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.
