A Real Estate Snap-Shot: Preparing Your Home for a Photo Shoot –

A Real Estate Snap-Shot: Preparing Your Home for a Photo Shoot –

A mad-dash to declutter accompanied by a symphony of mop & vacuum and a desperate search for stray toys and pet hair. Welcome to “The Greatest Clean-Up of all Time”, the opening act that often plays before the main event of the real estate photographer’s arrival. It doesn’t matter if I am shooting your house for Blue Mountains Lifestyle, to advertise it for sale or to promote your Airbnb - if you’d like to do things a little better and with more purpose, read on.

Now, I don’t mean to teach people to suck eggs when writing about preparing your house for the real estate photographer (I know you can all clean a house) but getting this right will get your house more attention, maybe make you some more money not to mention, get me out of your hair sooner. I aim to help you not just have your house ready for when we arrive to photograph everything in its splendour but also to have the place looking its best for buyers.

If you click just here, you can download a checklist that might help you with your preparations.

So, let’s start with all the general stuff –

·       Remove the clutter. I will say this once more and then again throughout this blog – Remove the clutter. This rule applies to every room that we’ll be photographing. A good place to begin is by creating a furniture plan that provides moveable space about the house. Temporarily move non-essential furniture and your lovely knickknacks.

·       Make sure to clean the house – the WHOLE house. It seems pretty obvious really, you vacuum and mop sure, but don’t forget to wash things like walls and ceilings ESPECIALLY if you’ve ever been a smoker or have an open fire. Our clients living in Newcastle around the port or any of the coal handling facilities, you should wash the outside walls down too. That coal dust gets everywhere. Our Blue Mountains clients, you’ll have a similar job to do following bushfires.

·       Clean the windows and window sills – inside and out.

·       Open all of the blinds and curtains before we arrive. We want all the natural light we can have.

·       Turn on all the lights – I mean all the lights, lamps included. A darker house can be nice and cosy but it makes a horrible first impression.

·       Turn off the screens. I know you see lovely vistas on every TV screen and computer monitor in real estate marketing photos and home staging pics but we add these in post-production. TVs creates bad light and shadow.

·       Turn off any ceiling fans.

·       Hide your family photos and personal pictures. We want prospective buyers to project themselves into this space and to imagine living in the house. They will find this very difficult indeed with grandma staring down at them dressed in a sarong in your holiday snaps from Bali.

Gran sure did enjoy that holiday.

Outside. Let’s give that curb some appeal –

We are aiming to create a positive first impression - and that starts outside.

·       Declutter your front verandah/front door area. If you horde plants like I do, hide them and leave out perhaps three or so in NICE pots.  

·       Clean up the garden – mow grass, trim edges, prune things, weed stuff. Don’t forget to get rid of leaves and sweep your paths.

·       Living plants are always good to look at. Note the “living” part of that sentence. Remove dead stuff.

·       Remove, move or hide hoses, sprinklers, your kid’s toys & your pet’s possessions.

·       Close up the garage. If you park on the street at the front of the house, relocate your car and try and keep the street space clear if possible – at least until we’ve finished shooting the outside.

·       When you’re cleaning the walls, don’t forget to remove spider webs from under windows and around door frames.

·       For twilight shoots, make sure that any outdoor lights or lamps are working and turned on.

·       If you’ve a pool, make sure it is CLEAN and the lights are on (if there are any). Yes, they can be cleaned up in post production but prospective buyers are sure to notice the lake of blue-green algae even if it wasn’t in the marketing pictures. Also, pack away the Creepy Crawly and any other cleaning accoutrements, pool toys and banana lounges.

We can fix a lot of things in post-production…

… but not this.

OR this.

Loungeroom. Don’t relax yet!

·       Have I mentioned decluttering yet? Minimise the ornamentation on bookshelves, mantlepieces & other flat surfaces in general.

·       Hide the remotes (if they’ve not already been misplaced by other members of the household).

·       Straighten all of the cushions and give them a bit of a whack to fatten them up. Hide them otherwise.

·       Plants – if you have some, keep only the healthy ones around for the shoot. If you don’t have any, get some. They look good.

Kitchen preparation.

·       What’s that word again…? DECLUTTER. You can leave a couple of ‘nicer’ appliances on benches if you want but remove everything else.

·       Make sure all of the doors are closed on cupboards, the dishwasher, your pantry etc.

·       Hide the bins.

·       Remove magnets, bills, drawings and everything else from the door of the fridge.

