M J Branham

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If the your listing images are on the average side, consider having them spruced up a bit. Not faked into something the potential buyer would not recognize, but enhanced where the best features which may have been hidden in the shadows, could present the very thing a potential buyer is looking for. The days of uploading average photos are leaving us with more and more big companies using photo enhancement techniques on the images of their listings. I know its happening and it works because I revised thousands of images for an exclusive Real Estate firm in Houston that recently recorded its third straight year of record sales. A simple photo makeover can turn an average image that blends into the other online listings into the image that has that special something that catches a buyers eye and causes them to schedule a showing. M J Branham Rennoview.com

Another new trend in marketing properties is managing the online image of the listing. With most of the home buyers now doing a major part of their shopping online, how your property listing image looks against another property listing image may ultimately be the only impression a potential buyer will have of your listing and the deciding factor between them requesting a showing of your listing or another on the webpage. Gone are the days where simple photos that might be dark, crooked or off-color showing the basic shape of the home or commercial property will be enough to peak a buyer's interest. The larger Real Estate agencies are already taking advantage of this by marketing their listings with pristine images that may have begun as your average photo take by a seller or seller's representive. These are not "faked" images that have elements added to or subtracted to the image that a on property inspection would not bear accuracy but rather images where the best features of that property are brought out and make to look its best to help peak the potential buyers interest. Enhanced images have become intrenched in the marketing of products in America and soon it will be as automatic in Real Estate as making sure the yard is mowed.

Another area of the new real estate reality being overlooked by many agents and property owners is the ever growing use of enhanced images in property promotion online and in print. I worked in-house with an exclusive real estate company for several years taking average property images and turning them into dynamic selling tools. Our images easily commanded attention on listing pages in the printed promotions distributed by the company. For those of you who do not realize the larger agencies who have graphic staffs are quietly modifying their images inhouse...then let me say this is quickly becoming the norm. There is no doubt that photo enhancement contributes to successful sales... the agency I was provided this in-house service for grew from around $450 mil in annual sales to $1.1 billion in residential home sales over just a three-year period, due in part to the literally thousands of regular property photos that were turned into powerful visual selling tools, giving them an edge over their prime competitors. The enhancement I'm talking about is not the type that would defraud the customer by adding or removing permanent property features that would not be evident upon inspection, but the type that brings out the best of what is in the original photo as if it were taken by the best photographer under the most ideal conditions. For the most part, individual agents and small to mid-size Real Estate companies simply cannot afford to hire professionla photographers, in-house artists or expensive local image photo houses to keep up visually with the competition and frankly, most Real Estate professionals may not yet open to taking this visual avenue as yet. Photo enhancement has become a mainstay in rest of our society in promotion and entertainment...the time is coming where this will also be as much a part of take listing photos as making sure the lawn is mowed. I invite you to take a look at our website and would like to hear any comments or feedback you might have regarding our new online image enhancement services.