"Our very nice client is particularly focused on the quality of photography-- so our association with you really helped secure the listing." This quote comes from the business manager of a client of mine who is a very successful real estate agent in Silicon Valley. This client handles a lot of listings in some of the most affluent parts of the San Francisco Bay Area. I think this quote illustrates very nicely that top listing agents use high quality professional photography not only to help market their listings, but also to help market themselves, to help them win more listings. Viewed this way, the cost of professional photography is really an ongoing cost of marketing a business, rather than just a cost that relates only to each individual listing; and it is important that, rather than being merely "good enough", the photos need to be of sufficient quality that they will stand out among all the routine photos typically used to market listings. That is, high quality photos that exhibit an individual style and have high technical quality can help realtors to promote their "brand" and present an image of uniqueness in the marketplace. Fundamentally, it is about images that are truly marketing photos, rather than just illustrations for informational purposes.
