Author: Rachelle Moore

How Effective is Virtual Staging Photos for Real Estate Marketing?
Most people shop online, even those looking to buy houses or properties for themselves and their families, and it’s challenging to get real estate exposure with the intense competition online. Virtual staging is one of the most effective ways to improve your home and property appearance in preparation for real estate marketing efforts. It’s a great tool to enhance and show an area’s untapped potential.

Read more to know about real estate marketing and how effective virtual staging acts as a tool between the audience and seller.

Real Estate Marketing

Marketing is a campaign to promote a unique selling proposition and establish brand trust and retention. Most practitioners deploy various strategies since marketing is a means to an end; it all boils down to closing a sales deal with a client in real estate. Having repeat customers and testimonials would be considered a bonus or proof of a widely-successful campaign.

You may ask yourself, how important is staging a house? To answer that question, we should start with why people take photos for real estate listings in the first place. As much as putting a for sale sign in the front yard would gain attention, there’s no better lead generation than a digital platform. Getting leads will soon turn to interest, eventually landing a sale or closing the deal.

Here are the results of staging effectiveness in real estate marketing efforts:

1. Virtual staging solutions sell your property faster

The real estate industry is highly competitive and fast-paced, so it’s a red flag if a specific property has been in the market for too long. Sometimes, the agent or seller may reduce the price to land a sale, so getting real estate photo editing and virtual staging saves them those price cuts.

Real estate photo editors resort to techniques like photo manipulation to embellish a property image. However, it would be hard to imagine living in a house based on someone else’s preferences, and it may even feel like trespassing when you look at listing photos of family homes and see their personal effects in full view.

Most buyers want properties that they can customize to their liking. You’d get rid of the personal belongings currently in the house when you complete your sale anyway. Virtual home staging gives your property a head start so that future buyers can envision what their home would look like in your space.

How effective is virtual staging in selling your property faster? According to a survey by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) entitled 2021 Profile of Home Staging, 82% of buyers could effortlessly imagine a staged image as their future residence, and 41% were more willing to visit a home they’ve seen online.

2. Showcase best features before a site visit

Every sale goes through some form or variation of a sales funnel, and transactions in the real estate industry are no different. Once a real estate property is up for sale, the sellers often contact real estate agents or companies to help them through the sales funnel.

A sales funnel has many variations: lead generation, call, follow-up, conversion and sale or opportunity, connection, timing, obstacles, and persistence. Whichever you use, as mentioned earlier, the explicit goal is landing a deal and making a profit.

Here are the guiding principles of the sales funnel with hypothetical scenarios to illustrate each step:
- Awareness – someone sees the property for sale on a listing platform.
- Interest – the prospect contacts the number on the listing and talks to the agent or seller for a site visit.
- Decision – the viewer checks out the house and asks about specifics.
- Action – the client makes the purchase and processes the necessary paperwork.
Every marketing practitioner knows AIDA by heart, and it’s a great way to remember what you need to do first. You can develop awareness virtually anywhere these days, especially with so many social media platforms available, like Instagram or Tiktok.

Virtual staging helps immensely with lead generation or creating opportunities by showcasing potential and possibilities before an actual client site visit. A well-staged home can turn awareness into interest quickly enough, leaving only two steps to chance.

3. Clients trust real estate listings with attractive and staged homes

Repetition is the primary goal for real estate agents or home sellers. You will know how effective virtual staging is when you get repeat customers. A successfully staged property will still look genuine, even if edited virtually, so you should still do your best to clean up the actual property.

Clients satisfied with your service or product will recommend you to their family and friends. However, their network will still try to assess your compatibility with their needs, even if their close friend recommended you. Virtual staging solutions will add credibility to your authority as a real estate expert because it will appear that you only cater to high-quality real estate properties.

4. Virtual staging solutions allow you to compete with other similar listings

Real estate listings house thousands of real estate lands, homes, and properties at any given time. It’s safe to say that your images will compete with hundreds of similar properties or houses as soon as they’re posted. Without virtual staging, your house and its rooms will look worn and run down.

The same NAR study asked real estate agents whether staging, photos, videos, and virtual tours were much less important, less important, equally important, more important, or much more important for listings. Due to the global events in 2020, 83% of them think it’s necessary to have property photos, 74% videos, and 73% virtual tours.

This portion highlighted that 90% of respondents believed staging ranged from equally important to much more important, which could mean they think that part of staging effectiveness gives your property a competitive edge in the listing.

5. Virtual staging improves the price

Always remember that there are listing websites to cater to buyers who want to see everything with their own eyes. The buyer prefers something that looks good even if they know the product or item is second-hand, and the same principle applies to buying homes. Even if the appliances or furniture won’t be there upon sale, it helps improve the room’s appearance and contents before posting the photos online.

How important is staging a house? According to NAR, home staging improves your selling price by an average of $40,000 over the asking price. Sometimes, you could end up with more profits just because you made the call to stage the bedroom or kitchen photos. Selling your house without having to cut the price or even generating more profit than expected is a huge win.

6. Virtual staging increases the conversion chance

A successful marketing campaign’s conversion rate is an essential key performance indicator (KPI) because it’s the percentage of buyers doing specific actions. In real estate marketing, the conversion rate may refer to how many listing viewers visit the home or how many viewing clients buy the property.

It’s one thing to post a dozen property pictures and another to turn those viewers into homebuyers. Attracting client visits is an excellent first step to making a sale. When a potential buyer visits the property from your listing, you’ve already made the first conversion from viewer to inquiry.

Conversion rate is the most accurate marketing success measurement, and virtual staging effectively improves the chance of getting noticed, eventually turning into a closed deal.

7. Higher return on investment value

Virtual staging improves returns because it costs significantly less than traditional staging methods. You only need competent editors to get things done and increase your chances of sales rather than when you post unedited and unprocessed phone photos.

