Category: Real Estate

  • The Top 4 Best Photography Filters for Beautiful Real Estate Photos

    The Top 4 Best Photography Filters for Beautiful Real Estate Photos

    Modern technology has enhanced the quality of digital filters to improve the appearance of plain photographs. Nowadays, you can easily edit images on your smartphone with creative preset app filters for various purposes like social media posting or marketing.

    Most available filters are whimsical, imaginative, and romantic, so they’re not great for post-production of real estate images. If you’re fond of social media, you may use some filters to add spice or excitement to your selfies and video calls.

    You need the best filters for real estate pictures; but initially, you have to know why filters are essential in the first place.

    The importance of using filters

    There are different natural elements affecting photographs that you can’t control, like sunlight brightness or UV rays. You may not have enough time to wait for a favorable temperature or setting, so filters can help you achieve good color, saturation, and temperature balance.

    You should use filters that are as natural as possible if you want a suitable photo filter for selling house. After all, one of the primary reasons why you have to make excellent real estate photography involves bringing in sales, improving marketing efforts, and completing conversions.

    Filter shapes

    You may be ready to purchase your first filter but don’t know which is the best filter for home photos. Before going into the different filters for real estate photography, let’s address the filter shapes. Currently, circle and square are the two standard filter shapes available in the market. 

    Circular filters

    A circular filter can be attached directly in front of your lens, so purchase one that fits the corresponding lens diameter; this information is available on your lens cap backside. If you want your filter to accommodate different camera diameters, you can purchase a step-down or step-up ring.

    Square filters

    Square filters can sometimes come in square or rectangular form and are part of an attachable contraption, typically in a bracket attached to a round ring that you can screw in front of your camera lens. A square or rectangle filter is stackable and easy to change, making it an excellent photo filter for selling houses. You need to plan if you want to purchase the bracket or filter system so that you don’t end up wasting money on it. Eventually, you’ll develop your style and technique using different filter combinations.

    You may wonder what filter do real estate photographers use to create successful listing images. Here are some of the primary camera filters for beautiful real estate photos:

    1. Ultraviolet (UV) Filters

    The Ultraviolet (UV) filter is perhaps one of the essential filters newbie photographers use. Ultraviolet light has shorter wavelengths than visible light, and the Sun releases a full ultraviolet radiation spectrum defined as UV-A, UV-B, and UV-C. Even though it is almost unnoticeable to the human eye, it can cause blue tones in photographs. Before using a Photoshop filter for selling house, you must ensure that your photos don’t have unnecessary bluish tones that would ruin the composition and color balance.

    Here are the pros and cons of UV filters:

    • Reducing UV light exposure
    • Protecting lens from scrapes and scratches
    • Protecting lens from liquids, dust, sea salt, and other elements
    • Slightly lowering image quality
    • Not protecting the camera from internal damage
    • Reducing the light passing into the camera

    A UV filter is one of the essential real estate photography filters, especially for those operating under harsh sunlight, like outdoor real estate photographers.

    2. Circular Polarizer (CPL) Filters or Polarizers

    Photographers often use a circular polarizer filter (CPL) for landscape, outdoor, and street photography. The CPL is one of the best filters for real estate pictures, especially when shooting outdoor real estate property listing photos.

    Here are the pros and cons of CPL filters:

    • Reducing reflections
    • Increasing saturation
    • Enhancing cloud details
    • Allowing limited light
    • Not ideal for indoor shoots

    A CPL filter is useful when shooting in high sunlight and not ideal when shooting images for virtual staging.

    3. Neutral Density (ND) Filters of Varying Densities

    Adobe Lightroom presets could improve any image, but the next item on the list is one of the most versatile and arguably the best filter for home photos. Photographers use a neutral density (ND) filter to create a shallower depth of field, create motion with a slow shutter speed, and reduce light over the whole picture. ND Filter comes in square and circle variants.

    Here are the pros and cons of ND filters:

    • Capturing a beautifully shallow field depth using a wider aperture
    • Producing motion blur and long exposures for a more extended duration using a slower shutter speed
    • Creating dramatic effects for lawn, foliage, sky, fog, and cloud scenes

    There is more than one ND filter type with different densities for advanced photographers, so feel free to experiment and explore which suits your style best.

