The Future Online Home Shopping: Selling site unseen with Virtual Tour

During this difficult situation with the coronavirus (COVID-19), open house may not be an option. However, sellers still need to sell their houses because of the uncertain situation or relocation. How can we give home buyers a more immersive experience of a home without visiting the property?

Here comes 3D Virtual Tours!

Allow prospects to self-navigate through any property in complete 360°

We offer both 3D MATTERPORT Tours and Non-Matterport Tours.

Price based on Square Footages. Please feel free to inquire.

When we do a 360 Virtual Tour for you, you will receive two things:

1) An unbranded link to upload to the MLS

2) We will connect your Zillow Live Listing with the 3D Virtual Tour so it is automatically embedded to your listing online when it becomes live

You can also ask us for a “View” report after your listing go live, we can show you the data of how many views you got on your 3D home on Zillow and the average view time.

Typically a listing gets 500 clicks on the Virtual Tour over 8-10 days from our records, just on Zillow itself.

Homes with 3D tours receive 2x more views

on average than homes without 3D!

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Contact us for a 3D Tour service consultation today!

Prepare Your Seller for a Photoshoot

First-time home sellers may be feeling a little overwhelmed by the process of selling their property. They may be worried that the photographer is coming to their home. To ease their stress and yours, you can save time by making sure everything goes well by using this helpful checklist.

Exterior Front and Back

• Remove cars from driveway

• Close all windows

• Sweep walkways

• Pick up leaves, sticks, branches

• Put toys, bicycles away

• Store seasonal décor

• Stow garden tools, supplies

• Remove all hoses

• Straighten and arrange deck furniture

• Clean pool area

Interior: Main Areas

• Remove personal items/photos

• Remove all visible clutter

• Open shades/blinds

• Replace burned out light bulbs

• Tidy up or put away all children’s toys

• Empty waste baskets

• Hide pet dishes/toys/beds

• Vacuum carpets

• Sweep hard floors

• Remove newspapers, mail

• Display attractive books or tropical decorations

• Turn off televisions and ceiling fans

• Turn on all lights

Interior: Kitchen

• Remove all items from refrigerator door

• Store food in cabinets

• De-clutter counters, stove

• Stow small appliances

• Hide soaps, cleaning items

• Hide dish towels, sponges

• Clear sink of dishes

• Put away draining rack

• Organize items on open shelves

• Place bowl of fruit on counter

 Interior: Dining Room

• Straighten/push in dining chairs

• Add centerpiece, candles

• Set the table for dinner

• Add a vase of tropical flowers

• Add a bottle of wine, glasses

 Interior: Bedrooms

• Make the beds

• Arrange decorative pillows

• Put away clothing, shoes

• Clean under the bed

• Clear surfaces of clutter

 Interior: Bathrooms

• Make the bathrooms sparkle

• Hang fresh towels or remove them if they don’t look nice

• Clear counters of toiletries

• Clean mirrors

• Clean toilet and close lid

• Remove all items from tub and shower

We provide professional photography service for Maui Real Estate Agents and Vacation rental company and owners. We are committed to provide you a smooth photoshoot experience and help you create images that promote your property and business. Contact us for more information.

All photos copyrighted by FLOCUS Studio.

7 Simple Steps to Set Up Your Maui Real Estate Photoshoot

Agents, when you hire a real estate photographer, how can you make sure the photographer capture what you actually need for your listing?

What do you need to know before asking your photographer to go to your listing property to take pictures?

Here are 7 simple steps to help you effectively set up your photoshoot in Hawaii. Download a copy of the checklist HERE.

Step 1. Know what images you need

First, you need to find out what is the property’s physical selling point.

Think Outside: 

Location, location, location - Do you want to highlight the close access to the ocean? Or the community of the property?

• Are the facilities of the complex a bonus? (i.e. concierge, gym, spa, swimming pool etc.)

• What is nearby? (Schools, park, beach, restaurants)  

• Think Inside:

• Do you want to highlight the view from the house?

• Does the kitchen have modern appliances?

• Is the lanai spacious and have a nice sunset view?

Make a list of shots that you want to make sure your photographer will not miss out. Most photographers know what shots to take by experience, but if you have certain ideas, make sure they do not miss those shots by communicating with them in advance.

Step 2. Communicate your requirements to your photographer to decide a good time for photoshoot

Find out when your property needs to be listed and schedule enough time for a photoshoot.

If you want sunset shots, don’t schedule your shoot in the morning.

You can also send out a standard photography specification requirement guide to your photographer. It can include what shots required, number of shots and file size specification.

We have created a FREE real estate photography checklist that you can use with your photographer.

Step 3. Communicate to the property manager or owner to make sure the property is cleaned and in photo-ready condition.

Well…we all know some houses just need a proper clean and reduce the clusters! If needed, hire a professional cleaner.

Step 4. Determine whether you want to hire a staging company 

Empty room is less appealing in pictures and viewer have less point of reference of room size and function. Depending on your budget, you can consider hiring a staging company. Or you can also hire a photographer to virtually stage your vacant property:

Apart from staging with furniture, we do recommend adding some Aloha elements in your property especially if it is a vacation rental. Staging with local wine, tropical flowers on the table help viewers envision their Maui Hawaii lifestyle. Colorful faux fruit or fresh pineapple plate could stimulate your buyers taste bud!  

Step 5.  Meet with your photographer at the property and have pictures taken

Now, you are all set! Let the photographer do his/her job!

Step 6. Receive your images, select the best ones to post on MLS

You want to organize your listing photos in a sequence that tell the story of your property from a user stand point. Remember your main goal is to give your viewer a tour! Your MLS images are basically their first open house visit experience.