·       A bowl full of fruit is nice but not if it the fruit is on its last legs. New fruit or no fruit – that’s the rule.

·       Plants. Again.

Bedrooms. We’re looking to create a different kind of magic today.

·       As always, declutter shelves and floors and pack away toys and personal items.

·       Make those beds. If you really want the bedroom to look its best, make the bed with a blanket on top instead of a doona. You can fold a bedspread at the foot of the bed too if you’d like.

·       MATCHING bedside tables can look good with a lamp & perhaps a few books on top but nothing else. Make sure that the lamps match too (but don’t match the books. That’d be weird).

·       Remove personal pics. If you share your house with children, take the time to look at which posters are most prominent on their walls and remove/replace any that might be considered unsavoury.  

·       If the area under the bed is visible, please vacuum and clean under there. If it isn’t visible, it of course makes a great place to hide stuff!

The Bathroom.

·       The toilet seat goes down and a full roll of toilet paper should be put on the holder (sheets facing the front of course. We’re not animals).

·       Hide the rubbish bin & the get rid of the toilet brush.

·       Clean the mirrors and the shower screen. If you’ve no screen, open the shower curtain.

·       Remove all of your toiletry items from the vanity, sink and shower. No toothpaste, shampoo, razors or bath time items should be left out.

·       Plants. Same rules as before.

·       Have some good-looking towels out if you want but they must all match and they must be fluffy.

Pets.

·       All evidence of the fur friends must be exorcised from the house. Unless you keep small livestock like chickens which can’t be relocated easily. Also, who doesn’t want chickens.

·       Remove pet beds and toys from sight.

·       Ditto bowls and feeding paraphernalia.

·       Ditto litter boxes. Of course, no-one needs reminding that all “dog eggs” should be disposed of.

·       Vacuum up all of the pet hair on soft furnishings.

·       For comfort and safety, please keep your pets restrained or isolated in a comfortable room (one that we won’t be photographing) for the duration of the visit. Your home is your pet’s home and they may not like a stranger invading their space.

Property Styling – To style or not to style

Although I can tell you how to tidy up so things look good for my arrival, I am not an expert on the styling part of this equation. My style follows more of a “put it on the floor until I find the will to re-house it” kind of aesthetic and though I love my space and all of the stuff I have in it, I have to admit that the old 12’ Mal I used to keep lying around for looks probably wouldn’t be to every homebuyer’s taste. And this is the point - when I am selling my house, I have to remember I am not selling my style or my aesthetic.

Fortunately, though, there are people out there who can visit with you and help make your space more appealing with a style make-over. When writing this, I had the help of two of them - Sharon Cutajar of Home Instinct and Rebecca Larkin of La Bella Casa Interiors. Without wanting to misquote anything they’ve said, I have summarised most of the crucial parts of our conversations above but I’ve left the most important points to last.

The first point may be familiar to you by now.

Sharon Cutajar of Home Instinct in Springwood

Rebecca Larkin of La Bella Casa in Leura

Both Sharon and Rebecca agreed that there is little point spending the time and money showcasing your house (possibly engaging a stylist) if you leave the place a chaotic jumble of knick-knacks. This means that you have to declutter. That isn’t to say that the house must be entirely sterile and free of your presence but by removing the “ephemera” you are ticking a couple of very important boxes -

• First, you appeal to a “general” market and allow prospective buyers the scope to imagine themselves living in the house. As Sharon said, “it is good to remind yourself that the goal of this is to sell your home not showcase your possessions”. If you don’t know what “looks good” in the general sense, search online. There is a wealth of inspiration to help.

• Secondly, you are maximising a sense of space throughout the house. Rebecca suggested drawing up a furniture plan by moving around and gauging which areas are less easy to walk through. If you need to move sideways to squish between pieces of furniture, move something out.

• Finally, a tidy, organised and uncluttered house is calming, it creates an easy sense of welcome and when selling your home, this is what you should aim to present.

I’ll finish this piece (much later than I’d wanted to) by adding two very important reminders.

First, download the checklist I mentioned earlier.

And second, nearly all houses lack features we’d like or have blemishes we’d rather conceal but don’t attempt to lie about the nature of the property. A garage could conceivably be presented as an office space but rarely will it make a plausible bedroom so while accentuating a “hi-light” to pull focus from a “low-light” could be considered clever styling, pretending your pantry is guest house is just a lie.

Until next time - Oh and don’t forget the download.