    4. Graduated Color Filter

    If you want that wow factor in one of your real estate listing photos, you can use the graduated color filter to help achieve the best real estate photographs. This filter lets you get creative with the skyscape and brings you the same effect as a twilight replacement edit. It allows you to enhance the color on one half of the photo and retain the normal lighting condition on the other.

    When you ask what filter do real estate photographers use, the graduated color filter is not at the top of the list since it presents a more creative approach than the usual realistic property listing photos. It has a specific purpose, mainly to enhance outdoor views such as the sky or sea. 

    Conclusion

    Filters improve real estate photographs, whether a photoshop filter for selling house or a camera filter, especially when you’re up against millions of real estate listing photos. Most of the ones mentioned in this list are filters ideal for outdoor property images.

    If something is wrong with your raw shoots, you may consider getting filters on your digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera. Phixer and most post-production professionals know what kind of filter works best for specific real estate listings.

  • How Excellent Exterior Shots Make Huge Real Estate Difference

    How Excellent Exterior Shots Make Huge Real Estate Difference

    Most of the time, real estate clients decide whether they would pursue further or not just by seeing the exterior shots of a listed property. Thus, showcasing the facade of a house, office building, or apartment is an agent’s make-or-break opportunity.

    It is also important to back up a stunning photo with realistic expectations shall the prospective client decide to visit the property personally. Still, the first phase of getting leads and possible sales relies heavily on head-turning imagery. Here are the hows and whys about using excellent exterior shots in real estate.

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    Customer’s First Impression

    Wherever you list properties, the law of first impression applies. Using the main image, the goal is to make prospects see a picture of themselves and their family living in that house. It should give a lasting impression that it is an ideal place for living before laying out other perks in an attempt to close the sale.

    However, many clients in real estate knew the tricks behind these over-enhanced photos. Hence, staying honest with presenting the property and combining this magnificent showcasing with truthful description is crucial.

    The Challenges Of The Market’s Short Attention Span

    As mentioned, leaving a remarkable impact on the listing’s main picture keeps your prospects glued and open to your pitches. Although they are spellbound, it won’t last very long because other property listings will try to grab their attention.

    Hence, you need to figure out a way to survive the consumers’ quick attention span. Marketers know that one of the best ways to counter this is a constant reminder through email and other channels. Fortunately, you can make it more effective with brilliant headlines and more fantastic exterior photos of the property they’ve previously seen as its content.

    The Added Luxury Vibe: Shoot That Pool!

    Some real agents have discovered the allure of a pool in its pristine condition. Thus, top-performing listings in terms of clicks and lead generation were from inventories that showcased exteriors of properties that included a clean swimming pool.

    Compared to the image of a sloppy lawn, both underground pools and above ground pools emit a luxury vibe. This scene strongly conveys that the property is a perfect deal for a buyer seeking gratification from a magnificent real estate purchase.

    While shooting pool sceneries is not difficult, it still requires precise execution for the best results. Experts would advise cleaning up the setting and offering good lighting to capture a visual material that will yield fantastic sales and lead generation outcomes.

    Takeaway

    If set side by side with listings that display bathrooms, entertainment areas, and living rooms, presentations that involve exteriors as the welcoming image perform a mile better. As such, not exhausting the faculty of excellent exteriors is a missed opportunity for any veteran marketer or salesperson utilizing today’s digital channels.

    Incorporating exterior photography with your arsenal of sales abilities is a good start in establishing a gap between you and your real estate rivals. As the competition becomes tighter, it is essential not to miss any chance that could put your presentations above others.

  • Top 8 Important Steps to Real Estate Success in 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.

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    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.

  • Top 5 Exciting Real Estate Trends to Watch in the Year 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.

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    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.

  • How to Attractively Stage Your Home With the Click of a Mouse

    How to Attractively Stage Your Home With the Click of a Mouse

    Over 4.95 billion people have been using the Internet worldwide, turning digital platforms into convenience, innovation, and smooth communication avenues. Most real estate professionals use the World Wide Web to connect with potential buyers, network with like-minded real estate practitioners, and market properties for sale. Multiple sites and programs can help you improve your real estate competency and conversion rates.

