Category: Property Photos

If you keep on top of the latest social media trends, you might have seen the rise of ‘dusk shots’ or photos taken at ‘golden hour’.

This trend has now entered the world of property marketing, and here at PropertyBox, we’re excited to embrace it.

Agents want their property listings to evoke several responses from house hunters, one of the most important being the ability to envision themselves living in the property. 

This is where dusk shots come into their own. 

When the sun begins to set, there’s something extremely inviting about a home with the lights on inside and glowing, especially when there’s a sunset in the background. 

Below is an excellent example:

Compare the dusk shot with the regular property photo – which is more likely to capture the eye?

Dusk shots: The Benefits

As mentioned above, property photos shot during golden hour are more enticing, and therefore, they’re likelier to generate interest, leading to a quicker sale.

The stats bear this out:

For example, in one experiment, two exterior shots of the same home in Green Valley, AZ, were taken. One was a regular property photo, and the other was a dusk shot. Online ads were then run to the same demographic to drive traffic to both listings. 

The dusk shot achieved 3x more clicks for half the cost!

Similarly, other studies show that property listings with twilight photography used in the primary photo can increase views by 76% (on average). 

So, if you’re looking for a quick fix to boost property listing engagement, try using a dusk shot as your main image – you may find that, like the above example, you notice a huge difference!

It’s also worth noting that in addition to attracting more attention to your property listings, dusk photography shows potential clients that you provide something different. 

Not every estate agency offers this kind of photography, so dusk shots go a long way to distinguish yourself from the competition, solidifying your brand as a forward-thinking agency that prides itself on its property marketing expertise.

When we spoke to Krista Forsberg, Estate Agent at Keller Williams Integrity Edina, to get her opinion on dusk shots, this is what she had to say:

“From a selling perspective, twilight photos can be dramatic and showcase the evening lighting and curb appeal of a property…Anytime you can better showcase a home online, more buyers to want to see a property in person, which helps garner interest and offers!”

How to take dusk shots

To achieve the perfect dusk shot, you have 2 options:

1. Take your own pictures at twilight
2. Use AI

If you opt for the former, here are a few tips:

• Get the timing right: The best time to shoot a property at twilight is roughly 20 minutes after sunset. However, this might vary depending on cloud coverage and the time of year.
• Turn on all the lights: Switch on all of the property’s lights (both internal and external) and open your curtains. These lights create a beautiful, warm glow.
• Turn off your camera’s flash: Ensure you’re using ‘Flash off’ mode. According to the Canon EOS 70D manual, this mode is “effective for capturing the particular ambience of a scene, such as candlelight.” For our purposes, this also translates to better capturing beautiful property photos at dusk. 
• Stay still to avoid blurring: If you have a tripod, great. If not, try to lean against something and hold your breath while taking the shot. 

Use AI

The second way to produce stunning dusk shots is to use AI to make the image look like it was taken at twilight. 

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to predict when a stunning sunset will occur – particularly in the UK, where it rains so often!

So, instead of waiting for the perfect conditions, AI provides a more convenient and reliable option. You can take external property shots during regular working hours and use a property photo enhancer to edit the ambience.

With PropertyBox, creating a dusk shot is simple. 

To illustrate just how easy it is, we’ll quickly run you through the necessary steps:

1. Upload a property photo for enhancement.
2. Click ‘Create a dusk shot.’ 
3. Choose your favourite of 7 dusk skies. 
4. You can then make it look like the property’s lights are on (if you wish) using our easy-to-use editor. 
5. When you’re happy, click ‘Finish,’ 
6. Download the dusk shot to use in your property listings. 

This is the kind of result you can expect to achieve:

Are you ready to start using dusk shots in your property marketing?

After reading this blog post, we hope you have a better idea of what dusk shots are, the benefits of using them in your property marketing, and how to create these beautiful assets to elevate your listings.  

See for yourself how PropertyBox can help you create captivating dusk shots with our 7-day free trial! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact our Customer Success Team at team@propertybox.io.

Are you familiar with the following scenarios?

1. You can’t afford professional property photography for every listing your agency publishes. 
2. The property listing is time-sensitive, and you don’t have time to wait for an appointment with a professional photographer.

If you’re a seasoned agent, you’re probably familiar with both situations and might have wondered the following question: 

Should agents ever attempt to edit their own property photos?

It stands to reason that professional photographers charge a premium for a good reason – editing high-quality property photos is a time-consuming and tricky business. 

