The number of photos to get bookings

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charles cawley
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The number of photos to get bookings

Post by charles cawley »

It is odd how Rightmove says that about 10 photos are enough to entice possible house buyers where we find that, for some holiday lets, 25 works quite well to get bookings.

The way these different markets work is very interesting. Obviously, photos need to be reasonable quality and cover the basic areas. What do other people think about this?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/prop ... o-see.html
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French Cricket
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Post by French Cricket »

Ha - interesting.

Anyone who's ever bought a house in France will know that you're lucky if the estate agent provides any decent photos at all - it's usually a close up of the loo or a pile of ironing :lol: . When we bought this house, though, the agent had so fallen in love with it himself that he had a CD ROM full of photos - 180 of them. We spent a couple of hours in his office looking at them, made an appointment to view, viewed, and made an offer.

Only once we'd exchanged contracts (very fast here - 8 days in our case) did we realise that this house was one that we'd previously rejected on the websites of two other local agents, because it looked awful.

That really opened my eyes to the power of photos. In fact I've just redesigned our website to major in images.
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charles cawley
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Post by charles cawley »

What really gets me, in the UK, is the abuse of wide angled lenses.

We are moving because my other half wants a decent garden. When we ask agents about garden sizes, almost universally, they say that do not know. The wide angle shots of gardens often make postage stamp sized plots look like prairies.

Where I can, I count paving stones or fence panels to try to work out what's going on. We do use wide angle lenses for holiday lets but restrict the lenses to avoid deception.

Many agents do not give post codes wishing, I suppose, to disguise the fact that there may be a coal yard or busy road close-by so wasting time even more. Having said that, the place we are moving to has these two things handy being an old railway station on a long defunct rural line.

There will come a time when grid references will be provided which pin down places, with the help of Google Earth, exactly. As for square meterage, this is still often missing from details. With modern IT and floor plans you would have thought it could be arranged quite easily. It was routine in Hong Kong way back in the 1980s but, still it seems, is a bit too much for UK estate agents.
Last edited by charles cawley on Fri Jul 31, 2015 8:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Jimbo
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Post by Jimbo »

French Cricket wrote:That really opened my eyes to the power of photos. In fact I've just redesigned our website to major in images.
The words aren't slouches either ...

A secret place, a grown up retreat, a bucolic space of birdsong, cowbells and silence. Books, birds, art, blue shutters, orchids, butterflies, stunning scenery, lush wooded grounds, masses of room, a cooks' kitchen.
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Post by AndrewH »

charles cawley wrote:What really gets me, in the UK, is the abuse of wide angled lenses.
+1
Yes, with coffee tables that look like dining tables for six on short legs. I remember it well.
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Post by Mouse »

Ah, wide angled lenses. I once checked in a guest for a friend who'd had to go to the UK suddenly. They had used that facility on many of their photos and the guest complained that the property was smaller that it looked on the photos.
She ended up compensating them, and changing the photos.

Images are now the most important sales aid we have. In this tecnological age the attention span of people has reduced significantly.
One of the reasons I do the 'fast facts' on my advert. People just weren't reading the text in any detail.

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Jimbo
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Post by Jimbo »

AndrewH wrote:
charles cawley wrote:What really gets me, in the UK, is the abuse of wide angled lenses.
+1
Yes, with coffee tables that look like dining tables for six on short legs. I remember it well.
This criticism of 'distortion' using wide lenses has cropped up regularly on here, but it's something that I've never been able to get my head around. Photography has been with us for 200 years and being surrounded by photographs has brought huge visual sophistication. We imbibe vast amounts of technological stuff with our mother's milk that would have made our ancestors' heads spin.

When I go onto a room, I move my head from side to side to see what's in there. A wide angle lens is merely a piece of useful technology that's doing the same thing - showing the viewer what's on offer. If objects in the background look smaller than those in the foreground, I don't assume that some is doll's house furniture and some was made for Goliath because - like everybody else - I've been looking at photos all my life and I know how they work. I use the photo to show me the layout and contents of the room and if I'm unsure, I ask the owner for additional information about room dimensions, bed lengths etc.

Surely this is common sense? And, if a guest hasn't bothered to do this, why should they expect to be compensated for their lazy misreading of a photograph.
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Post by greenbarn »

As long as we have realistic reference points in a scene, then surely Jim is right? As long as those references are what we believe.........

I love this youtube clip
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Post by AndrewH »

Jimbo wrote:This criticism of 'distortion' using wide lenses has cropped up regularly on here, but it's something that I've never been able to get my head around.
Hello Jimbo, I am thinking about distortion (enlargement) in the horizontal plane without the corresponding enlargement in the vertical plane. How this is achieved, I don't know, but it may be more than just the use of a wide-angle lense.