    These days, you can accomplish a lot for your real estate listings with just a mouse click, whether virtual furniture staging or virtual staging. Moreover, you can enhance your post-production game with decluttering and editing apps requiring a few taps. Various innovations have improved the standards and processes for real estate photos.

    Before we proceed further, let’s talk about virtual staging and why you should consider using it for your real estate listings.

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    What is Virtual Staging?

    Virtual staging is a digitally-made showroom for real estate marketing and sales purposes. You can implement profiled looks and feels to a particular property and virtually stage a room to make it more presentable and aesthetically pleasing to potential buyers.

    Why Should You Virtually Stage a Room?

    There are many reasons to stage a home virtually. Most people want to focus on virtual staging furniture that allows them to dress up empty spaces according to exciting concepts and lifestyle pegs. Home staging came into practice long before the Internet was ever a thing, and developers used to spend thousands on physical showrooms.

    These days, you can easily stage listing photos with a click of a mouse or a tap of a finger on your phone. You can improve your chances of attracting the right buyers.

    How to Stage Listing Photos with a Mouse Click

    You can virtually stage any listing photo even if you’re not a real estate photographer or professional graphics creative. Now that we’ve established the importance of enhancing real estate photos, here are the many ways to attractively stage your home with just a mouse click:

    1. Digitally declutter images using photo editing software

    Sometimes, you need to remove items, furniture pieces, personal belongings, and clutter found in the photo to add better ones. Staging opens up possibilities from your existing spaces to suit the lifestyle or image you want to project to potential customers. You don’t need to be a virtual staging expert to improve your real estate listing photographs.

    Photo editing software allows you to improve your real estate pictures’ appearance by removing unwanted objects with just a few clicks, whether you’re using the classic cut-and-paste method, healing spot brush, or clone stamp tool. These techniques are pretty straightforward, especially for those with extensive photo-editing experiences.

    If you can’t do it yourself and you need the help of an expert, Phixer can help declutter images with a click of your mouse.

    2. Find home staging ideas online

    You may want to virtually stage a room, but you don’t know where to begin. Luckily, many others have done the feat before you, and the Internet is an excellent place to search for lookbooks, inspiration, and ideas. Pinterest, for example, is a platform with many modern and traditional designs perfect for indoor and outdoor spaces.

    You can search for the following information online:

    • Home staging tips
    • Virtual staging hacks
    • Real estate listing photo examples
    • Interior decoration ideas
    • Furniture styles

    Looking up real-life examples would immensely help the creative process if you want to have your staging professionally made. You can also show the samples to your potential clients, especially those staged with similar room sizes.

    3. Try furniture using Augmented Reality (AR)

    Like those dress-up apps, virtual staging furniture is a fun experience using AR technology. Famous retail brands like IKEA, Target, and Amazon have iOS and Android apps that allow you to decorate your room with pieces of furniture to scale. You can also access websites where you can upload pictures and try different types of furniture to check how it looks.

    AR boasts a 90% conversion rate, and around half of the customers prefer shopping with AR assistance. You can expect better and more accessible AR technologies as ecommerce becomes more popular and people appreciate virtual illustrations more than traditional property visits.

    Virtual furniture staging has become increasingly popular, especially among buyers looking for how specific furniture pieces look in the space. As better AR and VR technologies are available, people will soon hold real estate tours using VR headsets.

    4. Use a Virtual Staging app or website

    The best kind of staging is one made by experts. Aside from furniture apps, you can do virtual staging online through apps or websites. Companies like Phixer have a dedicated mobile app where you can capture listing photos and have them edited by experts.

    Virtual staging websites can offer the same experience, especially those that allow you to save your edits instantly. You should be careful in choosing because some of those sites can be costly, especially if you don’t have a clear vision of the style you want.

    5. Hire a Virtual Staging expert

    Another way to digitally stage your property with just a mouse click would be to hire a virtual staging expert for post-production listing photos. If Photoshop or editing programs are too overwhelming or time-consuming, you can rely on professionals. Often, these real estate editing companies provide more than just virtual staging.

    Here are some services that you can hire real estate photography and post-production experts for:

    • Photo editing
    • Video editing
    • Drone shots
    • Lawn replacement
    • Decluttering
    • Virtual twilight

    Most companies offer 8 to 48 hours turnaround times depending on the request, and they offer consultations and customer support to ensure that you get the images you need. Some websites allow you to log in and upload your photos to monitor progress and check edit status.

