7 Real Estate Photo Editing Trends that Can Help You Turn Prospects into Customers
Real estate listing sites need high-quality real estate photos to make a good impact on the clients and high conversions.
72.2% of realtors agree that high-quality pictures help win more listings and it is also recorded that houses with pictures sell 68% faster.
However, lately, with changing trends It is no more only about conventional images; with social media gaining pace there is demand for device-specific photo dimensions with resolutions compatible with platforms. The popularity of aerial shots has led to drone photography making the property look more appealing. Virtual staging with beautiful interiors is increasingly becoming the selling point for many listings.
With the shift towards online a buyer expects to experience the property sitting at home and technology is making that happen. The trick to staying in business is to flow with the changing trends that require complex photo editing, multiple skills, and technology. And therefore, investment in real estate photo editing should be a high priority for real estate. In fact, according to a study real estate agents who outsource listing photos earn twice as much as others.
7 Real Estate Photo Editing Trends
Keeping up with the photo editing trends helps turn prospects into customers. We talk about 7 real estate photo editing trends that every listing site must follow for business growth.
1. Mobile feasibility
The use of mobile devices for information sharing is globally rising changing the way real estate operates. According to a report by the National Association of Realtors, 76% of all buyers found a home on a mobile device, and 17% of all buyers found an agent the same way. Mobile users have surpassed desktop long back and with smartphone analytics predicting a 25% increase in mobile traffic by 2025, the industry must focus on technology.
It is no more about having a mobile-friendly website, today the potential customers demand all data be available on mobile. They would expect information on the property, pictures, videos, rentals, mortgage, loans, valuation, renovation cost, permits, crime rate, shopping facilities, schools, and much more. Your app should have all relevant information so that the customer doesn’t need to look else were for information and thereby conversion chances get better.
2. 3D Virtual Tours
Listings with virtual tours get clicked on 40% more than without and when 36% of Americans are more likely to buy a home online while 43% would prefer selling online, investing in 3D virtual tours is a requirement.
3D virtual tours give a complete online virtual experience to potential customers and are a must on your listings. A 3D display of property shows the client inside as well as outside the property along with the surrounding neighborhood. Digital rendering gives altogether a different experience like it would give a real estate customer an idea of what a property would look like with different furniture or without one. This has a huge advertising potential where the entire infrastructure can be showcased including minute details.
3. Virtual Staging
82% of prospects find it easier to visualize the property as their future home when it is staged. A beautifully staged property is appreciated more by prospects than a property with empty spaces. However, many properties are not staged due to high cost and the solution lies in virtual home staging where an anterior is created graphically and is more than 90% cheaper than physical staging.
A client gets to view both; staged houses online and on a physical visit get an idea of the space of the property. Professional virtual stagers can design the space as per your requirement giving you complete freedom. Experts in virtual staging even scan images on Internet, evaluate their popularity, and suggest interiors that would best attract prospects.
4. Property photo editing & retouching
Professional real estate photography sells homes 32% faster. Photo editing and retouching are important to make property pictures appealing. When as high as 87% of buyers found photos to be the most useful feature, the impact of good quality photos on prospects can’t be denied.
Uploading raw pictures clicked by an amateur can be sloppy and will not appeal. Experts in the field enhance your pictures using various tools that can do color correction, increase sharpness, resize, crop, rotate, and much more. The process is not about any kind of manipulation or distortion it is pure image enhancement where the image is made appealing retaining the originality. A professional team of image enhancement experts skilled in various software and tools is the right partner for image editing and retouching.
5. Social media property photo editing
When 99% of millennials begin their home search online, 77% of realtors actively use social media and 47% of real estate businesses get the highest quality leads from social media then social media is a gold mine for real estate. It is time for real estate to prioritize focus on social media.
Social media is an avenue for listing sites to communicate and engage but image enhancement needed on social media requires planning and curation. The quality of images needs to align with the social media page, the audience, their mindset, age group, etc. The competition is neck to neck in social media real estate and with major leads coming from there, this is something no realtor can ignore. These platforms have a lot of complexities and there are social media real estate image enhancement specialists who know exactly what to do to your images.
6. Twilight effect
Twilight shot of real estate stands out creating a warm and comforting vibe adding to the appeal of the property. Many aspects of the home like security lightings, well-lit backyard, sunset view, etc. get missed in the day-light shot. Despite many benefits that day to dusk offers, it is not much seen on the listings and that is the reason that listings with twilight shots stand out.
As property pictures are mostly daytime shots, they need to be converted to twilight shots. Photo retouching experts can manipulate the pictures to darker tones giving a dusk effect making the prospect feel that the photo is captured at night. Graphic editors can change the color of the sky, add rains, clouds, snow, stars, moon, etc. to give the effect desired by the client.
7. Drone image editing
Drone photography is the latest in real estate helping realtors get enhanced visibility online and attract more clients. Going by a statistic, homes with aerial images sold 68% faster than homes with standard images.
Today clients look for innovation and expect to get a complete view of the property from all angles sitting at home. Drone photography allows you to capture every aspect of your property, even minute details from both interior and exterior, and present them to your clients. It is like selling a lifestyle to your clients.
Since aerial shots taken from the drone is always in motion it gets difficult to take a series of bracketed exposures. Drone image editing requires different skill-sets and therefore before putting your drone images on your marketing collaterals, you must get the images enhanced by specialists.
Conclusion
With technology reshaping real estate, trends are changing very fast. Selling a property requires the exact depiction of the place and the surroundings through images and tours. With competition setting in prospects have multiple options.
If you don’t keep up with the trend you may miss the boat. To sustain the competition, improve brand credibility, visibility and most important to remain in the race, it is important to move with time and changing trends. Listing sites have no option but to invest in technology and keep abreast with the demands of the market.
This not being your core activity, you may lack the expertise and time to look into this important aspect of brand building. Partnering with an expert or outsourcing real estate photo editing may help in a big way.
