5070 Alpine Road, Portola Valley, CA

Here are some photos I shot recently for a real estate listing for Matt Zampella (RE/MAX). This property is a Georgian-style estate located in the upscale town of Portola Valley.

Another Article About the Importance of Quality Real Estate Marketing Photos

Forbes, the well-known business magazine, recently published an article that provides yet more support for why high-quality photos are vital for real estate marketing: Photos of Your Home Matter in Real Estate.

While I agree with most of what the article says, one thing I take issue with is the implication that it is the quality of the camera that matters most, and that a homeowner or realtor might be able to take decent marketing photos with such a camera. In my experience, this is usually not the case. In fact, I would say it is often the case that professional photographers who are not practiced at photographing architectural and interiors subjects will not do a great job either, though they are still likely to produce better results than amateur photographers. As I have mentioned previously in this blog, photographing buildings well is actually one of the more challenging types of photography, in terms of composition, lighting and even the digital processing of the photos.

Another thing I take issue with in the article is about choosing the right time of day for the photos, so that the property can be photographed with the best lighting. While this is the ideal, and is what professional architectural and interiors photographer try to do as much as possible, it is often not possible for most real estate photography. First of all, all parts of the house will not receive the best light at any one time of day, and the modest marketing budgets that are available for marketing most homes do not permit hiring a photographer to shoot throughout an entire day or more. For most real estate marketing of individual homes for sale, the marketing budget does not usually allow for more than an hour or two of photography (perhaps a bit more for larger homes), in one session. To compensate for this, a skilled photographer will often use supplementary lighting, perhaps with some specialized Photoshop techniques; however, with occasional exceptions, for standard real estate photography, using supplementary lighting is not practical for photos of the exterior, in which case it is usually best to try to schedule the photography for a time of day when the front exterior of the house receives good light, since the front exterior is usually the key marketing photo. Nevertheless, some exterior views will never get good light during the day, because of obstructions (such as trees or neighboring buildings) shading that side of the house from direct sunlight, which is generally the best kind of light for daytime exterior photos. Twilight photos can sometimes be an alternative in these cases, and can yield especially attractive and compelling photos, but they entail more time, which usually means a higher cost.

Deciding how much money to allocate to different marketing material can be a challenge, and there is no scientific way of determining what will provide the best results for the marketing dollars spent. However, whatever the overall marketing budget, because of the importance of the Internet as a marketing medium, I would argue that the photography should take precedence in the marketing budget.

Some Recent Interior Photography

Entrance

Massage Room

Stairway Landing, Window and Decorative Ceiling

Office

Master Bath

The above photos are from the historic Hellman-Heller Mansion (2020 Jackson Street, San Francisco).

Landscape Photography

Cliffs at Fort Funston/Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Daly City, CA

Some Serious Real Estate Marketing

Here is a double page ad in a local newspaper (The Palo Alto Weekly) for a real estate listing that I shot recently for Ken DeLeon of DeLeon Realty. Ken was the number 1 realtor in the US in the 2012 Wall Street Journal rankings, and it is marketing such as this that has no doubt helped him to gain the top spot, marketing that includes large advertisements in newspapers and magazines, high quality photography (by yours truly), video, high-quality 4 and 8 page brochures, custom websites for each property and social-media marketing. In short, Ken makes extensive use of both old and new media to give each listing broad market exposure. The more market exposure, the more potential buyers, which can mean both a quicker sale and a higher sales price. An additional benefit is that this kind of marketing results in broader market exposure for the realtor, so that the marketing for each listing is also helping to market the realtor to gain new clients. Of course this kind of marketing is not cheap, but Ken has clearly proven that a serious investment in marketing can pay off in a big way.

Before the advent of the Internet, many realtors did not invest much in marketing, either for the listings or for themselves, relying primarily on networking and referrals. However, the Internet has provided a major new avenue for marketing all kinds of products and services, including real estate, and studies have shown that the vast majority of home buyers now start their search for a new home on the Internet. Furthermore, in some markets at least, print advertising is far from dead and can be leveraged to great effect, as I believe the ad below demonstrates quite well.

1505 Cowper Street-Palo Alto Weekly Ad