    Bottomline

    There are many ways to approach virtual staging online, and more companies present real estate photography and post-production services. Fortunately, a lot of the current technology improves the aesthetics and appearances of regular property images. Someday, people will make quick decisions on real estate properties with digital ocular inspections.

  • Virtual Staging and its Benefits for the Future of Real Estate Marketing

    Virtual Staging and its Benefits for the Future of Real Estate Marketing

    21st-century technology has changed how we sell and promote real estate properties. Building complicated showrooms and prematurely spending on renovations are a thing of the past, and the virtual staging process has eliminated the need for elaborate setups or props.

    Digital or virtual staging is the online equivalent of classic showroom techniques that improve real estate sales conversions or success rates. It’s a recent development, but home staging has been a part of long-standing real estate practices way before technology came into play.

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    The Real Estate Staging Tradition

    Before discussing the importance of virtual staging, it’s essential to talk about staging as a practice. Simply put, staging means readying the property or home for a possible client that involves cleaning, renovating, redecorating, rearranging furniture, dressing up the emptiness, and other aesthetic strategies to attract buyers into the house.

    Before the internet and virtual staging, it was physically impossible or impractical to bring customers to the site, so developers constructed showrooms strategically in malls or other busy areas. This practice costs a lot more than if they did staging digitally.

    You may be wondering what is virtual staging and how does it correlate to better sales possibilities? Does it also affect property pricing?

    What is Virtual Staging?

    The simple virtual staging meaning is a digital showroom designed to promote a house or property. It also refers to the technique of improving a room’s appearance in preparation for listings or social media. This method allows reimagination of space to accommodate a new lifestyle even without actual furniture or renovations.

    You may be wondering why use virtual staging for real estate marketing? There are several practical and aesthetic reasons for doing it.

    Why Use Virtual Staging?

    virtual staging a bedroom

    Virtual staging is one of the best modern real estate marketing techniques incorporating creativity and psychology into real estate photos. Be purposeful and definitive when staging real estate listing photos to ensure that you don’t waste your time and effort.

    Here are some of the benefits of digital home staging:

    1. Gives a preview of the property and home

    One of the critical virtual staging benefits includes a preview of what living in the space looks like. The sneak peek allows customers to imagine what their daily routine would look like within the vicinity. A good marketing tactic is to adjust the room aesthetics and ambiance to suit the possible clients or buyers.

    Therefore, you should stage parts of the house that the new owner would frequent. For example, if you’re attracting young professionals, they might be interested in a home office or area for a work-from-home setup. You should stage the family room, kitchen, or shared living spaces to cater to small families.

    2. Cost-effective staging method

    Virtual staging costs relatively less compared to home staging and creating showrooms. Aside from the lesser cost, you have improved potential of attracting sales and clients, and a higher success probability means a better return on investment.

    According to a 2017 National Association of Realtors (NAR) survey, the effect of virtual staging on real estate prices is an increased sale price of 1% to 15%. If you’re selling a $300,000 home, that’s a boost of $3,000 to $45,000. Virtual staging costs are only a fraction of the price increase you can charge.

    3. Save time in redecorating and decluttering spaces

    There are instances when the house’s previous owners haven’t packed or removed their personal effects before the real estate photography sessions. You should deploy creative methods to improve appearances in the real estate listing photos during such times.

    The virtual staging process will eliminate waiting for redecoration and reconstruction because you can digitally declutter and change the room’s features. It’s a time-saving method that gives more preparation time to the seller by allowing advanced listing.

    4. Fast completion

    Speed is where the importance of virtual staging shines brightest. Modern technology has improved the time needed to edit real estate photos. Many companies like Phixer offer 24-hour virtual staging services, alleviating the pain of editing images yourself.

    The actual real estate purchase procedure takes a long time, from listing to site visits and paperwork, so you welcome anything that expedites the entire flow. Virtual staging improves the appearance of your photos and allows you to post your property photos without tidying or waiting for movers to clear your items.

    5. More aesthetic options to choose from

    The virtual staging meaning changes according to use and form. Sometimes, people utilize virtual staging as a 2D tour, and other times, it’s just a way to present several options. It all boils down to virtual spaces having more options and appeal.

