Three Tips to Vamp ‘Em Up: Rental Listing Photos

Three Tips to Vamp ‘Em Up

Rental Listing Photos

The look of your rental property can make or break an applicant’s interest in becoming your new tenant. For most millennial applicants, visual media is a must for even a phone call. While using a digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera or a high resolution camcorder is ideal, you can use these tricks with your smart  phone to help make your rentals look enticing to potential applicants.

Angle Your Phone to Show Case Your Property’s Best Features

Let’s put first things first – turn your smart phone horizontally. Even though taking photos vertically (or upright) is more natural, you limit the amount of space  that will show up in the frame. According to HitRE-Cord’s video about orientation, the human eye has a greater peripheral vision horizontally than vertically. This means that, by capturing the setting horizontally, you will mimic the way your applicants actually perceive the space in your rentals. Additionally, horizontal photos and videos have a bigger frame, which is vital when showing off the interior of your property. After you take a moment to turn your phone, you’ll need to be aware of what angles best represent your rental space. This is important because it allows you to highlight the property’s best assets, all in a few photos. Dom Bower’s YouTube video on property photography tips best explains this.

His example showed a large staged bedroom that had a fireplace, bed, and giant windows. Going to the different corners of the bedroom, you can see that taking a picture would highlight different things; one would highlight the fireplace and bed, the other would highlight the bed and window, and so forth. The question is, which one best highlights the most features? Before taking a photo of your own rental’s bedroom, consider what that room’s features are (lighting, view, closet space, etc.) and what angles best showcase them. Try going to each corner in your room.

When using the same logic for capturing video, you can capitalize on lighting to make the room seem bright and inviting. Photos will let your applicants better analyze specific features, and a short video of the room will help them get a feel for what it’s like to actually be in the space. Finally, to get a good shot at the angle you want, you’re going to need to move around. Ideally, you’ll want a photo that shows a little bit of the ceiling and a little bit of the floor. The two should be similar in size (on your screen) and act as a frame for whatever feature on which you are focusing. So, you might have to crouch down or stand on your tippy toes to get a symmetrical image. For video, this means finding a good spot, and then balancing yourself to rotate with a smooth range of motion, so the camera doesn’t bounce, and your angle doesn’t significantly shift between start and finish.

Natural Light Means Happy Tenants

You know tenants love natural light. It means lower electricity bills and better looking selfies. When you use a smart phone to show off your rentals, be sure to open up the windows and doors. You want as much daylight as possible to give the illusion that your space is clean and to help it appear bigger. Try to stay away from depending on in-home lighting, unless it is an upgraded feature that will help attract tenants. Taking photos and videos during the nighttime and using solely installed lighting gives your photos a yellow tint that is unattractive and can even make your rentals appear dated.

The Do’s and Don’ts of Rental Photography

Be sure to take multiple photos of your rental property from each spot you want to highlight. Assuming your phone isn’t low on storage already, you will want to give yourself plenty of options to pick the most appealing shots to highlight your property. If you want to experiment, manually focus on different places in each position by tapping on your screen. This will make your smart phone’s camera focus on different areas, changing the depth of your shadows (how your camera perceives your light). This can be helpful if you find that your smart phone is automatically focusing on something that’s making your image over exposed (like blinding light). There are many different free photo editing apps that can help you change the exposure, shadows, and other features if you find that the photos you took need something extra. However, you should try to stay away from using tints or filters for your rental listing photos. You don’t want to have to explain to potential applicants why the walls or carpet aren’t the same color as in your photos.

Another often overlooked feature of most newer smart phones is the ability to enhance your frame rate. Most phones come preset to capture video at the standard 30 frames per second (fps). In your settings, you should be able to change this option to 60 fps, which will offer sharp, high quality videos that make your applicants feel like they are actually in the room. You can also use this option to take a high-definition video, and then pause in optimal places to take screenshots, and have amazing photos you may not have captured already. With these few basic tricks, your rental listings will be more enticing than ever to the huge amount of potential renters who rely on digital media before contacting you to view a property in person. Who would want to leave a rental that looks so good?

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Residential Resources: May 2016 Issue: Volume 27, Number 5