Realty.
Getting this far with the project in a weak economy has taken some ingenuity on the part of the main builders, brothers Jimmy Franks of Tennessee Valley Homes and Justin Franks of Encore Construction.
“When everything began to slow down, we were just beginning here and we had no momentum to carry us through when it got really slow, in the fall of ‘08,” said Chris Franks, Jimmy’s son and construction manager at Sunset Park.
“We were lucky enough to time it right with some inventory homes at the beginning,” he said, “so we could get a start.”
In fact, a house that was built as a model home for the neighborhood sold rather quickly, and the sales operation was moved into a modified trailer across the street.
As the economy slowed down even more in 2008, the builders adjusted their business plan to fit the times.
The original plan for Sunset Park called for homes with prices starting in the $500,000s, with home sizes up to 4,500 square feet.
To offer a more affordable product, the builders went to smaller floor plans in the spec homes in a range that is now from 2,800 to 3,500 square feet. Buyers can now get into Sunset Park for $450,000 if they buy one of the smaller homes.
Most of the homes are priced in the high $400,000s and the $500,000s, but the builders are willing to customize homes, and the half-acre lots provide enough space to build bigger if the customer wants.
Variety is part of plan
Determined to avoid curbside sameness, the Sunset Park homes have varied elevations. It’s a plan that the builders are sticking to.
Many of the homes are stone and brick, with covered front porches and traditional architectural details. Toni Morgan just moved from Grand Rapids, Mich., into a 4,100-square-foot house in Sunset Park with her husband and children. She said they had anticipated buying a resale home here but ended up buying in this new neighborhood because they liked the look and size of it, the location within Ravenwood High School’s attendance zone, the completed swimming pool and cabana amenity, and the open interior floor plan of the house. “I think the biggest draw was the style of the house and the open feel of it on the inside,” she said. “I liked the fact that the styles of the houses were different, too.”
One-stories find market
There are a lot of single-story or 1½-story floor plans, with big bonus rooms over the garages.
“Not that many builders are building one stories right now. We’ve branded ourselves as a one-story neighborhood,” Holloway said. “We can’t build them fast enough, which is a good thing.”
The entrance to Sunset Park is a stone’s throw from the Brentwood city line, but because it is in Nolensville, Brentwood’s one-acre lot requirements do not apply. That’s another factor permitting the builders to sell a more affordable product here.
While adjusting the housing product and the prices, the builders also went ahead and put in the neighborhood swimming pool and cabana.
They also stayed with a plan to fill their homes with high-quality interior finishes. The kitchens, in particular, are fully loaded and feature raised-panel maple cabinets, granite countertops, tile backsplashes and professional stainless steel appliances, including gas cooktops and double ovens.
The homes have true sand-and-finish white oak hardwood floors in the foyers, dining rooms, kitchens, breakfast rooms, great rooms and first floor powder rooms and 7¼-inch baseboards throughout.
The homes are also being built to meet Energy Star program standards and the National Association of Home Builders Green Building program.
Warranty covers job loss
To keep the ball rolling, the builders began offering an additional perk to buyers this month: a job-loss protection warranty that provides the homeowner with up to six months of payments up to $2,500 per month if the homeowner loses his or her job.
Franks said the builders are paying for that warranty to give “a little peace of mind” to people considering buying a home in Sunset Park.
“It’s going to be part of our builder’s warranty,” he said.
Sunset Park will have 93 homes in it when it is finished. As of this week, there were four homes listed for sale in Sunset Park on Realtracs.com.
The most expensive is a 3,328-square-foot English country, two-story design with four bedrooms listed for $519,900. The least expensive is a one-story French country type with 2,982 square feet and four bedrooms, for $469,900.