    Here are some ideas on how you can virtually stage your home:

    • Select one neutral theme like brown or beige, and add a non-neutral color like red, green, or blue as an accent.
    • Choose a piece of furniture to serve as the space’s highlight and build a motif around it.
    • Digitally remove all the existing decors, and leave the room bare except for white wall paint and minimal furnishings.
    • Accessorize the room. Add art pieces to bare walls and rugs to bare floors.

    The sky is the limit, as long as you ensure that all 3D-rendered furniture pieces are on the right scale and that the entire room uses the correct perspective. You can also take your virtual staging to the next level by editing your sky through virtual twilight, creating a homey ambiance.

    Bottomline

    There are a lot of virtual staging benefits, especially when you’re dealing with high-profile and expensive properties. Weigh your options carefully, and consider the value of a digitally-staged home compared to a bare real estate property without alterations.

    Customers are more likely to trust a property staged according to their preferences and lifestyle, and they may make quicker decisions when they see it in image format. The sooner they buy the virtually staged home or property, the faster you can move on to selling others.

  • How to Edit Marketable Real Estate Photos for Competitive Listing

    How to Edit Marketable Real Estate Photos for Competitive Listing

    The real estate industry heavily relies on visual appeal for sales. Most customers prefer to see clean and well-kept properties on the listing before setting an appointment to see the premises. Several agents rely on professional post-production companies like Phixer to edit real estate images suited for marketing campaigns and sales strategies.

    You can market real estate properties online through several platforms, so you should make the most of the free digital exposure by editing the images beautifully. Improve conversion rates by maximizing the attractiveness of your photos. Read more to discover how to make adjustments to real estate photos for competitiveness and marketability.

    Value of Marketability

    Primarily, people post real estate listing photos to promote sales; therefore, marketability is at the forefront of editing considerations. Marketability is an essential design aspect because it determines the property’s sales outcome, such as failure or success.

    Product marketability has two categories:

    • Design for the target audience
    • Advertisement for the target audience

    In practice, you can virtually stage the property to suit the target home buyers or edit real estate images to advertise according to buyer psychology. Real estate marketing trends continuously adapt to changing times like the most recent COVID-19 pandemic.

    Why You Should Edit Real Estate Photographs

    Images will introduce possible buyers to the property, so you must consider buyer psychology when editing them. Here are the seven deciding factors according to the home buyer psychological considerations:

    • Emotion – 44% purchase homes because they feel good in them.
    • House with a story – closely linked to emotional attachment, clients buy homes with touching histories.
    • Perceived value – clients are more likely to purchase a house with great aesthetics and condition regardless of current market value.
    • Suits ideal lifestyle – since most customers spend time at home, they are more likely to buy a property appropriate to their lifestyle.
    • Cultural superstitions – these often involve the kind of numbers attached to the property.
    • Excellent first impressions – clean and neat real estate properties attract more buyers.
    • Social proof or influence – trust and testimonials reflect credibility.

    It’s important to note that most considerations don’t revolve around market values or facts and figures but the home’s appeal, emotion, and aesthetics. For example, you can invoke emotion even before the visit by posting a virtually staged listing photo.

    There is a method and art to real estate graphics editing, and it’s simpler than most people would think. You can do it with Adobe Photoshop or any graphics editing or photo manipulation software.

    How to Edit Real Estate Pictures

    The first rule on how to make adjustments to real estate photos is maintaining its natural state unless you’re virtually staging your property. It’s essential to be as realistic as possible, especially when posting the images on listing sites and social media pages.

    Here are straightforward real estate photo editing techniques:

    1. Adjust Exposure

    The lighting can make or break the image ambiance when you edit property photos. Overexposure, too much light, or underexposure, too little light, could ruin the overall effect of the picture. There are automatic adjustment settings that could help improve exposure.

    Darkening overexposed area:

    • You can use the Burn tool to darken an overexposed area.
    • Set the tool as Highlights on the top menu and paint over the area you want to shade.
    • Exposure default is often 50%, but you should start at 10%.