The real estate agent commission in the United States is around 4 to 6%, and the average home price is about $428,700. For the sake of computing the potential profit, let’s take $16,000 or 4% of $400,000. Most virtual staging companies charge $10 to $100 depending on the service types.

Virtual staging solutions often only cost a fraction of what the property fetches on the market. Even a real estate agent’s commission could get digital staging done for several properties and still profit over a hundred times the service costs.

Like most investments, having real estate editing and staging may not always look solid in the first few tries. However, with high real estate values, getting at least one buyer will already give you excellent returns.

Bottomline

In conclusion, how effective is virtual staging as a real estate marketing method? It’s very effective in offering a competitive edge and profitability. In the past, real estate professionals have been practicing home staging in showrooms spending hundreds to thousands of dollars to put the home in the spotlight.

Virtual staging offers a better way to showcase properties without excessive preparation and spending. Real estate editing companies like Phixer deliver speedy turnaround times to ensure you can list your home or property quickly.
September 25, 2022
10 Useful Tips on Starting a Real Estate Virtual Staging Business
Information technology makes everyday transactions faster and better. Several industries are steadily migrating into the digital space, and real estate is no exception, as more people are relying on the Internet to bring solutions to their problems. Recent statistics say that most buyers find their next home online.

Therefore, with the ever-increasing real estate market demand in the digital space, it’s a great time to start a virtual staging business and help home sellers attract potential buyers. This post will talk about helpful tips entrepreneurs can do to get started.
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Real Estate Virtual Staging

You may ask yourself, how do I start a virtual staging business? The simple answer lies in knowing what you want and finding ways to achieve them. The real estate industry has an increasing need for graphics, creatives, and marketing businesses.

There’s no denying that the digital space has opportunities and potential clients. A 2021 study by the National Association of Realtors found that for real estate, in particular, 41% of home buyers decided to look at properties online, and 95% of home buyers used online tools to search.

Here are some of the essential tips on establishing a real estate virtual staging company:

1. Check for demand

Your business will aim to supply a demand, so you need to know who will be giving your profit. Before you start a staging business, you need to survey if there’s a market for the service or products you plan to offer. You can ask people in the real estate industry and those looking to buy or sell properties in the future.

There are many ways to look for demand. For example, you can do an informal survey asking how they edit real estate photos and give hypothetical offers of $50 virtual staging or a $75 total package. Your respondents will provide you with an idea of their needs and budget.

2. Plan ahead

After establishing product or service demand, the next step is to set up a business plan with objectives, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) research. Your company’s long-term and short-term goals will serve as a map that guides your entire journey as a virtual staging business.

Here are the steps on how to write a business plan:
- Construct an executive summary. You write this last, but this goes on the first page.
- Create a company profile describing your establishment.
- Write down your long-term business goals.
- Talk about your products and services in as much detail as possible, including pricing and packaging.
- Outline a sales and marketing plan.
- Make a business financial estimation to generate projections.
- Add attachments, research, and case studies in the appendix section.
Your objectives should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timebound (SMART). For example, you want to earn a net profit of $500 in revenue within the first month of operation by offering 50 virtual staging photos at $18.

The SWOT analysis offers insight into your advantages, disadvantages, competitors, and openings. You can strategize your services, pricing, and operational frequency on this information.

3. Find the right talent

You may wonder, how do I start a virtual staging business after the planning stage? The next step is finding suitable people to help with business operations, client management, and creative execution. You won’t get started or scale successfully without the right people on your team.

You can get a recruiter or agency to help you get the right help. In the meantime, you can outsource your needs to a company that offers the same services.

4. Use virtual staging software or apps

If you don’t have an entire artist team or can’t afford to hire an internal team, you can start by familiarizing yourself with virtual staging apps. These applications will show you the different standards from other staging companies. Aside from that, they could help you with your actual output.

Virtual staging applications and programs allow you to edit real estate photos quickly without the help of graphic designers. Because these are often automated or pre-made, they may not look realistic, so hiring professionals is still better for long-term success.

5. Cultivate partnerships

There’s a saying that no man can survive alone, which also applies to businesses. Companies can’t make all sales, marketing, and executive functions without the necessary expenses. Partnerships allow your business to operate on x-deal or service exchange instead of cash payment to prioritize your capital on other efforts.

For example, suppose you’re starting and have a great lead generation system. In that case, you could outsource part of your business process to an external company in exchange for your expertise.

6. Build a sales funnel

The next step is creating a sales funnel. Don’t start a staging business without considering the clients, which means making a funnel for your potential clients. It will act as a collection to conversion method based on the Attention, Interest, Desire, Action (AIDA) model that taps into the consumer’s mind.

Here are some sales funnel tips:
- Build a company website and social media profiles.
- Post relevant topics to generate leads.
- Create attractive images and offers.
- Give discounts, freebies, and incentives for trying your products or services.
- Have clients book a free consultation or call so you can pitch how you can help them.
- Retain the client with excellent customer care and assistance after availing of a product or service.
Outline the demographic profile to make the correct funnel for your virtual staging business. Creating the funnel will let you maximize every opportunity so that you don’t waste any time, effort, or money in the process.

7. Improve current offers

There are hundreds of agencies offering almost the same products and services. Your firm will stay competitive by updating and modifying offers from time to time. Customer satisfaction is a top priority for every successful company, so you must work on your retention and sales methods.

8. Add in-demand complementary services and products

Upon conception, when you ask how do I start a virtual staging business? You are only thinking about the opening steps. The next factor is upselling your current requests with other complementary services to increase profits and give you a competitive edge.

For example, offer discounted image decluttering, lawn removal, copywriting, or virtual twilight with your virtual staging service. Finding ways to serve your clients better than competitors will ensure high profits, retention, and scaling.

9. Invest in marketing efforts

Solid branding will make the customers come to you, and that’s where marketing comes to play. Create an excellent identity that clients will recognize and patronize, then ramp up your lead generation and exposure with social media efforts.

