How to get the perfect pics of your rental property

Ideally, you need to have written an informative rental listing description of your property, but nothing compliments content like some professional looking photographs of your gorgeous apartment that you are renting out. These days who doesn’t have a camera on their phones? Not many of you I’m guessing- knowing how to stage the apartment is a great way to do this! So get your camera ready and let’s take some fab photos of your apartment.

Beauty of Photos

One great way of securing more views of your apartment is to list the property with photos. 94% of homes listed with photos get more views, fact. On average a potential customer only looks for 4 seconds at the ad before making a decision, which is why adding a photo can keep them engaged and with the right photo ensuring they want to find out more. Studies suggest that renters spend 60% of their time looking at photos rather than reading the description, so make your property pleasing to the eye! Photos are certainly a fundamental part of the success of your property being rented.

Rental Services

Using an Airbnb property management service like Hostmaker is also a great way to get the most out of renting your property, they provide professional photographs of your property. If you want to give it a go yourself we recommend taking at least three photos before your listing goes live. Photos are important, so what are you waiting for!

Setting the scene is essential to getting those winner shots, here are some tips on how you can do this:

• Fluff up those sofa cushions
• Natural light is key, make sure the curtains are open
• Working from home, put out a laptop
• Highlight a teapot
• Put out teacup and saucer
• Add a pop of color with some flowers

Importance of Lighting

Next, check the lighting! Ideally, you want to take the photos when the sun is pouring in through the windows, also to get extra light it’s a good idea to put the lights on. It’s ok to take the photos at night, however, try not to get the windows in the pictures as black windows can make your space look smaller.

Finally, you really want to consider the angles you’ll take photos from. Stand at the widest part of the room, usually a corner, and try to include two walls and some of the ceiling and floor in each photo. To reduce taking an artificial picture, try to avoid taking photos from high up.

As previously mentioned if you have a small space you want to take a picture of just add more lighting. If you want to make a room look cosier take the pictures at night with some lights on, maybe a warm lamp to entice the audience.

What rooms should you take a picture of?

 Here are a few we think are essential:

All bedrooms
All bathrooms
Living room
Dining Room
Kitchen
Laundry room
Common spaces (entryways and basement)
Outdoor spaces – often the forgotten room- having outdoor space is a huge advantage, especially in London.

Property management service agencies say the key to making any property rentable is excellent staging. Make your tenants feel at home, allow them to see themselves in your property.
Get the editing right. You don’t want to share any dodgy pics or blurry images. You can edit the brightness of photos, lighter photos are more cheerful and easy to see, and cropping your picture to get rid of any blank space is a cool way of your room looking bigger!

Of course we don’t want to deceive the audience, however, there isn’t anything wrong with editing photos to present the property in the best possible way.

As you upload and view your photos, make sure they are portrait. Rotate them if needed.

Quick tips:
Get rid of any dark or blurry photos
Take 3 good quality pictures
Make sure the photos are the right way round
Make sure you don’t catch any reflections in mirrors or windows

It’s not the time for a selfie, so make sure you aren’t caught out in a mirror
Make sure there is no clutter and the apartment is clean
You will have invested time and effort in producing some quality photos, save time in the future. Once you’ve invested time perfecting the photos, you can and should re-use them to save yourself time in the future. Your  Airbnb property management can help you with the whole process. From taking your property photos, listing your property and supporting with maintenance services. See how you can make the most out of your rental property today.

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