    2. Adjust Levels

    Levels setting allows you to manipulate the image’s color balance and tonal range by modifying image highlights, midtones, and shadows intensity levels. The histogram is a graphic guide in changing the fundamental tones of the image, and the Levels setting improves how to edit real estate pictures.

    Adjusting tonal settings:

    • Select Levels from the panel menu or choose the Levels icon located in the Adjustments panel.
    • Pick Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels. Affirm your selection in the New Layer dialog box pop up.

    The external input Levels indicators mark the black end and white end to the settings of the output indicators. The Output sliders mark 0, where the pixels are black, and 255 white by default. Moving the black input slider maps the pixel value to level 0, and adjusting the white point slider maps the pixel value to level 255. The remaining levels spread between levels 0 and 255, increasing the image’s tonal range and improving the overall picture contrast. The middle Input slider adjusts the image’s gamma. It moves the mid-tone (level 128) and modifies the intensity values of the mid-range of gray tones without drastically changing the shadows and highlights.

    You can save Levels settings as a preset then apply them to other images.

    3. Remove Clutter

    Buyers want to see the house or property in its best state, so removing unnecessary objects and distractions is one way to edit property photos. You can hire a company or freelancer to remove excess objects or do it yourself.

    Here are some ways to edit out unwanted items on your real estate images:

    • Spot Healing Brush tool automatically samples pixels from a specific area to edit on top of the unwanted item and blend with the surroundings.
    • Healing Brush tool works like Spot Healing Brush, but it allows you to select the pixels to utilize as a spot.
    • Clone Stamp tool gives more coverage because it copies content from one area to a selected location without blending.
    • Content-Aware workspace allows you to hide huge areas of an image, offering a live previous enabling control over the many options.

    Final Thoughts

    There’s no shame in doing post-production magic to get more sales. The highly-competitive real estate industry is dependent on real estate graphics editing to promote less marketable properties. However, it would help if you made an effort to remain accurate in your representation of real estate images because too much exaggeration or edits could tarnish your credibility.

  • Top 5 Virtual Staging Companies for Real Estate Sales in 2022

    Top 5 Virtual Staging Companies for Real Estate Sales in 2022

    Clients want to patronize products or services unique from the rest, and they are often adamant about labels and personalization. In 2022, more businesses are leaning toward creativity and personal touch to increase sales likelihood and conversion on both digital and in-person transactions.

    Personalization in the real estate industry translates to virtually staged spaces to accommodate the potential client’s imagination. Virtual home staging companies have spent years perfecting perspectives, proportions, color theories, and other essential elements to make digitally staged images look realistic.

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    What is Virtual Staging?

    Virtual staging is the digital equivalent of a real estate showroom or home staging. Often, virtually-staged rooms are blank canvases to invite home buyers to design the space as they want. Sometimes, you can also stage the areas according to your target buyer profiles, such as small families or bachelors.

    Customers may not want to buy your property if your image looks too staged or unrealistic. It would help if you used the correct scaling and image processing when virtually staging your home to look natural. Hiring the best virtual staging companies 2022 will ensure a higher probability of creating high-quality listing images and landing real estate sales.

    Here are some of the companies that offer digital home staging services in 2022:

    1. RoOomy

    RoOomy offers virtual staging and a design studio app for interior design enthusiasts and real estate professionals. The company prices each virtual staging photo at $49 to $109 with discounts for bulk purchases and a turnaround time of 2 to 3 business days. Unlike some companies on the list, RoOomy doesn’t offer a satisfaction guarantee and charges extra for revisions.

    However, the company provides technical and customer support with a dedicated account management team to ensure smooth transactions.

    The company has a 3-step order process:

    1. Submit images for staging and select the preferred design from their style guide. You can choose from contemporary, farmhouse, mid-century modern, modern, rustic, traditional, transitional, Scandinavian and minimalistic designs.
    2. Review and approve submitted proofs. The virtual staging team will provide several proofs for approval and final rendering.
    3. Check and upload your high-resolution photos.

    The Design Studio App lets you create 3D designs on your Apple devices and test furniture while shopping for those items from retailers such as Wayfair, Pottery Barn, and Amazon. You can also save and share your designs via social media sites or email.

