How Virtual Twilight Photos Sold a Languishing Listing

By Harry Parson, guest contributor

A picture is worth a thousand words, and if you have bad photographs of your listing, it tells a thousand bad stories.

So, when I recently took over a home that had been lingering on the market for more than a year, I focused on its photography and online presentation. The home had been listed using poorly lit and composed photographs, which was doing little to generate buyer interest.

High quality photography truly makes the difference between a home that sits and a home that sells. In addition to having good photographs, I used tech tools from VHT Studios, a national real estate photography firm, like virtual twilight to help photograph and present the home in an evening glow to help it stand out from other photos too.

Virtual twilight is when image specialists take exterior photographs taken during daylight and digitally alter them to reflect the warm indoor lights and cool outdoor hues of a home’s exterior at dusk. Twilight photographs stir emotions and make a connection with buyers. They also allow agents to showcase their listings in a new, differently lit way, without having to return for multiple photography sessions to capture a home in different lighting situations, or actually at dusk.

See the difference …

The result?A buyer made an offer less than a week after I mounted the new images on my web site. Plus, the property sold for $20,000 over the asking price.

Why Virtual Twilight?

I used virtual twilight photos on the listing to make it stand out from similar-looking houses on the block. I believe the combination of higher quality photographs and the virtual twilight exterior made the difference.

In addition to the obvious beauty component, virtual twilight photos also help homes that have significant outside window reflections. It can be distracting when buyers see windows reflect other houses across the street, passersby, or cars parked on the street. This technology can remove these obstacles and replace them with a warm, romantic glow.

Virtual twilight photos aren’t just for luxury listings or already beautiful homes. For properties requiring exterior improvements, virtual twilight can add a polished look, improve curb appeal and increase buyer interest in practically any property.

How You Visually Market a Home Matters

High quality photographs are incredibly important in marketing a home in the digital age, since buyers search online and decide on a home’s worthiness before ever contacting a real estate professional. Engaging a professional photographer who can take well-lit photographs with wide-angle lenses and knows the ins and outs of lighting and composition will provide you with photographs that will pull buyers in.

If you have a property that’s been sitting on the market awhile, consider ways to amp-up the listing’s visual marketing, rather than automatically lowering the asking price or resorting to extreme measures like pricey remodels or traditional home staging.

Be honest, and put yourself in a prospective buyer’s shoes: When you look at the listing online, do the photographs look bright and inviting? Does the home attract buyers desiring a certain lifestyle? Does it make you want to book a showing or make an offer? If the answer to the above questions is a resounding “no,” you may want to consider engaging a photography partner who knows how to turn heads and help you grow your business.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Harry Parson is a Real Estate Broker with Coldwell Banker in Chicago, who engaged VHT Studios to take high quality photographs and conduct Virtual Twilight services on a local property.

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