However, some businessmen don’t understand the value of marketing, so you mustn’t make the same mistake. You need to finance marketing efforts with a budget of around 1 to 5% of your expected revenue. It may be better to have a dedicated marketing team.

Here are some marketing efforts that new small businesses can make:
- Email marketing via newsletter campaigns
- Organic social media efforts and advertising through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, and Tiktok. Each platform caters to different demographics and markets.
- Free ebooks and coaching
- Google My Business and Adwords
- Content marketing
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Use chatbots for social media platforms and your website
- Offer free consultation services
- Traditional media advertising if you’re a solid local business hoping to get customers in your city
- Write articles on other websites or blogs
- Attend mixers and functions for potential partners or clients
Marketing can help you spend less time finding customers and letting them pursue you instead. Marketing works hand in hand with your sales funnel, so you should strategize your campaigns accordingly.

10. Maintain good relationships with your network

Every successful virtual staging business has excellent relationships with partners and clients. People are likelier to recommend companies that have given them terrific service on top of a fruitful collaboration, so be sure to invest in reliable customer service.

Always ask for feedback or testimonials after every project. Reviews will help you learn how to service your clients better and improve your output standards. Aside from that, those opinions will make other people trust your services enough to try them themselves.

Therefore, you should keep close tabs on your previous clients, networks, and connections. Send them emails or messages from time to time to maintain that rapport. Invest in automated emails as you grow your client base.

Bottomline

A real estate virtual staging business is a promising endeavor with high demand. As long as you set the proper foundation, you don’t need much entrepreneurial experience to start a staging business with impressive lead generation, marketing, and client care skills.

The competitive real estate photography post-production services are cutthroat, and you don’t need to find graphic talent immediately. Once you partner with reliable service providers like Phixer or other real estate editors, you will gain confidence in your quality and client retention ability.
September 24, 2022
How to Stage Your Rooms for Amazing Virtual Staging Results
Real estate marketing is quickly evolving, with consumers finding multiple options with a few clicks and taps. Digital listings and social media platforms have made finding, buying, and selling real estate properties both easier and harder at the same time. More effortless due to the convenience of seeing all the offers without leaving your home, yet more challenging because several prospects are readily available.

Real estate agents compete on several listing websites and turn to experts for help. Virtual or digital home staging is one of the proven conversion methods of real estate marketing. This blog post will discuss virtual staging and how you can prepare your property for a photoshoot.
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However, people ask how to do virtual staging without knowing why they have to do it. Before telling you how to set and style your home for a pre-virtual staging photoshoot, we’ll answer that question first.

Why You Need to Stage

Virtual staging is one of the many creative ways to present your real estate property to potential customers or buyers. Similar to showroom techniques developed by real estate companies, virtual staging reimagines a room, home, or property according to the target audience or demographic.

Digital staging is more cost-efficient than showroom decorating or actual home staging because you don’t have to buy new furniture or remodel the rooms. The cost for virtual staging is merely a fraction of what developers used to spend for illustrative home constructions. The next question would be, “how do you do virtual staging effectively?”

There’s an art to perfecting virtual staging. For starters, you have to prepare the spaces for the shoot. After which, you must find the perfect editor, app, or software to bring your virtual staging fantasy to life.

Preparing for Virtual Staging

You should design the entire virtual staging look before you take photos of your property. You need to know how virtual staging could affect your target buyer markets. The guiding principle is to reduce the amount of editing on the digital stage.

Here are some ways to plan for virtual staging:
- List down your property’s and neighborhood’s best features. Those qualities will be some of the many reasons your client will purchase that property. Those features will reflect the possible demographics, so ensure you take note of them before your virtual staging.
- Set a target demographic and create a buyer profile. Would your potential buyers be male or female? Would they be living alone or with family? Would they need space for a home office? Would they prefer a furnished or unfurnished home?
- Find inspiration online. It would help to know specific pegs before doing a photoshoot. This method would also improve your chances of getting the results you want when sending your raw images to professional real estate editors.
- Suitable photography equipment. You may opt to hire a real estate photographer or do it yourself with proper guidance from the virtual stagers. Either way, you need to include equipment in your plan considerations.
- Find a virtual staging company. You should know who will do your virtual staging as early as the planning stage. It would help if you knew how to do it yourself, but plenty of virtual staging companies are available online.
Once you’ve mapped out what you want and how to achieve them, it’s time to prepare the photoshoot areas appropriately.

Rooms to Stage

Prioritize the spaces you need to shoot because you won’t have the time or energy to do everything. You don’t need to orchestrate the entire house since your target market is more inclined to look at critical areas rather than the whole property or home.

According to the National Association of Realtors, these are the areas you need to stage for real estate listings in order of importance:
1. Living room or receiving area
2. Master bedroom or the largest bedroom
3. Kitchen or pantry
4. Dining area
5. Outdoor or yard
6. Bathroom or comfort room
Targeting specific parts of the house will improve your chances of landing a client from the listing alone. However, you also need to prepare even the rooms you’re not planning to style since you may get potential visits.

Photoshoot Preparations

After planning it all out, it’s time for the nitty gritty. You need to prepare the rooms and areas you want to stage for the shoot, whether you’re doing photoshoots yourself or employing the help of professionals. Physically preparing the spaces will lessen the time needed for virtual staging edits or reworks.

Here are some of the ways to visually orchestrate the rooms for virtual staging:

General

Clean the house as much as you possibly can. Even if you can virtually edit items and furniture, you should declutter the area to ensure a smooth virtual staging process. Trash and other unwanted objects would cost extra to remove during the virtual staging process; they may interfere with lighting and cause awkward shadows in post-production.

There are ways how to do virtual staging, effectively clearing things, but you should still remove personal effects and decor.

Indoors

Do a quick inspection of every room in the house to determine the ones you can submit for virtual staging and those you can do minor edits on. Remember that even when you put an image through post-production, your listing photo shouldn’t look too fake, or it may put off potential buyers.