    2. PadStyler

    PadStyler offers several real estate services, such as virtual staging (including virtual home staging, furniture replacement, kitchen vision, remodeling, and landscaping) and architectural rendering (including video walkthroughs and 3D floor plans). The company charges $79 per virtually staged photo with bundles, bulk discounts, and weekend same-day delivery for $19 an image.

    The company has good design quality for its price. Still, several home sellers and real estate agents have given good virtual staging solutions reviews on its outputs and designs. PadStyler offers a money-back and satisfaction guaranteed with unlimited edits, which is advantageous for clients with no clear virtual staging goal.

    PadStyler also delivers services such as architectural rendering, 3D floor plans, and video walkthroughs, valuable for commercial real estate agents. Its virtual staging service is only available on weekdays, so you might have to contact their 24/7 customer support for inquiries about your photos.

    3. Phixer

    Phixer is currently one of the largest real estate photography editing companies globally, processing over 50,000 photos a day and employing over 800 people, including photo editors, 3D artists, AI engineers, and full-stack developers. The company has been in operation for 13 years.

    Phixer offers a wide range of services such as photo and video editing, lawn replacement, decluttering, virtual twilight, and editing mobile application. The company’s unique experience allows Phixer to deliver exceptional results within a standard 24-hour timeframe and 12 to 18 hours with a rush rate.

    Phixer is one of the best virtual staging companies with a real estate editing mobile application. The company offers limited-time signup promotions of 30 free edits or three projects within a trial account of at most ten photos each and provides ten free credits for Phixer mobile app download.

    4. Tantify

    Tantify offers high-quality home staging designs. Hasten, a New York-based 3D architectural company owns Tantify, so each design is crafted with real estate value in mind. The company can pull off the latest trends and styles to ensure top marketability value.

    Tantify is one of the top companies, according to virtual staging reviews, offering digital staging services with a price range of $69 to $189 per individual photo with a turnaround time of 8 to 24 hours depending on your order. Clients expecting large output volumes can also avail of monthly subscriptions that start at $2,520 for 35 photos up to $4,169 for 65 photos.

    Each pricing has its own features and inclusions. The company offers the highest virtual staging prices on the list, but it has 24/7 customer support and a special 8-hour turnaround time that may be worth the price if you’re in a hurry.

    5. Virtual Staging Solutions

    The final company on the list is Virtual Staging Solutions, which offers high-quality virtually staged room remodels, construction, and designs. Virtual staging costs $75 for basic and $99 for pro, and bulk discounts start at $300. The company provides two revision rounds and a money-back guarantee minimizing risk.

    Most virtual staging solutions reviews are positive, but Virtual Staging Solution’s 1 to 2 days turnaround time may not be appealing to those operating within a tight deadline. The company’s customer support only takes calls from Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM EST. You can only create orders through the token system, so there’s a chance that you might not use all of them.

    Bottomline

    Potential clients want to see how their houses look according to the latest interior design trends. If you’re selling a home or property that looks outdated or unappealing, you can digitally improve its appearance by staging the area. Virtual staging is a great marketing tool for increased real estate sales in 2022, and most companies offer this service at competitive rates.

  • Top 6 Picks Best Canon Lens For Real Estate Photography in 2022

    Top 6 Picks Best Canon Lens For Real Estate Photography in 2022

    Your tools can make or break your success in the real estate photography industry. Your cameras and lenses determine the quality of the image you’ll produce, which is why you should invest in the best Canon lens for photography.

    Using the best lens for Canon and hiring professional photo editing services, such as Phixer, is a powerful combination that can jumpstart your career in the real estate industry. This combination will allow you to produce the best photos and impress clients.

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    TL;DR: If you’re still clueless on which lens to use, consider the Canon lenses guide below:

    1. Canon EF 11-24mm f/4L USM

    Canon EF 11-24mm f/4L USM

    Photo Credits: Canon

    Do you want to impress clients with ultra-wide-angle photography? Are you looking forward to taking photos that allow you to capture lots of sky and foreground while rendering a unique perspective of the scene? If you answered “yes” to these questions, the Canon EF 11-24mm f/4L USM is the best lens for you.

    The Canon EF 11-24mm f/4L USM makes it to our Canon lenses list because it has the widest zoom lens the brand has ever made. This lens has an expansive wide-angle range of 11 to 24 mm, ideal for interior shots, landscapes, and unique perspective in objects regardless of whether they’re near or far.

