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Good visuals like high-quality professional photography play a big role in the work of professional photographers, real estate agents, and even home buyers. If you're still wondering about the power of professional photos, here are professional real estate photography statistics you should know.
These real estate photography statistics enable a professional photographer to use systematically-collected data to improve the work decisions of agents and fast-track the search experience of potential home buyers. For starters, 68.9% of agents believe professional real estate photography helps them brand their business.
Now, it's time to look into the real estate photography statistics and facts to see how you can sell homes with high-quality photos and other kinds of properties.
Use of Professional Photos to an Agent
One of the great ways for people to choose a realtor is to know if a realtor uses pictures in the real estate listings description to sell a home or property successfully. Even with information easily accessible online, an astonishing 90% of consumers hire a realtor to buy and sell their properties.
Influence of Real Estate Photography on Listing Days on the Market
About 32% of homes with high-quality photographs sell faster than those without real estate photography. Homes with a single photo spend an average of 70 days on the market, while real estate listings with at least 20 high-quality images in their listing description only stay for up to a month.
According to IMOTO, 88.0% of realtors agree that real estate photography help increase showings and online listing views. Additionally, most real estate professionals believe virtual staging, aerial photography, and interior video services from real estate photographers are most likely to win more real estate and luxury listings.
Impact of Real Estate Photography on Selling Price and Value
Real estate photography not only influences online views and sells faster, but high-quality professional photography helps turn those price inquiries into high sales, as professional high-quality images help sell listings 39% closer to the original price.
Homes with high-quality real estate photography achieve a 47% higher offer per square foot. This is why it's possible for a home listed in the $200,000 to $1 million range to sell for $3,000 to $11,000 more when they have professional real estate photography.
Effects of Professional Photography on Selling Strategies
High-quality photos tell a thousand words, and only a professional photographer can take high quality photography. Selling homes faster requires providing accurate depictions of a home or space.
About 61.3% of brokers believe high-quality photography helps and is 'crucial', whereas 31.0% think real estate photographers are 'important' in selling homes.
Buyers Pay More Attention to Listings With Great Images
Great images not only capture the attention of buyers but also give them a better idea of what the property looks like, making them more likely to schedule a viewing or make an offer. The following statistics provide an overview of how professional real estate images can capture the viewer's attention.
If you are using social media, real estate listings using great images get up to a 1200% increase in shares.
A report by the National Association of Real Estate Agents shows that 87% of homebuyers on the internet found images to be among the most useful features of listing websites when looking for new homes they might like.
80.2% believe the front photo is the most important picture in the shoot.
Impact of Real Estate Videos
Videos have a significant impact on the real estate industry from both the buyer's and the real estate agent's perspectives in the following ways.
Real estate videos offer a more realistic and immersive experience of the property, making it easier for buyers to visualize themselves living in the space. As a result, listings with videos earn up to 403% more inquiries compared to those that don't use them.
Real estate videos help agents showcase their expertise and professionalism. They demonstrate to potential clients that the agent is willing to go the extra mile to showcase their client's property and market it effectively. As a result, 73% of homeowners tend to list with agents using videos.
Impact of Drone Photos
Drone photography has revolutionized the real estate industry by offering amazing aerial views of properties, impacting the real estate industry in the following ways.
Drones allow real estate photographers to capture high-resolution images from different angles, providing potential buyers with a comprehensive view of the property, which makes it easier for them to make a decision. As a result, homes with aerial photos sell at around 68% faster.
Drone photography eliminates the need for people to climb ladders or walk on roofs to take photos. This reduces the risk of accidents for everyone involved in the process. However, around 36% of agents still hire professional drone operators
Impact of Virtual Tours
Virtual tours are digital representations of the physical spaces of the property. They can be 3D tours hosted online or live-videos tours that the client can view as the agent explores the property.
Since these tours allow viewers to see a 360-degree view of the space using a computer or mobile device, they have the following impact on real estate.
Around 82% of property sellers prefer to use an agent offering the 3D tour
About 99% of sellers think that 3D tours offer an edge over their competitors
Properties featured in a 3D tour spend around 31% less time before getting a buyer
Around 90% of property buyers find properties featured in virtual tours more compelling
Frequently Asked Questions
What Are the Benefits of Real Estate Photography and Virtual Tours?
