York has more than its fair share of period terraced houses; Victorian, Georgian or as with this example, early Edwardian. They vary from the flat fronted two up-two down terrace which can still be found for less than £200k to five storey town houses selling in excess of £2million.
What I love about the humble terrace is
High quality, professional photography for holiday cottages and apartments is essential. We’ve all looked through the websites searching for holidays and personally the photographs are one of the main decision makers for me. There is usually a wide selection of properties to choose from and unlike buying of renting you don’t need to worry too much about the exact location. For a city break as long as you are in the thick of it and close to the things you want to see then you may well be swayed by those alluring photos which sell you the dream.
No one wants to go on holiday to a place where the owners haven’t even bothered to get decent photos, it just shows a lack of care and attention, and what else might they have neglected?
We work closely with owners and agents to ensure the results are first class. We advise on dressing and staging to help sell the lifestyle. It’s important to take a selection of shots that show the space but also those details to transport people to the destination and start to dream about their holiday.
Using eye-catching professional photography can pay dividends, unlike selling or letting a house the images will work for you time and time again attracting new guests consistently.
Check out our portfolio of recent work to see for yourself.
The bathroom might seem like an odd room to begin with as we start looking at how to dress your property ready for photography. But bear with us. The kitchen is probably the most important room when it comes to selling your house but also offers a far bigger styling challenge. The bathroom, on the other hand, is fairly simple. So we’re going to start there.
Let’s start with the principles. The important thing to remember is that people don’t spend very long studying images when looking for property to buy. They flick through images and only slow down when they see something that captures their interest.
Why does styling make a difference?
We all dream of selling our home quickly at the asking price and for the sale to go smoothly. If we’re honest some of us even expect this to happen, and why wouldn’t it? We love our home and expect others to feel the same.
But like all dreams YOU have to make them come true…not just hope for the best and trust to luck. We’ve been working in the property industry for years and have seen dreams come true as well as see them shattered.
Should I furnish my empty house for selling is a common dilemma faced by homeowners, landlords, property developers and anybody looking to sell a property.
A quick straw poll of our photographers gives a resounding YES! We all believe that furniture makes a massive difference to how a property feels and subsequently its saleability and the price achieved. Let us explain why you should furnish your empty house before selling.
1. Spatial awareness doesn’t come naturally to most of us
However good we think we are at imaging things in a space, it’s really really difficult to do it accurately by imagination alone. That’s why loads of places suggest making sofas and beds out of cardboard boxes and paper to give you an idea of how they will work in a room before you buy them.
2. It’s not how we live.
Most people don’t live in completely empty houses with nothing in them. So straight away it’s an unnatural environment for anyone viewing the home.
3. It makes it more difficult for us to imagine living there
We all like to imagine ourselves living in a house with all our things before we buy it. But it’s a lot harder for us to imagine our dining table when there’s none there to start with. Or our bed, or sofa, or wardrobe, or coffee table…(you get the idea)
4. It’s harder to tell how a room should (or could) be used
We all know a master bedroom needs a bed, some bedside tables, a couple of lamps and a wardrobe but where do they go and how does the room work with them in? And what about bedroom 3, is it big enough to fit a double bed or is it only really usable as a study? Without the furniture we just don’t really know. Sure we could bring a tape measure and mock up a double bed in the space in two dimensions but even then it’s hard to tell how much space it takes up in three dimensions and how the room feels with it in.
Photographing the whole room in houses gives the viewer a sense of scale and space. These are essential shots for a prospective homeowner as you can see how a room is laid out and even how it connects via doorways or openings to other rooms in the house. We also take lifestyle and feature shots, a lifestyle shot is a snippet of how the current homeowners make use of a certain space or area in a house. The example below shows a
There is no doubt about it. How well presented your house is plays a key part in the sale price and how long it takes to achieve a sale. Houses that are well presented and in move in condition will sell quicker and for more money than similar houses that don’t look as good. The ethos is simple, the more aspirational your house looks, whether in York or anywhere around the country, the more people will aspire to buy it.
We often get asked how best to stage and style a home ready for our visit when we call to make the appointment. Unfortunately by the time we are calling it is usually too late, unless you live extremely tidily or you are happy to wait a week or two whilst you prepare. One of our photographers has recently sold their own property and it took almost three weeks of meticulous decluttering and preparation to ensure that the shots were as good as they could be.
We often hear a whole host of reasons why the property is not presented very well from running out of time to messy children and my favourite one, that if people saw very tidy photos they would be disappointed on the viewing!!
It is well documented that a clean and tidy home sells quicker and for more money, so why would you choose to overlook the presentation of your home for the photographs and viewings?
There is no denying that a well executed dusk shot on the right home does wonders for a marketing campaign. However before you rush to pick up the phone, there’s no getting away from it, dusk shots are not within everyone’s budget, they are time consuming and depending on the time of year sometimes need one of our team on location as late as 10:30pm.
Lighting property photographs is one of the most important things when it comes to getting great results, time after time in a range of different situations. Good, effective lighting is also one of the most difficult parts of interior photography to master. It takes a great deal of practice and experience to know how to light spaces in a way that looks natural and enhances the room. It’s fairly straightforward to fire a flash into a room and make everything look brighter, but that’s not what I am talking about here. Good lighting almost never comes from an on camera flash, and even less so from a direct on-camera flash. If you were to take a picture of a room from directly in front of the only window the results would not be nice. There would be little shadow and depth to the room and items in it. That’s pretty much what on camera, direct flash is and that’s neither flattering nor realistic. Great additional lighting only comes when you have the tools and the experience to use them properly.
Below are a few examples where we have added light to the shot to improve the end result. Lighting is not only key when it comes to illuminating a space (or series of spaces) but is so important to enhancing depth, texture and mood as these examples show.
Log Burner:
To enable us to catch the detail in the flames of this log burner, the rest of the room was much to dark. By adding light we were not only able to improve the brightness levels of the room but also to bring out the texture and details in the bricks, stove and mantle piece.
From tennis courts, tiny courtyards and amazing balconies to spectacular views and boating lakes (yes boating lakes) 2015 has seen a great variety of amazing gardens. We’ve even managed to get lots of sunshine and blue skies which, at the moment, is nothing short of a distant memory. There’s no doubt that a garden not only increases the saleability of your house but its value too. Well used, designed and cared for gardens can be a massive draw and making sure whatever you have is put to its best use will help ensure you sell your house quickly, easily and
2015 has seen in a boom in the prime property sales market, which has meant very many interesting and unusual bathrooms for us to photograph as we have traveled around York and all over Yorkshire.
We’ve brought together some of our favourite and most memorable for you to enjoy.
Having worked in the industry for many years we have seen awareness grow of how important professional photography is in regards to selling your home. We recently had a new client express that they are looking to grow their business and that they saw professional, well executed photographs as an important aspect of their work which would put them ahead of their competitors.
To achieve this high standard of photography we have worked for many years honing our craft, learning from the best photographers in the field and taking our skills forward and never standing still.
Here are a few things we have learned over the years –
We’re delighted to announce that Alasdair has won the Photography for Real Estate, photographer of the month for August with the image below.
The competition receives entries from around the globe by some of the best photographers in the field and judged by many of the top names in the business. After three second places it’s great to finally have a winning entry!