How not to advertise your apartment



  • New rule. If you want to rent a space, you either need to pass a photography course or hire a professional photographer.

    1. I don't care about the 20 pictures of the beach and local sights that are "close-by". Unless you are driving me there and paying entrance fees, this has absolutely nothing to do with the space you're renting!
    2. I couldn't possibly be bothered to care about a closeup of a bouquet/wine bottle/random crap you oh-so-tastefully arranged on the table. Show me the actual flat! If I see that bouquet when I get there I will make sure to burn it and probably the flat with it since you obviously didn't clean it since taking that picture.
    3. Putting a picture at a crap resolution is just plain lazy and you deserve to not get a single booking.
    4. If your place is just brick and cement, with the mattress on concrete floor, consider finishing the fucking place before you rent it!
    5. Bare walls and light-bulbs hanging from wires are not "vintage" or "romantic" or "chick". Stop being cheap and make an effort.
    6. If you mention something in text description (e. g. a balcony) make sure there is a picture that shows it

  • FoxDev

    @homobalkanus said in How not to advertise your apartment:

    Bare walls and light-bulbs hanging from wires are not "vintage" or "romantic" or "chickchic".

    FTFY ;)


  • BINNED

    @homobalkanus said in How not to advertise your apartment:

    Bare walls and light-bulbs hanging from wires are not "vintage" or "romantic" or "chick".

    No, it's a "unique opportunity to make the space your own!"

    🚎


  • FoxDev

    @onyx said in How not to advertise your apartment:

    @homobalkanus said in How not to advertise your apartment:

    Bare walls and light-bulbs hanging from wires are not "vintage" or "romantic" or "chick".

    No, it's a "unique opportunity to make the space your own!"

    🚎

    if that's the case, fine, but DON'T charge me a premium for the location because of that. If i'm going to have to finish the place myself that's coming out of Your pocket as landlord in the form of rent reduction, cause I ain't fucking doing it on my dime.



  • @accalia said in How not to advertise your apartment:

    @onyx said in How not to advertise your apartment:

    @homobalkanus said in How not to advertise your apartment:

    Bare walls and light-bulbs hanging from wires are not "vintage" or "romantic" or "chick".

    No, it's a "unique opportunity to make the space your own!"

    🚎

    If i'm going to have to finish the place myself

    I forgot to mention, I was looking at seaside apartments to rent for a week, not long-term.


  • FoxDev

    @homobalkanus said in How not to advertise your apartment:

    @accalia said in How not to advertise your apartment:

    @onyx said in How not to advertise your apartment:

    @homobalkanus said in How not to advertise your apartment:

    Bare walls and light-bulbs hanging from wires are not "vintage" or "romantic" or "chick".

    No, it's a "unique opportunity to make the space your own!"

    🚎

    If i'm going to have to finish the place myself

    I forgot to mention, I was looking at seaside apartments to rent for a week, not long-term.

    oh.

    well that does explain the photos of the beach..... the rest is still :wtf:



  • @accalia said in How not to advertise your apartment:

    well that does explain the photos of the beach..... the rest is still :wtf:

    View from the apartment is OK. What they actually do is repost the exact same pictures of city centers, beach photos and trampolines by the beach


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @homobalkanus said in How not to advertise your apartment:

    I couldn't possibly be bothered to care about a closeup of a bouquet/wine bottle/random crap you oh-so-tastefully arranged on the table. Show me the actual flat!

    You don't want to see decorations on the apartment, but you do want a picture of a car with a bad tire? 🚎



  • When my mother sold a house she initially used her friend as the real estate agent. I wish I'd saved some of the pictures she posted on the ad, they were the worst photos I'd seen! Picture of crap on the table, but out of focus with motion blur. Taking a photo of a brick wall with no context. General bad angles and lighting.

    (Not) surprisingly it didn't end well. She ended up getting a real professional.

    Though I wish she didn't sell that place: it was the house I grew up in and it has almost doubled in value since — but the place she bought instead has gone down. This is her being emotional and spiteful.


