Trying to launch your home to the market during winter can be tricky. Buyers have Christmas on their minds, and keeping your home looking its best during this time is a challenge.
One of the first hurdles you’ll encounter for a winter launch is the photography. No one’s garden looks at its best at this time of year, and trying to make sure it looks attractive to buyers through photography is definitely difficult. Here are my top tips to make sure your winter photography looks good enough to attract viewings:
- Use a professional – your agent may try to reassure you that he can take your photographs himself and save you some money, but it’s a false economy. Photographing properties is a specialist skill, and in the wintertime, even more so. Grey skies, bare branches, lack of light – these are all challenges for a professional photographer, never mind an eager amateur. From only around £300, you can make sure that your house and garden look pretty and appealing, so it’s well worth the investment.
- Your outdoor images need to show as much greenery as possible – bare trees and bushes are not going to look great. Evergreen foliage is best, or your lawn, if it is still green.
- Avoid photographing your garden in the snow, frost or rain. Low sunlight can look gorgeous, but it’s best left to the professionals to capture.
- Don’t include any seasonal flowers in your images (unless you want to repeat the exercise in three months!). Snowdrops, daffodils and crocuses will all pinpoint how long you’ve been on the market within a few weeks, and may give your buyer a bad impression if your house is still on the market in the summer.
- Inside, keep it looking as cosy as possible. Have all your lamps lit, and the fire too, if you have one.
- Don’t ever have Christmas decorations in your property photographs – it will be distracting not to mention easily dateable!
Stick to these simple rules and your images will be good enough to tempt buyers to brave the rain and view!
If you’d like my help to sell your home more effectively, please answer a few short questions here and if I think I can help you, I’ll be in touch.
Great blog Sam, but don’t dismiss us agents who are passionate in doing the best for sellers.
Winter shots can be warmed up in Photoshop by adjusting the yellow lighting away from a blue cast.
In bringing any property to market it’s always an agent’s job to get the best price in a reasonable length of time. That means an agent should include top photography and details written with punch and passion. This should be part of the agent’s fee and obviously ‘No sale – no fee’.
I have had training in photography and know these days with buyers scrolling down many pages of properties online any photo has to stand out and grab you!
Check out some of mine http://www.cooper-adams.com/photography-examples.html
Hi Sam I’d agree with most everything you say. However there are exceptions to the rule, as always. A really conscientious agent with great camera skills can make a good job of the photography, but he/she will have needed to have been trained. Shaun’s one the good guys but I’d put him in the top 1% of agents when it comes to ability, talent and passion for getting it right. So whilst you’re 99% correct, what I’d suggest is that any potential seller should put near to the top of their shopping list, when looking for an agent, the agent’s ability to market their property professionally. Commission rates should be secondary to that. Any idiot can take a snap of a house and put it on Rightmove. It takes a professional to make a house stand out from the all the others there so that the right buyer stops, clicks and makes an appointment to view. If an agent can’t take stunning photos himself so that that happens then the owner should consider paying someone who can.
Thanks for the link Shaun; some fantastic shots on there! I have no doubt that anyone who uses you for an agent won’t be disappointed with your photography. It really stands out, and is what potential buyers need.