Real estate photos, aerial photography, and virtual tours have become increasingly vital over time because virtual tours and aerial photography help make homes or properties look much spacious as possible, even if potential buyers are only having long-distance or online viewing. Thus, professional photography and virtual tours improve brand and marketing plans to help real estate professionals or homeowners sell listings faster.
Is Taking Images of a Home a Profitable Job?
Real estate photography can be a demanding and time-consuming niche. Still, you can make it a profitable business and make money once they get a steady line of well-paying clients and offer good photography, virtual staging, and video services. However, it's an essential component that real estate photographers work on developing good photography skills and techniques first.
What Is the Cost of Real Estate Photography?
The cost of real estate photography depends on location and whether it's charged per home size, number of photos, or per hour. On average, virtual tour prices range from $100 to $2000, videos range from $200 to $5000, aerial photos range from $100 to $250, and standard photo packages range from $208 to $318, depending on the city.
Conclusion
Data-driven research, real estate photography statistics, and decision-making represent an essential component in the industry as buying or selling properties involves a huge sum of money. With these real estate photography statistics, you can know how much impact high-quality photography and video services can have if you want to make plans, sell listings, charge more money and expand your market to get more buyers.
Tony Colangelo is an award-winning interiors and architectural photographer. Many of his clients won the heralded Gold CARE Award from the Victoria Residential Builders Association, with many others attaining ‘finalist’ status. Furthermore, his work has been featured in Modern Home Victoria, Boulevard Magazine, Westcoast Home & Design, the Vancouver Sun, Victoria Times-Colonist, Richmond Hill Post, as well as a feature article on Houzz.
It would be good to know what market those agents are in. 248 is a pretty small sample size. I like where most of those numbers sit, but I too am surprised by the video response. A good adjunct question would be what percentage of their market has professional still images of the listings. The 31% of sellers that believe photos are important is disappointing. A couple of agents I do work for only hire my when sellers require professional photos and the number of times I hear that from agents is increasing.
Perhaps the video interest is in response to all of the flipper shows on TV.
I've done videos almost since the day it became possible to link them to MLS. Listing is a competition. Sellers want their realtors to be highly competitive. At the time, my first and most progressive realtor made a decision to advance to a new level of sales. His goal was to secure ALL of the highest value properties in our area. He engaged me to produce still and videos worthy of that clientele, and he did indeed secure that segment of the market for himself. The people who's properties we marketed were ecstatic about what we provided for them, and it created buzz. We could barely keep up with demand. And the way it works is: If you have the listing, you always get a commission no matter who sells the house. Listing is a competition.
@Ken Brown, At the top of the article it says that the research was conducted by a photography company out of New Orleans. I’d like to know more about where exactly the survey was conducted and the state of the agents when they answered the survey. I could totally see this coming from a party at a bar. 🙂
Also, it depends on what market you are in. Are you in one of the fastest growing cities in the country (like me) or a really depressed market? Here, I see agents all the time listing houses that are two to three times the average home price just using their phone. The house still sells pretty quickly. The agents that use me are the ones who understand marketing and branding, and how it helps their business.
And video? Most agents I ask about it don't really care that much.
I have done survey research, and this one is so sketchy as to be essentially useless. Its amazing how dumb smart people can get when they are conducting or interpreting surveys (or even writing about them).
If as you stated, this is a survey of "248 Realtors who utilized professional real estate photography", then the following answers are useless:
61.3% of Realtors believe real estate photography is “crucial”.
31.0% of Realtors believe real estate photography is “important” to sellers.
72.2% of participants agree that real estate photography helps them win more listings.
They are already using professional photographers. They have come to the conclusion that real estate photography is worth it. That's called "intrinsic bias".
This cannot be confused with a survey of ALL realtors, regardless of whether they hire professional photographers.
Secondly, belief is no substitute for data. I may believe that my car is a better, wiser choice than others on the road and that it gets me to work faster, but where are the data? Where is the evidence.
What would be really useful is for a University-level "center for real estate studies" to conduct science-based survey research on this topic.