Here are some of the tasks you should do before the pre-virtual staging photography session:
- Remove personal items and effects, especially photos or portraits.
- Clean and scrub the floors.
- Check and repair the walls.
- Rearrange the furniture to open up the space.
- Open or remove the curtains to expose the windows to full sunlight.
The indoor preparations often involve removal rather than replacement because the edits usually take care of adding items. You should clear the space by creating a blank canvas for your virtual staging.

Outdoors

Check the curb appeal since most people click on a listing with an attractive overall appearance. Aside from that, it would help if you also prepared your outdoors for a possible potential buyer visit since first impressions last. An excellent first impression could be the defining factor between an almost-purchase and a closed deal.

Here are some of the preparations you need to do on the property’s surroundings:
- Trim the bushes and mow the grass.
- Clean the pavement and walkways.
- Repair the cracks or faded paints.
- Inspect and fix the roof.
- Rake and clear the leaves.
- Arrange the plants and flower pots.
- Repaint the front door and porch if needed.
Most people don’t virtually stage outside their property unless through lawn replacement or virtual twilight, but it may end up looking disappointing when the potential buyer finally tries to visit.

Camera Settings

Employ a Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) High Dynamic Range (HDR) camera with a feature of bracketing exposure to prepare for virtual staging. The camera does half the work, so it should be suitable for the planned post-production treatment.

Here are some important reminders when shooting photos before virtual staging:
- Shoot in landscape.
- For indoors, the room should take up 2/3, and the ceiling should be 1/3 of the picture.
- Use minimum 18mm and maximum 200mm lenses, and avoid stylized, distorted, or warped ones.
- Make use of HDR at different exposure levels.
- Use external lighting instead of the built-in flash unless you want rigid shadow effects for virtual twilight.
If unsure about your camera settings, do test shots on specific areas with your tripod to estimate how each space would look.

Time Your Photoshoot Perfectly

For real estate photos in general, you should target the time closest to noon or the hour that the sun is at its highest or brightest in the sky. The sun’s natural lighting will improve your image’s post-production results. Taking indoor photos with a bright sun will also cast dramatic shadows and make the room look wider.

Influencers on Instagram are obsessed with the golden hour, the sweet spot, an hour before sunset, or the hour after sunrise. The golden hour is excellent if you plan to do twilight shots and create an eye-catching and picturesque main listing photo. Just be careful that you don’t underexpose your photo’s lighting during this time.

Make Sure Photos are in High Quality

Finally, you should use high-quality raw photos, especially when planning to stage them virtually afterward. The high definition would improve your image in the final photograph, and it’s easy to adjust natural pictures in HD than in lower ones.

Having low-quality photos would interfere with how you do virtual staging, mainly because anything externally rendered or added would look fake on your real estate listing. Aside from that, sending over low resolution would result to even lower resolution after edits.

Bottomline

These days, you can tell how virtual staging affects the real estate buying market, with 95% of buyers browsing through online platforms and 40% of buyers setting appointments after seeing homes staged virtually. Professionally-made real estate virtual staging images are gradually becoming part of real estate marketing standards, and Phixer offers high-quality outputs for attractive listing photos.
September 24, 2022
How is Photo Manipulation Different or Similar to Photo Editing?
The onset of digital technology has forever changed the way we process photographs. The days of processing images through films in darkrooms are over, as Digital Single-lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras have become the standard for photography. Computer programs and phone apps have also improved how quickly people can communicate, send or show pictures.

Photo manipulation and editing have also progressed with digital cameras, as most real estate post-production companies would only take a few days to accommodate your order. There are differences in how various companies treat real estate photos, whether through manipulation or editing.

When hearing about the different post-production methods, you may wonder, “Are photo editing and photo manipulation just the same?” Read on to learn more about the differences and similarities between photo editing and photo manipulation.

Photo Manipulation

First off, what is photo manipulation? Photo manipulation is the alteration or improvement of a photo by adding, replacing, and transforming various elements in the photograph. The modification could be as minor as replacing the sky or something significant, like creating new objects or features from scratch. These changes could be subtle or glaring depending on their purpose and creative vision.

The best photo professionally-done manipulations look as natural as possible, using elements that one would typically find in such environments. In real estate photography, innovative post-production techniques like creating twilight, replacing lawns, or virtual staging can be considered photo manipulations depending on the project specifics.

Let’s define photo editing before going into the similarities and differences.

Photo Editing

Photo editing is post-processing an image through software or program to enhance, improve and adjust the visual effect. Photo editing involves a wide range of tonal, brightness, contrast, shadow, spot, hue, tint, color balance, and other adjustments to help achieve your vision.

Current technology makes photo editing so readily accessible that you can even do it on your smartphone. Most phone apps have preset hue, tint, color, or saturation filters that accomplish specific looks or moods that are impossible to set on a camera.

At this point, you may wonder, “how do you differentiate photo manipulation from photo editing?” If you want simple terms to help understand the difference, photo manipulation means creation, while photo editing implies improvement.

Differences

Most people consider any post-production treatment photo editing, especially with flawless professional photo manipulations. There’s also a taboo regarding photo manipulation since people often expect pictures to be realistic rather than stylized.

Here are some of the critical differences between photo manipulation and photo editing:

Raw image elements

If you want to know what is the difference between photo editing and photo manipulation, the first answer is straightforward: the original image elements. If the original image is an exact copy of the treated image but has a different lighting or color balance, it falls under photo editing. Photo editing doesn’t change what’s inside the photo since it only adjusts the lighting, colors, mood, or temperature.

Photo manipulation alters reality. In the case of real estate photography, you may need photo manipulation to remove trash or unwanted objects in the background that your photographer missed during the shoot. Sometimes, you may want to remove sensitive information like a house number or visible address that is in the original photo.

You know the image underwent photo manipulation when it’s missing some of the original image elements or if it has new details.