Step 7. Celebrate your listing is live and get it sold!!

After your listing is live, you can use the photos to make an announcement on social media and invite buyers to come check it out!

We hope these simple 7 steps can help you successfully plan your listing photoshoot. Here is a simplified version for you and your team to use. Download this simplified checklist for 7 Simple Steps to set up your real estate photoshoot

FLOCUS Studio provides Real Estate Photography service in Maui, Hawaii. We are committed to photograph images that help you sell. Contact us today to know more.

How to tell if your Maui Real Estate Pictures are good enough?

There are so many real estate photographers. How can you tell if their pictures are good enough? Here are five basic quality check points:

1. Vertical Lines

When shooting with a wide-angle lens, typically 17-18mm, the image will somehow be distorted. The photographer should be aware of straightening all the vertical lines of the image in post production. Check if the lines in the image are parallel to each other.

Alignment: Make sure the photos are in perfect horizontal axis - Photo by FLOCUS Studio

Below are pictures from the MLS: Distorted images are not very appealing. When shooting from a wide angle view, photographers should avoid objects in the foreground or middle-ground (like back of sofas, coffee tables) and avoid dramatic angles. Shoot more floor than ceiling. The photographs should have a natural look.

2. Vignetting

Vignetting is a reduction of an image's brightness or saturation toward the periphery compared to the image center and it shall not appear in property photos. Vignetting is caused by light hitting the lens aperture at a strong angle - an internal physical obstruction. This effect is often noticed in images taken with wide angle. The photographer shall be able to remove the vignetting effects to give a clear edge of the photos by applying lens correction function. Property photos shall be bright and clear, images with vignetting could appear to be amateur.

3. Multiple exposure

In Maui, the ocean view is a selling point. Simply say, the photos need to highlight the view out from the window. This can only be done by some form of blending multiple exposures. You may have heard of HDR technology. It stands for High Dynamic Range which means in a final image it balances off all the lights from the brightest window spot to the darkest shadows. You can tell if this technique is being used or not simply looking at photos that have big windows. Is the interior look too dark and the window is overexposed? Check out our other blog post about photo quality.

All of your interior images showing a window should be bracketed. 3 shots of bracketing images.

When the property was properly lit, you could see the interior and external views very clearly and evenly lit. 

4. Height of tripod

Tripod shall be used in shooting interior photos. It shall be set at medium height to avoid any axis distortion. We suggest setting the camera on a perfect horizontal axis 1m20-1m (about hip height to chest height). Your photographer shall make sure to shoot on perfect horizontal axis and avoid shooting too low or too high.

5. The right file size and enough amount of photos

Your listing site requires specific photo file size. Your photographer shall be resizing the image to meet your specifications instead of sending you random sizes and leave it to you to adjust the files. Maui Hawaii MLS listing allow up to 50 images. If your photographer is providing too many duplicates of similar angles, you simply won’t have much choice to pick through the photos. Ideally, you want to have some interior photos and surrounding complex images as well as beach photos if a beach is nearby.

Show off the ocean views as much as possible from different angles.  Photo by FLOCUS Studio

Highlighting the views and lighting.

Photo by FLOCUS Studio

3 different angles of each bedroom

3 images for kitchen

3 images of living room

at least 2 photos of bathroom

at least 2 photos of the house or condominium exterior

2 images of garage / washer-dryer features

2 images of yard

1 image highlighting the view

5-6 images of condo complex facilities and nearby beach

Showing the views from Lanai.

Photo by FLOCUS Studio

Showing the kitchen island.

Photo by FLOCUS Studio

Among all of the images, you want to pick out a cover image as your listing first image. It has to be the most eye catching image that shows off the selling point of your property.

These are some of the basic elements for a quality real estate photoshoot. Check out your existing listing photos now and see if they have met these criteria. If you are not sure if your photos are professionally taken or not, send us a link, we will provide complimentary review of your listing photos and suggestions.

Check out our Real Estate Photography Service or Contact Us for a quote.

Why Use a Professional Real Estate Photographer for Your Maui Hawaii Property

It might seem obvious that good photography and videography are critical for your success as a real estate professional. It is even so when you are trying to sell your Maui property to investors who are in the mainland and make their decisions based on your listing photos.

When you dig into the numbers, just how much of an impact good visuals make borders on shocking. Check out some of these stats:

• Homes with high quality photography sell 32 percent faster.

• Homes with more photos sell faster, too. A home with one photo spends an average 70 days on the market, but a home with 20 photos spends 32 days on the market.

• For homes in the $200,000 to $1 million range, those that include high-quality photography in their listings sell for $3,000-$11,000 more.

As time goes on, and equipment and tools become better and more sophisticated, online platforms become more robust, good property photos invite buyers.

In its resource reference document for members on the topic, the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) points out that:

87% of homebuyers who searched for a home on the internet found photos to be among the most useful features of REALTOR® websites. Digital photography and virtual tours allow REALTORS® to serve their clients like never before. Digital images can quickly and professionally showcase a listing, and today’s technologically savvy clients appreciate the convenience of a virtual tour for both long distance and local moves.

Connect with consumers in a fast-paced digital world by setting yourself apart and grabbing their attention instantly.

Check out our Real Estate Photography Service .

Bonus:

Looking for Vacation Rentals in Hawaii for your next trip? Check out HawaiiGaga.com to learn about the tips to travel to the Hawaiian Islands and find out more where would be the best place to stay!

It is important to show off the ocean view.

The above information is referenced from RISMedia.com and images are by Flocus Studio.