In fact, when you use professional marketing services, like a FocalAgent marketing pack, agents are almost 40% more likely to complete a sale and, on average, achieve a 1.63% higher selling price. These statistics are based on data collected and verified by TwentyCi throughout 2022, including 2,331,408 properties. 

So, where does that leave you?

Continue reading as we explore that very question. 

How important are property photos?

We’ll cut to the chase. High-quality property photos are imperative. 

That’s not just our opinion. 

Rather, recent research published on Estate Agency Today reveals that when participants were questioned about what they found most influential in forming opinions about a property advertised online, property photos were deemed the most influential (almost 40%)!

More interestingly, as many as 80% said they would click on a listing because the first image was enticing. 

But, almost 60% said they would skip properties with unappealing initial images. In other words, the house hunter wouldn’t even consider viewing the property or finding more information about it if they didn’t like the property’s feature image!

On top of that, 71% of prospective buyers who clicked through to the whole property listing said the first thing they looked at was the full range of property images available. Plus, almost 50% stated they wouldn’t peruse the rest of the listing if they didn’t like the property photos. 

How do you enhance your property photos with limited time and money?

The stats above are clear. 

Where property photos are concerned, putting your best foot forward is imperative. 

But what do you do if you lack the budget for a professional photographer and don’t have the time or skills to edit the photos yourself?

Fortunately, an AI-powered property marketing assistant like PropertyBox provides an easy, cost-effective solution. 

You can transform the property photos you’ve taken on your smartphone or camera into professional-looking content in a matter of seconds.

When we spoke to Samantha Aitken, Territory Owner for Yopa Glasgow South, to get her thoughts on the subject, she said that before PropertyBox, she would have to: ‘upload and edit each photo individually, so it could take a few hours’ – whereas, now ‘it literally takes a few minutes to edit photos.’

With that said, let’s see how PropertyBox’s property photo enhancements work:

How do PropertyBox’s photo enhancements work?

To give you a sense of how easy it is to enhance property photos using PropertyBox’s AI, below we’ve quickly outlined the process:

1. As previously hinted, take photos of your client’s property using your smartphone or camera.
2. With just a few clicks, upload the shots to your PropertyBox workspace. 
3. PropertyBox transforms your images into better-quality visual content for publication on your agency’s website or property portals. 

Simple, right?

What should you look for in an AI property photo enhancer?

Here at PropertyBox, we thought long and hard about what makes a best-in-class AI-fuelled property photo enhancer and put these ingredients together to form the ultimate property marketing assistant. 

Firstly, we understand that the old cliche ‘time is money’ couldn’t be more accurate for estate agents. 

So, we aim to provide the highest quality property photo enhancements in the shortest amount of time. 

That’s why we automatically apply as many as 27 enhancements to your photos, including blue sky replacement, vertical correction, vertical adjustments, boost shadows, colour enhancement, customer privacy blurring, HD upscaling, and more. 

On top of that, you can also use our object removal editor to extract unwanted objects from your photos in seconds. Just use the ‘Erase Brush’ to highlight the object you wish to remove, click ‘Apply’, and watch it disappear!

You can even add your agency’s logo to property photos to strengthen brand recognition and protect assets from third-party use.

But, most importantly, if you’re not 100% satisfied with your photo enhancements, PropertyBox pays to manually enhance them at no extra cost (usually, these are returned in under an hour)! 

However, over 98% of our AI enhancements don’t require manual intervention, so rest assured that you’re in safe hands!

If any of that piqued your interest and you have more questions, please schedule a call with our helpful team – they’ll get back to you in 55 seconds or less!

Year after year, we’re seeing increasing numbers of house hunters browsing properties on Rightmove and Zoopla between Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve.

In fact, Rightmove reported that:

• Visits were 54% higher last Boxing Day than the previous year. 
• Rightmove received a staggering 51 million visits between Boxing Day and the first day of the working year.
  

The bottom line? Your agency needs to prepare for the Boxing Day boom!

But what do you do when your client’s homes are brimming with Christmas decorations, and you need to take property photos? 

Needless to say, Christmas trees, tinsel, and whatever other festive ornaments are up make it difficult for buyers to envision themselves living there. Plus, come the new year, the photos will need updating. Not only is taking photos twice a needless expense, but it also eats into your agent’s valuable time. 

So, what do you do?

Continue reading as we provide you with a quick, easy, and affordable solution:

The problem

Of course, when it comes to taking neutral property photos, asking clients to declutter their homes as much as possible (including Christmasy nick-nacks) is your first port of call. 