Image layers

One subtle way to determine an edited or manipulated image is by checking the layers. An edited photo has only one layer, while a manipulated photo has several layers depending on how many added or removed elements. It’s often subtle yet still noticeable due to light and color patterns.

Here are some tips on checking the photo manipulation layers:
- Watch out for misplaced sharp and blurred edges or cut lines. Since photo manipulation adds or removes elements, there will be cut lines. Most artists blend these out with the blurring tools, but the blur will seem out of place.
- Check for repetitive elements like the same leaf or cloud formations since removals or subtracting elements will make it necessary for the artist to borrow some existing patterns.
- Notice the difference in lighting behavior. Sometimes, you don’t find light where it’s supposed to be, or you find light where it’s not supposed to be.
The untrained eye won’t immediately notice the layers, but with consistent practice and exposure, you’ll be a professional at spotting the differences in no time.

Skill level and effort required

Professional photo editing and manipulation take considerable skill, practice, patience, and hard work. You need to master these post-production techniques much like other endeavors or abilities. The more you do photo edits or manipulations, the better you’ll be.

Often, graphic designers that can perform professional and flawless photo manipulation have already mastered at least basic photo editing since they have to work with different elements and make them appear as if they belong in the same picture.

As a rule of thumb, the fewer layers in the picture, the less time you need for post-production. Photo manipulations take more time than photo edits because you need to remove or add elements to the original image.

Similarities

Photo editing and photo manipulation are comparable in enhancing images through post-processing. Although the former reworks color and shade while the latter creates new elements, they both modify a photo with creative intent.

In most cases, photo editing and manipulation require the same color and exposure adjustments. The difference is that photo manipulation uses them to stylize the entire image and blend new elements. Each result creates a specific style that matches the photographer’s creative vision.

Bottomline

You may be wondering what are the limitations of photo manipulation compared to photo editing? The answer lies in the artist’s ability to bring images to life as realistically and as seamlessly as possible. You can rely on experienced companies like Phixer to pull off excellent real estate photo editing and manipulations without the hefty price tag.
August 30, 2022
Top 5 Ways to Begin a Career in the Real Estate Photography Business 2022
Photography is one of the industries that will never go out of style as long as digital visual media exists. You may be wondering, “is real estate photography profitable?” especially when faced with intense competition from people thriving in the industry for decades, like post-production specialist Phixer. You may be intimidated to enter such a field at this stage.

The good news is that it’s never too late to start your real estate photography career, especially with rising demand and market movements as people go from urban to rural and vice-versa. The pandemic has shifted people’s priorities, and the reopening of communities has improved real estate value.

Read on to learn more about how to become a real estate photographer 2022.

Here are the top five methods to start a real estate photography career:

1. Start with a Goal in Mind

According to Benjamin Franklin, failing to prepare is preparation for failure. One of the first methods how to get into real estate photography is to create a plan or strategy to ensure you know how to go from start to success. A solid plan will help you build an excellent real estate photography career foundation.

A simple way to set your plans is through the SMART goal-setting:
- S – Specific. Specify your career direction from what you’re going to start on to what specialization you want to pursue (outdoor properties photographer, photographer for virtual staging, etc.)
- M – Measurable. Measure your success metrics by bookings or projects per month.
- A – Attainability. Check if your goals are achievable according to the current market activity and projections.
- R – Realistic. Compare your plans with other real estate photographers you know to determine if they’re realistic.
- T – Time-bound. Set a deadline for all of your efforts to ensure timeliness.
When you have a reasonable goal with the right expectations, you can efficiently work toward it without distractions or discouragement. Just put your mind to it, and focus on your objectives. You might start slow, but you’ll eventually book more projects.

2. Prepare the Tools You Need

Investment in the right tools is how to make money as a real estate photographer and build a long-lasting career. Your equipment will help determine your success in the industry, and you don’t have to buy the most expensive camera as long as your know your camera settings.

Here are some of the things you need to succeed in your real estate photography career:
- Photography equipment. You need photography tools like Digital Single-lens Reflex Camera (DSLR) cameras, lenses, lighting, tripods, and drones for aerial shots.
- Website or social media page as a portfolio. It would help if you had a portfolio to store your shots and samples for future clients.
- Marketing strategy for promotion and sales. You need to promote your photography business for profit and sustainability.
- Post-production software, application, or company. You should edit your photos according to real estate standards. If you’re too busy to do post-production, you can hire experts in the field.
- Industry best practices and language. Several terms are exclusive to real estate photography, like virtual staging, twilight editing, and lawn replacements.
You can work with what you currently have, as long as you don’t forget to upgrade your equipment from time to time. In photography, you can start with the basics and work towards specializations and better instruments.

3. Network with Real Estate Professionals

Having an extensive network of real estate professionals is one of the key ways how to become a real estate photographer 2022. Your friends and acquaintances in the industry will be your clients, or they will introduce you to people who would book you for projects.

It would help if you were well-acquainted with how they operate and when they need your services. Since real estate professionals often communicate with their peers, one good recommendation could open doors for you.

4. Understand the Principles of Shooting Great Real Estate Photos

Practicing and improving your skills are some ways how to get into real estate photography. People don’t instantly become successful niche photographers overnight, so you should give yourself enough room to start, understand the basics and improve according to growing demand and developing standards.

Here are some of the principles you need to understand while pursuing a real estate photography career:
- Considerations for excellent outdoor property photography
- Factors for beautiful indoor home or building photography
- Shooting angles, lighting equipment, and camera lenses to use
- Camera settings like dynamic range
- Marketing value of your photos
- Real estate photography industry standards
- Familiarize real estate listing photo compositions or presentations
You must understand the market needs to fulfill them successfully since your clients will request one or more of those shots. You must also communicate in the language real estate professionals speak, so familiarize yourself with their terminologies.

5. Take Care of Post Production

Post-production is one of the critical steps in real estate photography, and if you’re good at it, it’s one of the many ways how to make money as a real estate photographer. You don’t have to do it yourself, and there are apps available for real estate agents that help edit photographs. You can also collaborate with editors who can do the task better and faster.

