Investing In Real Estate Photography Makes You More Money

Professional real estate photography stops being a daily expense when it is of a high standard. The service is no longer just money going out, never to be seen again. Instead, this becomes an investment in your business that is almost guaranteed to see a return in terms of a higher sale price for the house you are selling in Grand Rapids, MI, the West Michigan area, or wherever you might be.

Why do I say that?

Well, I should correct myself by saying that good marketing is an investment. Bad marketing can be a waste of time that doesn’t work out well in the end. Unfortunately, poor quality real estate photography can develop that reputation, because the quality of the photography just isn’t good enough. Contrarily, very good real estate photography will always put you ahead financially.

Let’s look into what I mean by this…

According to the experts, every marketing initiative should be assessed for how much potential it has to provide a return on investment of money and time. Whether this is a television commercial, a newspaper ad, or junk mail, if marketing tool is not likely to bring in more than is going out, then clearly it is not a smart move.

So what do we mean by ROI when it comes to the photography and marketing of a home for sale? Essentially, houses that are marketed with top quality photos will sell for a higher price than if they had used poor quality photos.

Here is a short video that helps explain marketing ROI:

Basically, we calculate the ROI of marketing with the following sum:

ROI = Profit – marketing cost / marketing cost

… then multiply that figure by 100 to see the figure as a percentage.

Therefore, if the profit on the sale of a home as a result of using high quality professional real estate photography (so the higher cost that was achieved above and beyond what would have been possible without those photos) is $4,000, and the cost of photography is $300, then:

Here is another example:

There was a rental property that was rather cluttered and the initial photos used were quite poor. The first agent had the property listed for almost four months and only received one offer for $326,000.

The owner was not happy with that offer and how the home was marketed. They switched the listing agent selling the house. The new agent hired a top quality real estate photographer to re-shoot the home.

Now remember that the first agent had the property listed on the market for four months and only received the one low offer.

With the new high quality photos, the listing agent received an offer of $346,750 – within three days!! That’s an increase of over $20,000 from the original offer!

And given the cost of using the high quality photos, this provided a return on investment of 3544%.

What made the difference? The new photos made the home look like it was worth. The house looked cleaner, brighter, and more like something you might see in a magazine. That caused the buyers to think that if they don’t act fast then they are going to miss out on the listing, which they are probably right!

What if you went to a bank or financial planner and asked them, “I would like to invest my money and have the interest rate be 3544%.” They would laugh at you in your face to stop wasting their time, suggesting you go elsewhere. Yet this is what can be achieved when you use high quality real estate photography.