According to Samantha Odo, Real Estate Sales Representative & Montreal Division Manager at Precondo:

‘During the holiday season, homes are often decorated with personal and festive items. While these may bring joy to the homeowners, they can sometimes distract potential buyers when viewing property photos.’

…But if the seller already has a giant Christmas tree up, there’s a good chance they’ll be less than willing to take it down.

So, what do you do?

Answer: Unfortunately, you have to take the photos anyway, leaving you in somewhat of a predicament. 

How do you remove unwanted Christmas trees, inflatable Santas, festive garlands (the list continues…) from your otherwise professional-looking property photos?

Complicated photo editing software like Photoshop and Indesign might spring to mind. However, as there’s less than a month until Boxing Day, you probably don’t have time to familiarise yourself with such complex programs. 

On the other end of the spectrum, there’s Microsoft Paint 3D. It’s free and very basic. DIY jobs using such software rarely produce decent-quality results. Its Magic Select tool usually requires you to painstakingly trace the object you wish to remove. So, unless you have an incredibly steady hand and lots of patience, this is a tedious process.

The solution

To stand a chance of listing all your properties before the big day, you need photo-enhancing software that’s simpler than Photoshop and quicker than Paint.

Enter, PropertyBox. 

PropertyBox users benefit from quick and easy object removal that makes their property photos look more professional. 

Here’s how it works for small objects (perfect for removing smaller Christmas decorations like wreaths, advent calendars, mini trees, etc.):

1. If you haven’t already, subscribe to PropertyBox
2. From your PropertyBox workspace, click ‘Create New Property’ and enter your client’s address
3. Upload your property photos. Then, click ‘Remove Objects.’
4. Using our intuitive editor, highlight the object you wish to erase.
5. Finally, click ‘Finish’ and watch it disappear. 
   

From start to finish, the process takes a matter of minutes!

But what if you need to get rid of something larger – like those colossal inflatables we mentioned earlier?

In that case, tell PropertyBox which object(s) you wish to remove, and we’ll do it for you within 24 hours!

Easy, right?

Are you ready to erase tacky Christmas decorations from your property photos?

To help you enhance your property photos in time for Christmas, we’re offering a limited-time deal:

1. 1 month’s free PropertyBox access when you use this promo code at checkout: FREEMONTHDEC  
2. FREE large object removal from your property photos¹ 
   

Interested? Have questions? Contact us today at team@propertybox.io or request a call back in 55 seconds or less!

¹ Please note: Large object removal is free for up to 5 uses per month for new and existing customers between Monday, 4th – Sunday, 31st December.

PropertyBox Chief Revenue Officer Aaron White gives his top tips for creating stand-out property photos every time.

We know that you want to make your property photos look as professional as possible but sometimes you’re hindered by weather and circumstances. Maybe the skies don’t look great on the day, or there are bins outside that can’t be moved, or maybe the scene wasn’t set perfectly in a living room and your eye is drawn to the untidy TV wires instead of the period fireplace. Now PropertyBox gives you the ability change all that after you’ve taken your shots and is the perfect tool to turn a good picture into a great picture. The difference is jaw dropping!

Eyesores gone in seconds

The most common items we’re asked to remove using our instant Object Removal tool are bins outside the front which don’t show the house to its best advantage, but just by removing them it can look stunning. Other agents’ sale boards are the second most popular item to be removed. When I first saw I could draw a line over an unwanted object in seconds, as opposed to it taking me 45 minutes to get rid of something manually, I was in awe at how we’ve developed these tools. I love demonstrating what we can do to potential clients – especially when they realise how we’re going to make their lives so much easier.

We’re simply the fastest on floorplans

We’re the only company that can turn around a floor plan within 4 hours for just £5. You don’t have to download software, just simply sketch the floor plan on a piece of paper, note down the measurements and the names of the rooms, take a photo of it and upload it and that’s it. Within hours we’ll deliver the completed floor plan to you, freeing up your time for other important tasks.

It’s interesting to see the growing take up of our floor plan service, as well as customers choosing our one-off pay and go service to produce a floor plan for their Airbnb property or holiday cottage. It certainly gives them the edge over hundreds of homes without a floor plan, making it much easier for holiday makers to see if the property has a layout that suits their needs. And it’s unlikely these homeowners will have used a professional photographer for the photographs so once again we can enhance these to make them look great.

Our new watermarking service for photography and floor plans is another game changer, allowing your branding to be more visible across all social media content, making it easily recognisable and creating more organic leads to your business.