However, you will get more clients if you provide final photos ready for posting. Because of this, some photographers opt to hire real estate photography editing experts while others learn to do it themselves. If you master real estate editing, you could also start a real estate photo editor career.

Conclusion

Most people would ask is real estate photography profitable before pursuing a career in real estate photography. The answer lies in how well you create the foundation to build your career and develop your real estate photography skills to match growing and upgrading standards.

As long as you continue practicing and improving your craft, more clients will book you for real estate shoots. As technology improves, you can also provide real estate virtual tours, augmented reality, and virtual reality photography services.
August 9, 2022
Top 8 Important Steps to Real Estate Success in 2022
The 2022 real estate industry trends involve higher demand for mental health and home office spaces. The real estate agent profession gains better traction as more people want to relocate from urban to rural and vice versa. There’s no better time to start venturing into the real estate industry than now.

When selling properties, half the effort involves vivid real estate listing photos from photography to post-production— the other half concerns making an excellent impression on colleagues and clients. Creating a successful career involves a critical balancing act of planning and execution.
[lwptoc]

Here are some of the best eight essential real estate agent tips for beginners in 2022:

1. Talk to Other Real Estate Professionals

The first and most important tip on how to be a successful real estate agent in 2022 is networking with other industry experts. You can also partner with other real estate professionals for mutually-beneficial arrangements for shared goals.

Here are some of the advantages of consulting with other real estate practitioners:
- Gain insight into current real estate trends.
- Network with like-minded individuals.
- Potentially create teams with other professionals.
- Get valuable real-time input or career advice.
- Understand how real estate pricing works.
Your real estate colleagues will be your best new and updated information source, so you should always make an effort to network.

2. Set Clear Objectives and Goals

After gaining insight on how to be successful in real estate sales, you need to set realistic and clear career goals. Your objectives will allow you to be purposeful and concise in your career approaches, so you must carefully outline them as detailed as possible.

Here are tips on making real estate career objectives:
- Follow the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timebound) goal-setting method.
- Make sure you find relevant goals that you can accomplish within your locality. For example: if you want to sell one house per month, ensure that there are enough houses for sale on the market first.
- Consult other real estate professionals on your goals to establish doability.
Objectives will dictate the flow of your real estate career plan, so you must ensure it can be a firm foundation.

3. Create a Real Estate Career Plan

There are several habits of successful real estate agents, including career plan adherence. Your real estate career plan can be as simple or complicated as you want, and you can create both short-term and long-term objectives. Tailoring your career plan according to what you believe is feasible and achievable is essential.

4. Build a Portfolio

One sure method of how to be a successful real estate agent in 2022 is creating an attractive portfolio. The portfolio is a summary or proof of your experience and competence, so it’s the best place to showcase real estate projects that you’re proud to have worked with.

Here are some tips on building a portfolio:
- Sort your achievements according to the significance and then recency.
- Include best photos of you with satisfied clients.
- Include graphics, especially if you made any marketing efforts.
- If you copywrote for listing descriptions, you may add them to your portfolio.
An excellent and well-constructed portfolio will do the talking for you, so make sure you take extra time to create it.

5. Deploy Best Lead Generation Practices

Lead generation is one of the most important real estate agent tips for beginners because it directly involves sales and profits. The better leads you get, the more chances of landing sales and commissions. Aside from that, you can also gain demand for partnerships and other opportunities.

Here are some lead generation practices you should deploy as a real estate professional:
- Social media location-based keyword targeting
- Search engine optimization
- Reach out to people in your area looking for a place to rent and offer more affordable choices
- Share your listing links with people online
Quality leads will create better opportunities, so ensure you maximize every single one.

6. Develop Your Digital Presence

If you have ever wondered how to be successful in real estate sales, you need to enhance, optimize and maximize your online reach. The digital landscape is the best place to advertise because you can signup and post content for free. Most real estate professionals create fan pages that would allow them to update on properties for rent or sale.

Here are some ways to manage your online presence:
- Create a particular brand or identity.
- Be active in responding to messages and comments.
- Promote engagement-worthy discussions.
- Create high-quality graphics and video content.
7. Time and Money Management

Time is one of the world’s most crucial resources, with everyone having the same number of seconds, minutes, and hours daily. It would help if you juggled how you manage your time and money resources to maximize your opportunities, reach, and real estate sales.

Here are a few ways to manage your money and time:
- Group your errands, home meetings, and buyer profiles for efficiency.
- Schedule all your appointments and visits according to location.
- Create a marketing budget of around 7 to 8% for less than $5 million in sales annually.
- Designate one or two days a week for ocular inspections before client viewing.
8. Continue Learning and Improving Skills

Successful habits of successful real estate agents include continuous industry development and skills updates. It would help if you continued to improve your services, accommodating the growing demand, standards and expectations to prevent stagnation or being outdated.

If you think that you’ve already perfected your craft, here are some of the skills you can develop to complement your real estate career:
- Branding
- Advertising
- Social Media Management (SMM)
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
- Content Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Customer Service
Bottomline

It’s never too late to create an entire career from scratch, especially with the proper planning and direction. Real estate success is not easy, but it’s possible with enough determination to build thriving career habits. Don’t forget to market your services on free digital platforms like social media to extend your reach.
July 18, 2022
6 Photography Tips to Best Sell Your Property

For most buyers, nothing beats a live viewing to really appreciate a property for sale. However, it’s expertly shot photos that catch people’s attention and get them interested in the first place. This is why photography is a big part of real estate.

Indeed, the importance of great pictures in promoting a listing is also why some real estate recruiters keep track of agents with photography and design backgrounds. Check this out if you want to know how meticulous the recruitment process can be for real estate agents. It may reassure you to know that recruiters and brokerages do all they can to help you sell your home for the best price.
[lwptoc]

With all of the above considered, however, you still need to learn how to take good photos of your property for sale. After all, you may not always have the money to hire professionals to do it for you. You can sometimes rely on real estate agents to help you with this, but remember as well that they also handle many other matters.