I have seen the technique used to "stretch" a swimming pool photo, making the pool look much more glamorous than it really is.
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Re: The number of photos to get bookings

Post by Jimbo »

charles cawley wrote:It is odd how Rightmove says that about 10 photos are enough to entice possible house buyers where we find that, for some holiday lets, 25 works quite well to get bookings.
For sale or rental publicity photos, less is always more – provided all the pictures are of the highest quality and range across those areas that give the property its widest appeal. I’d go further and say that, in a mix of excellent and mediocre pictures, the poor shots drag the great ones down and much of the sparkle is lost. Be utterly ruthless when you edit photos – remove and re-shoot the duff ones (or get a professional to do it for you).

As to how many? Well, 10 on the cover and in the principle sales pages would prove a great discipline. If you really want to hone your photo skills, try restricting your website to 10 images and watch the quality spiral upwards! Ten cracking pictures will excite interest and make buyers use their imaginations and (if it’s to their taste and in their price bracket) become ever more intrigued by the property.

There is nothing wrong with a seller having a ‘second eleven’ of lesser images in reserve to flesh out the property; those you can forward to interested renters/buyers when they’re firmly on the hook. But only then, when your ‘top ten’ has reeled them in and your sales pitch has started to work its magic.

On the other hand, if your house goes by the truly irritating name of 'Lofties', 142 pix might not be enough ...
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Post by Hells Bells »

I'm looking at another property at the moment. We've not been to visit yet, but have numerous photos. What strikes me most is how awful the images appear on their website. Poorly lit and slightly off focus, The property is an old farmhouse which still needs work doing, but the photos would put me off were I to come across it by chance. We've had some emailed to us which are of a much better quality.
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Post by insidestoryphoto »

I'm a professional property photographer and photograph property for estate agents along with holiday cottages for private owners and holiday agencies. Its a subtly different approach for both.
For an estate agent, your images need to present the facts clearly. Although I often 'de-clutter' a little, the photographs need to be an accurate reflection of whats going on with size, decor etc.

Its different with a holiday property in that I often add quite a degree of styling with the addition of certain props. So I'll set tables with cutlery, crockery, bottles of wine etc, add freshly cut loaves of bread to my kitchen shots, may be add a book and a summer hat to my outside shots. I'll always light open fires or log burners and perhaps include an atmospheric shot hinting at the guest enjoying a whisky in front of the fire. You're trying to convey a good holiday atmosphere and trying to get the potential guest to imagine themselves sitting in that garden, enjoying that view, relaxing in front of that logburner. This approach just wouldn't be appropriate for estate agency work.
Of course its all a bit pointless if the photos are badly exposed or have burnt out windows and dark corners, which is often the case with holiday property photos.
As for numbers, I'd agree with previous posters: 20-25 is good for most reasonably sized holiday properties (I'll often shoot 35 -50 images anyway). I find that with estate agents, the biggest factor with the number of images used is simply price and most will only use 10 images or so at most.
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charles cawley
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Post by charles cawley »

Insidestoryphoto.

Thank you for this. The difference is quite stark when stated that way but I tend to agree.

I have seen some utterly shocking, banal photos. Experience shows. In Leominster, one estate agency, not the largest one by any means, has photos that shout experience. Where another, larger one, has rank on rank of dull snaps.

As for holiday let photos, it took me five years of picture taking to get anywhere close to half competent. Picturing atmosphere is an art. Sunshine with a good quality holiday let sometimes makes it feel so easy you think you could take decent photographs blindfolded.

The really tough work comes when the sun refuses to shine.
Last edited by charles cawley on Fri Aug 21, 2015 10:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by charles cawley »

Thank you to everyone who replied to this post. I have used quite a bit of what has been written in a blog about holiday let photos.

The remark about blurred shots struck home. Although they do not really upset me when looking at other peoples sites... it is clear that, for some, a blurred shot is as off putting on the same scale as apostrophe abuse is for others.

One blurred shot could lose a booking. Although this sounds self-defeating and strange... it appears there are quite a few people out there with the foible very similar to when certain grammar abuse pops up, that switches off all patience and any wish to go on.

Here's the blog: http://www.holidayletsforsale.com/category/blog-post/
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Post by Mouse »

I always think the price/size of the property should impact on the number of photos. For example a 1 bed apartment probably wouldn't warrent as many photos as a 6 bed hill top villa.

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