It’s 2019 and some agents today still aren’t hiring professional photographers to take their real estate images. You really should be making sure the photographs that accompany your listings are the best they possibly can be. And why? Well, here’s Peter Lorimer from PSG Estates in Beverly Hills, CA, giving you his opinion on why professional real estate photography is an absolute must.

Video Transcript: “Greetings! Pete Lorimer here at PSG estates in Beverly Hills and the magic minute for today is a very specific subject. I’m just going to talk about photographs!

So photography and real estate go hand-in-hand naturally – it’s a perfect fit. Now, there are a lot of agents out there who do not hire professional photographers. They kind of do these snaps on an iPhone, and kind of stick it in the MLS and hope for the best.

I want to tell you my thoughts on why you absolutely must use a professional photographer.

Let’s start 10 years ago! 10 years ago the Internet, not in it’s infancy, but was kind of really just beginning to walk. It was an infant. And real estate agents back in the day, we were the gatekeepers of information. Clients would call us up and say “hey Pete, what new houses have come on the market in the Hollywood Hills?” Because we didn’t have Redfin, we didn’t have Zillow, we didn’t have realtor.com, we didn’t have all of these outlets that are on the Internet now. So the photographs didn’t really matter as much. That psyche is still sticking around in real estate today. Here is my thought on it. You absolutely MUST MUST MUST have professional photographs taken in a house that is cleaned up and designed preferably, if the sellers will do that.

Why is this? It’s because we now live in one hundred and sixty character mentality. Most buyers are under the age of 40,  so they have grown up on Twitter, right. So they’re used to doing this – nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Let’s go see that one on Sunday. No, no, no. Let’s go see that one on Sunday. No no no. You might have a gorgeous, stunning house but if you photographs are crapola, they’re not going to stop on it and they’re going to bypass you. It’s mathematics. The more eyes stop on your photographs and say let’s see that on Sunday. The more feet cross the threshold. The more buyers like the property. The higher the price goes.

So if you don’t have professional photography done just spring for it. It’s somewhere between two and four hundred bucks generally. And it’s a tax deduction. You are not doing your sellers the service you should be. Every single house should be marketed with professional photography because the game has changed and it is not, you’re not doing yourself the best job you can.

That’s my opinion. I’m sticking to it. Please let us know your thoughts on photography what do you do in the comments section below. We’d love to hear from you and thank you for all your comments on other subjects. But until next time this is Pete Lorimer from Beverly Hills, signing out.”