Here are some tips to get you started on taking good photos of your property that will attract potential buyers:

Focus on the Best Selling Points

It can be tempting to take photos of every corner of your house to showcase it, but it would be better to focus on a few rooms. Ask yourself this question: what is or are the best selling points of your house? Perhaps it’s the big but cozy living room that’s perfect for family gatherings. Maybe it’s the ultra-modern kitchen that will excite budding chefs.

By picking just a few things to focus on, you can create a more unified theme for your photos. You can even use these photos as a storytelling medium, which can boost the appeal of your property to your target market.

Open the Windows

Windows are a great selling point for many properties, particularly for homes with views. Another reason is that more windows mean more natural light, which is good for the body’s circadian rhythm and vitamin D production; it can even improve your mood!

When it comes to photography, natural light is your best friend. So throw open those windows and before taking your shots—you’ll be surprised at how much better they look! You can also get creative with the windows, such as using them to frame the outdoor scenery. Of course, make sure that the windows are clean before your photo session.

Take External Photos During the Golden Hours

Speaking of natural light, it’s a good idea to take photos of the exterior of the property during the so-called golden hours: before sunrise and right after sunset. The lighting that these times of day provide can provide a unique flair, highlighting features such as a well-tended garden or even a unique-looking front door. You may also want to include shots of the neighborhood, in case this is a big selling point of your property.

Depersonalize

To get the best shots of your property, remove as much clutter as you can. A clean and organized space is much easier to photograph. You should also minimize the number of personal accessories, such as family photos or collectibles. This will depersonalize the space, so it’s easier for the buyer to imagine them filling it with their own furniture and decorations. Cleaning things up also gives you a better backdrop to showcase what you want to showcase.

Take Corner Photos

The best way to present a space is showing its entirety. If you take multiple photos, potential buyers still have to imagine what these separate elements look like together. This can affect their perception. At the same, it can be difficult to capture an entire room in a single photo. Even panoramic shots using digital cameras or smartphones are tricky to get right.

To deal with this dilemma, try taking a photo from a corner. This will allow you to capture as much of the space as you can, as well as make the room look bigger. If the room has windows, open them or at least pull back the window treatments. The natural light will make things look brighter.

Choose the Best Ones

Strictly speaking, this isn’t a photography tip but it still needs to be said: don’t overload your listing with hundreds of photos. Yes, you should take as many photos as you can but this is so that you can choose the best ones to upload. Putting up too many pictures can also overwhelm the buyer and decide not to look further into your ad.

Consider the photos in your for-sale listing as a movie trailer, something that highlights the most exciting, most interesting parts of the entire film. Post just enough photos to create that initial curiosity, so buyers will want to see the property in person. If you want, you can ask your real estate agent for advice regarding the number of photos and which ones you should post.

Good luck on selling your property! We hope that these photography tips can help you find the best buyer.

June 30, 2022
Instagram for Real Estate Marketing

Even if you’ve never used the app, you won’t be surprised to hear that Instagram is perfect for real estate. After all, it’s a highly visual platform; it’s perfect for a business that relies so heavily on optics. But beyond that, it’s also got location data and geo-targeting functions that allow real estate agents and firms to target audiences within a close proximity.

And if that’s not convincing enough, Instagram’s 1.4 billion active users, many which engage with real estate pictures, should convince you have how effective it can be to market properties.

Therefore, whether you’re already on the platform or are still contemplating jumping on the bandwagon, here are some tips on how you can optimize Instagram for real estate.

Using Instagram posts, Reels, and Stories

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First, the basics; it’s not enough to have pretty pictures on Instagram. You’ll also have to know how to market your content effectively and maximize the platform to your advantage. Familiarize yourself with Instagram’s basic features — Instagram posts, Reels, and Stories — and know what kind of content each one works best with.

Posts

Posts are the most easily navigable content on your account. When users visit your account, the first thing they’ll see is your profile, so make sure you curate your content in a way that is immediately pleasing to the eye. Take pictures of your properties’ rooms, amenities, and backyard if applicable. You can check out our post “Top 11 Amazing Real Estate Photographers to Follow” for some inspiration.
Instagram posts are also great for comprehensive and informative posts, such as house tours or real estate market guides — but we’ll get to that later!

Stories

Instagram Stories are versatile and casual and are perfect for letting you post at a higher frequency without congesting one’s feed. They expire within 24 hours, which is why they’re perfect for time-sensitive content, like personal updates on specific stagings or what campaigns you’re currently working on. You can also bump old posts to provider updates on the status of certain properties.

Reels

Instagram Reels are the newest feature on Instagram, created as a response to the viral short video platform TikTok. They’re best for fun and casual content, usually around 15-30 seconds. Instagram has a separate tab solely for Reels, so you can appear on other users’ feeds. Reels are perfect for practically anything — from interior design tutorials to tours or construction pictures.

Incorporating hashtags

Hashtags are an absolute necessity when it comes to real estate marketing. When you add a hashtag, it makes your posts visible to users who are looking for content under those specific hashtags. Ask Money’s marketing guide for Instagram explains how to do this strategically. Keep the hashtags at a reasonable number and use only the ones that will resonate with your audiences. You can use your location, school district, the style of the property, or the name of your brokerage that will enable other users to engage with your posts.

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Hashtag trends are constantly changing, so you’ll have to do some experimenting to figure it out. The best way to do this is by looking at what other accounts similar to yours are doing and replicate the best practices to gain the best possible results.

Sharing informative content

For a complex industry like real estate, one of the best ways to earn followers is by posting informative content. Entrepreneur states that short-form video content has boomed in popularity because people don’t like reading or have enough attention span to watch videos over a minute. To this end, Instagram’s video options are perfect for delivering impactful and interesting information in digestible, bite-sized bits that won’t lose your audience’s attention.