    Pros

    • Even with its ultra-wide-angle features, this lens creates minimal distortion, which allows you to take straight lines of images without compromising the quality of the picture.
    • Produces prime-grade image sharpness into full-frame corners.
    • One of the best Canon lenses for both interior and exterior real estate photography.
    • It comes with a silent manual and fast autofocus functions.

    Cons

    • Tendency to vignetting when you open up your aperture.
    • Expensive, costs $2,999.00.

    2. Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM Lens – 9518B002

    Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM

    Photo Credits: Canon

    The Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM is one of the best Canon lenses for photography, distinguished by its sophisticated optical design, constant f/4 highest aperture, and image stabilization to sharpen imagery. This lens’s unique because it uses two ultra-low dispersion or UD elements to reduce color aberrations and fringing.

    This L-series from Canon offers four stops of correction to help you shoot the best real estate photos even in dim lights. With its two UD lenses and three lens elements, this lens helps minimize ghosting in images and aberrations no matter the zoom range.

    The Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM made it to our canon lenses list because it can function in different weather conditions. Its dust- and water-resistant properties also allow you to enjoy the lens for years.

    Pros

    • A high-end ultra-wide-angle lens allows you to enjoy various zoom ranges without compromising the photos’ color accuracy and high clarity.
    • Excellent built-in quality.
    • Produces bright and sharp images even with the corners.
    • Thanks to the maximum f/4, you won’t have problems taking pictures in low-light conditions with this lens.

    Con

    • Expensive because it costs around $1,099.00.

    3. Canon EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM Lens

    Canon EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM

    Photo Credits: Canon

    You don’t have to spend a fortune to use the best all-in-one lens for Canon. With the Canon EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM Lens, you can take breathtaking real estate photos and still keep your bank account happy. STM is Canon’s Stepper Motor technology that enables smoother and quieter lens operation.

    The Canon EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM Lens comes with all the features you need to produce realistic, high-quality real estate photos. This lens is compatible with all APS-C Canon cameras and features an STM focus motor for better image stabilization and smooth video autofocus.

    Even though the 10-18 mm is compact, it can cover a wide field of vision. It weighs 8.5 ounces, measures 2.8 by 2.9 inches, and supports 67mm front filters. The field of view of the Canon EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM Lens is equivalent to a 16 to 29 zoom on an expanded frame camera.

    Pros

    • Affordable for its features as it costs only $219.99.
    • Provides sharp images throughout various ranges.
    • Optically stabilized, reducing the likelihood of blurring images.

    Cons

    • It comes with a plastic lens mount, which may feel low-quality for some.
    • Lots of barrel distortion when you set the lens at 10mm.
    • The lens doesn’t come with any lens hood, which means you have to spend more on the accessory.

    4. Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II Tilt-Shift Lens

    canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II

    Photo Credits: Canon

    The Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II Tilt-Shift Lens is an advanced refinement to classic Canon lenses, making it one of the best Canon lenses for photography. With its enhanced functionality, you won’t have any problems producing real estate images of the best quality with this lens.

    The Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II Tilt-Shift Lens is designed with UD lens to compensate for any chromatic abrasions. It also comes with a specially coated spherical element, allowing you to produce glare-free images and a tilt-shift lens so you can capture images with an angle view of 84 degrees.

    One unique feature of the Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II Tilt-Shift Lens is its rotation that lets you easily combine shifting and tilting within the range of +/- 90 degrees. The tilt function also has an enhanced range of movements, user-friendly shift knobs, and different landscape and shooting modes.

    Pros

    • One of the most high-end lenses made by Canon, perfect for real estate and architectural photography.
    • It offers different features, which is why it’s one of the best all-in-one lenses for Canon.
    • This is the best overall camera lens that offers extensive coverage.

    Cons

    • Not weather sealed.
    • More expensive than other lenses that offer the same focal length.
    • Since it comes with several options, photographers will need time and effort to learn how to use all of these.

    Knowledge Is Power

    With the number of Canon lenses available today, choosing one can be challenging, especially if you have no previous experience buying high-quality lenses. You can use this Canon lenses guide to make things easier. The more you know about Canon lenses, the easier it’ll be for you to pick a lens that suits your needs and budget!