  • kills Dumbledore

    @masonwheeler would it help if there was a lift up to the flat?


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @zemm said in How not to advertise your apartment:

    When my mother sold a house she initially used her friend as the real estate agent. I wish I'd saved some of the pictures she posted on the ad, they were the worst photos I'd seen! Picture of crap on the table, but out of focus with motion blur. Taking a photo of a brick wall with no context. General bad angles and lighting.
    (Not) surprisingly it didn't end well. She ended up getting a real professional.

    When drones were coming out I thought to myself: "Those are pretty cool, but I have to wonder how useful they will be in the mainstream." Then a real estate agent friend of mine bought one and uses it to get aerial photos and video of the properties she is selling, which is an application I had never even thought of. She figures the $2,500 she spent on the drone more than paid for itself on the first sale she made with the media she got from the drone.


  • 🚽 Regular

    @polygeekery Wow, that's actually pretty genius. I never would have thought of that application.

    The interior pictures of our current place were pretty God-awful, too. It seems to be a common trend...


  • Garbage Person

    @polygeekery said in How not to advertise your apartment:

    @zemm said in How not to advertise your apartment:

    When my mother sold a house she initially used her friend as the real estate agent. I wish I'd saved some of the pictures she posted on the ad, they were the worst photos I'd seen! Picture of crap on the table, but out of focus with motion blur. Taking a photo of a brick wall with no context. General bad angles and lighting.
    (Not) surprisingly it didn't end well. She ended up getting a real professional.

    When drones were coming out I thought to myself: "Those are pretty cool, but I have to wonder how useful they will be in the mainstream." Then a real estate agent friend of mine bought one and uses it to get aerial photos and video of the properties she is selling, which is an application I had never even thought of. She figures the $2,500 she spent on the drone more than paid for itself on the first sale she made with the media she got from the drone.

    Why? You don't see your property from the air!


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @weng said in How not to advertise your apartment:

    Why? You don't see your property from the air!

    Her listings stand out. They also take overhead views and collate that with GIS data and show property lines overlaid on the photo, etc. All pretty cool stuff. She reckons that it has gained her a small bump on sales prices, and believes that it has cut the time to sale pretty signifcantly.

    I know fuck-all about real estate, so I have to take her word for it. But she is a rockstar realtor so I trust her on it.

    @zemm and @erufael might also find it interesting that she has a professional photographer she works with that photographs every property. She doesn't just swing by with a CoolPix and snap a few blurry photos herself.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election

    @erufael said in How not to advertise your apartment:

    @polygeekery Wow, that's actually pretty genius. I never would have thought of that application.

    The interior pictures of our current place were pretty God-awful, too. It seems to be a common trend...

    Home interior shots are hard, especially with windows with daylight coming in. All the settings and methods that work for "normal" photos tend to result in crap. Wide-angle + extreme camera positions + (HDR or carefully positioned flashes) work better.

    So does hiring a professional.


  • 🚽 Regular

    @dreikin Granted, but there are still ways to get at least half-way decent shots, like you said. I'd just think that a little investment would be worth it when you're trying to sell a home.



  • @dreikin said in How not to advertise your apartment:

    Home interior shots are hard, especially with windows with daylight coming in. All the settings and methods that work for "normal" photos tend to result in crap. Wide-angle + extreme camera positions + (HDR or carefully positioned flashes) work better.

    When we sold our previous house, the agent made a big show of coming to take high-quality pictures. I was a bit suspicious at first ("yeah yeah, usual estate agent bullshit..."), but he did exactly what you say (good quality camera + wide-angle + HDR) and the result was indeed impressive. Of course, when you know the house, wide-angle pictures always look a bit weird, but in a good sense as rooms look larger than they are, and the pictures certainly stood out when compared to the average property listing.

    Not sure it actually made any difference in the sale, but still, that was nice (and we even kept the pictures somewhere as a memento of our old house!).


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