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You can use the platform’s versatile features to talk about topics like mortgages, listings, or even design inspirations. Just keep in mind that the best way to establish yourself as a reliable authority is by posting this content at regular intervals.

Engaging with your market

Finally, allow your followers to get to know who you and your team are. An article from CEOWORLD states that building trust in your brand can be done by focusing on your customer relationships and engaging with your audience in a transparent and direct way. You can share personal stories, and opinions, or even promote your firm’s ethos by promoting your activities outside of regular operations, such as charity or local involvement, and what causes your support.

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This may necessitate finding a balance between professional and personal content, but it’s a great way to build trust among potential clients.

Instagram is always changing, but it’s the best way to stay relevant and appeal to your target market. Although you’ll have to adapt at the start, in the long run, it will be a fun and creative way to engage with your audience!

June 21, 2022
Top 5 Exciting Real Estate Trends to Watch in the Year 2022
The real estate industry is changing its landscape to fit post-pandemic expectations and is more focused on comfortable homes with bigger living spaces. Most digital real estate websites have seen an influx of new audiences, especially those looking to relocate due to work-from-home options. This market movement of increased demand provides limitless possibilities.

There are exciting real estate trends 2022 for home buyers and sellers, so it would be the best time to hire professional photo editing companies like Phixer to drive up sales conversion in the competitive digital market. Your professionally-edited photos have a higher chance of getting noticed.
[lwptoc]

TL;DR: Here are some of the exciting 2022 real estate trends you should check out:

1. Prioritizing relaxing indoor and outdoor mental health spaces

The past few years have been exhausting due to the COVID-19 pandemic and other global issues. People wanted more breathing space and switched dense urban areas for quiet suburbs, so demand for these properties and homes remained high. Buyers want wide spaces to do numerous zen activities like exercising, yoga, or reading books. Therefore, home size plays a part in their decision-making.

According to Realtor.com, suburban home listing views have increased by 42.1% since the pandemic in 2020, with trends of bigger-sized single-family homes. According to the consensus of the National Association of Home Builders, the average size of new single-family homes has increased by 6.2%.

You can sell your home quickly in 2022 by featuring relaxing places for excellent mental health. Comfortable living spaces are critical real estate trends now, so it’s important to highlight how future buyers can attain wellness and peace in your property. Photos should include mental health spaces.

Here are some tips on selling your property faster:
- Improve the bathroom ventilation and overall aesthetic.
- Prioritize features that bring in natural light.
- Stage your listing with indoor plants and comfortable wooden furniture.
- Replace your windows with wider ones to accommodate more sunlight.
You will see an exciting trend for real estate in 2022 wherein buyers prioritize spaces that are good for their mental health, so you should consider interior design’s psychological effects when staging your listing. Interior design techniques can improve emotional stability and alleviate depression and stress.

2. Some markets have more affordable starting homes than rentals

Supply and demand are shifting rentals and sales prices in different areas. For real estate market trends 2022, there will be high home prices because people will want to rent while waiting for the market to cool down. More people are looking forward to working from home conditions. However, due to the rising rental demand, the rent prices around the country also shot up.

Therefore, purchasing a starter home is more cost-effective than rentals in the following places:
- Cleveland, Ohio
- Birmingham, Alabama
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Orlando, Florida
- Louis, Missouri
Although tech cities with more transient individuals or temporary occupants still have higher purchase versus home rental prices. This particular 2022 trend may also increase the demand for starter homes during the entire year. More cities might follow suit, so you should keep an eye out.

3. Homes use new technology

The information age made things more convenient for people to communicate information and ideas worldwide. People adapted to innovations and modern technology such as online home selling platforms, smart home tech, and apps in real estate trends 2022.

Here are some of the key new technology takeaways in the real estate industry:
- Artificial Intelligence plays a significant part in real estate, with management, design, and organization building as application areas.
- Real estate sellers and buyers use social media, online home selling platforms, smart home technology, and applications.
- Homes with updated smart technology have a higher chance of attracting new buyers.
- There is an expected demand increase from technology firms and startups servicing the industry as more people adopt these innovative tools.
- Companies prioritize making faster and more convenient transactions.
New technology will trend in 2022, and people might prefer houses with high-tech security features with the introduction of more innovative smart home techs.

4. Growth of Online Real Estate Services

Statistics say that 44% of buyers prefer to look at digital real estate property and home listings, and 12% search for information about home purchases. Therefore, online home selling, similar to ecommerce websites, may also see an increase in users for real estate trends now.

Here are some of the online real estate services available:
- Third-party buyers – companies like Opendoor buy your home and process repairs, inspections, and home sales efforts to resell it at a higher price.
- Virtual agents – companies like Redfin and other hybrid services handle transactions online to reduce the traditional commissions for agents.
- Mobile closings – you can buy or sell houses online with digital documentation, remote online notarization, and electronic signature applications.
Most buyers and sellers will have more convenient real estate in 2022 transactions so that neither will have to leave their houses. Because of the added convenience of digital space, people can do buying and selling transactions on their phones.

5. Low Mortgage Interest Rates

The mortgage interest rate average has recently been at an all-time low. According to statistics, the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage average interest rate decreased to 2.2% in January 2021, the lowest in 30 years. The rates were around 2.15% to 2.4% for the remainder of 2021.

Low mortgage interest rates mean that there will be a lower mortgage payment, and buyers are more likely to purchase homes than with higher mortgage interest rates.

Bottomline

The real estate market trends 2022 are shifting to benefit both sellers and buyers. There will be growing demand in the coming years as more people are looking for side hustles and businesses to earn passive income. Customers will be looking for various properties from short-term to long-term lease units.

The most common trend is the dependence on online presence, so you should take professional photos and edit them beautifully. You will be competing with other real estate companies and agents, so you may need specialists who know high-quality real estate image standards.
June 21, 2022