Until then, we should pay no heed to this claptrap.
Thanks for taking time to read the results of our survey. It was an informal survey among our customers (located throughout 10 states). As mentioned, the respondents (248) were all users of professional photography and the questions were opinion based. While this was not a scientific research study, the results did show some interesting findings which we were inclined to share. These preliminary findings could point to great areas for additional research within the industry. We'd love to see more in-depth research in each of these areas.
Great article, full of very specific tips. I truly reckon that real estate is the most popular business in the world & it all starts with image, the picture of the dream home.
A professional image is only a selling tool if the home is properly staged.
I’m curious as to how the stats change for a house a homeowner cleaned (hopefully) and was shot vs. a staged one.
It needs to be noted that 99 percent of realtors think a slideshow of the pictures are a 'video'
It would be good to know what market those agents are in. 248 is a pretty small sample size. I like where most of those numbers sit, but I too am surprised by the video response. A good adjunct question would be what percentage of their market has professional still images of the listings. The 31% of sellers that believe photos are important is disappointing. A couple of agents I do work for only hire my when sellers require professional photos and the number of times I hear that from agents is increasing.
Perhaps the video interest is in response to all of the flipper shows on TV.
I think Bill Jones is right. I’ve had many agents ask me for video, only to find out that what the really want is a slideshow.
I've done videos almost since the day it became possible to link them to MLS. Listing is a competition. Sellers want their realtors to be highly competitive. At the time, my first and most progressive realtor made a decision to advance to a new level of sales. His goal was to secure ALL of the highest value properties in our area. He engaged me to produce still and videos worthy of that clientele, and he did indeed secure that segment of the market for himself. The people who's properties we marketed were ecstatic about what we provided for them, and it created buzz. We could barely keep up with demand. And the way it works is: If you have the listing, you always get a commission no matter who sells the house. Listing is a competition.
@Ken Brown, At the top of the article it says that the research was conducted by a photography company out of New Orleans. I’d like to know more about where exactly the survey was conducted and the state of the agents when they answered the survey. I could totally see this coming from a party at a bar. 🙂
Also, it depends on what market you are in. Are you in one of the fastest growing cities in the country (like me) or a really depressed market? Here, I see agents all the time listing houses that are two to three times the average home price just using their phone. The house still sells pretty quickly. The agents that use me are the ones who understand marketing and branding, and how it helps their business.
And video? Most agents I ask about it don't really care that much.
I have done survey research, and this one is so sketchy as to be essentially useless. Its amazing how dumb smart people can get when they are conducting or interpreting surveys (or even writing about them).
If as you stated, this is a survey of "248 Realtors who utilized professional real estate photography", then the following answers are useless:
61.3% of Realtors believe real estate photography is “crucial”.
31.0% of Realtors believe real estate photography is “important” to sellers.
72.2% of participants agree that real estate photography helps them win more listings.
They are already using professional photographers. They have come to the conclusion that real estate photography is worth it. That's called "intrinsic bias".
This cannot be confused with a survey of ALL realtors, regardless of whether they hire professional photographers.
Secondly, belief is no substitute for data. I may believe that my car is a better, wiser choice than others on the road and that it gets me to work faster, but where are the data? Where is the evidence.
What would be really useful is for a University-level "center for real estate studies" to conduct science-based survey research on this topic.
Until then, we should pay no heed to this claptrap.
Hi All,
Thanks for taking time to read the results of our survey. It was an informal survey among our customers (located throughout 10 states). As mentioned, the respondents (248) were all users of professional photography and the questions were opinion based. While this was not a scientific research study, the results did show some interesting findings which we were inclined to share. These preliminary findings could point to great areas for additional research within the industry. We'd love to see more in-depth research in each of these areas.
Thanks again!
IMOTO
Great article, full of very specific tips. I truly reckon that real estate is the most popular business in the world & it all starts with image, the picture of the dream home.
Great article! Taking photo and video are essential in the real estate industry if you want to make any plans, sell listings, and get more clients.
A professional image is only a selling tool if the home is properly staged.
I’m curious as to how the stats change for a house a homeowner cleaned (hopefully) and was shot vs. a staged one.