Using Photography to help sell / rent your property part 1

After embarking on our first adventure 18 months ago, I think that its not an accident that our first single family property rented so quickly.  Of course we used all the formulas described on BiggerPockets.  Full background checks and credit history were checked thoroughly.  We also posted in our online ad that all applicants must have a minimum verifiable income of 3 times the monthly rent.  But in the end, I believe what drew applicants to our property was the pictures.  My wife and I have owned and operated a portrait photography business for 25 years.  It was natural that we would take all of our own pictures and use them in the online advertising for our first property.  Below I am outlining some simple but effective rules of thumb to use when taking and choosing pictures to post your properties for rent online.  

1.  You cannot take too many photos. 

If you are like me and your property is 40 minutes from your primary residence, you will need to go back and take more if you are not happy with the results.  Take the time to review the images on the LCD screen of your digital camera before you leave.

2.  But you can post too many photos.

I can't tell you how many times I have looked through the photos of a property for sale/rent and there are doubles of the exact same photo.  This shows that you didn't review the pictures before you posted them and displays a lack of professionalism.  If you didn't take the time to review the photos, where else did you cut corners?  

3.  Make sure to show every room and all parts of the property.

Each room should have a minimum of one picture taken of it. The listing tells how many bedrooms and bathrooms your property has.  A future tenant/buyer may be turned off by only seeing 2 out of 3 bedrooms in the pictures.  They may question your honesty/transparency about that particular room.  If you are afraid to show something to a future tenant, then you should either fix it or be prepared to explain why the item in question looks the way it does. You're wasting everyone's time, including yours, if you leave out a giant telephone pole in the backyard on purpose to get more people to come look at your property in person.  As soon as they get there, they are turned off by the omission of the pole and have a negative connotation with you and the house.

Next time I'll get more technical and talk a little more about the photography itself.  Lenses, flashes and camera settings to use.