Why Don’t All Realtors Use Professional Photography for Sacramento Listings?

Professional photography for Sacramento listings should not be a choice for a professional Realtor.

A while back I read an article about the reasons to use professional photography for Sacramento listings, for all Sacramento listings, and not just high-end listings. The author was a photographer, of course. But what he said struck home. Why do Realtors discriminate against their clients by shooting the low-end listings with a cellphone and hiring a professional photographer on the high-end? Is a $100,000 condo homeowner less deserving of beautiful photos than a luxury waterfront home seller? I don’t believe so. We provide a service to our clients. Why should that service differ based on the sales price of the property or on the seller’s income? We don’t charge a lower percentage of commission for a low-end than a high-end.

A guy with an entry-level home in Oak Park deserves the same quality of photography as the guy in Granite Bay.

Because I sell all types of properties in the Sacramento area, from $30,000 condos to $1 million+ luxury homes in Sacramento, I would often over the years shoot my own photos. I’m a decent photographer with a Nikon 7200, and I have a good eye; I’ve been a Photoshop user for decades and am adept with the software. But slowly I’ve been converting to hiring professional photography that better showcases my listings. As such, I had to face that inevitable question.

Should I use professional photography in Sacramento for all of my listings or just the upper end? I pondered the question for about all of 3 seconds before I realized what a stupid question it was. OK, maybe I would not use professional photography for a short sale that needs a ton of work because the bank would be confused and demand a higher price. Every other listing, yes, absolutely. Because every seller who is not in a distressed sale situation, and that accounts for 95% of all home sellers in Sacramento, deserve the same stellar service regardless of income, status or price of their home.

I don’t even care if it’s a fixer home with carpet beetles hanging from the ceiling, I hire professional photography in Sacramento. The photos are clear, sharp, focused, and my photographers use high-definition technology. There is no fish-eye in those pictures. I saw a set of photos in MLS shot with a cellphone recently and the agent’s thumb was in one of the pictures. Cellphones cannot shoot interiors, people. The depth is too short to showcase an entire room.

You may wonder don’t sellers ever look at their listings online and get angry that their agent shot such horrible photos? Toilet seats up (you can guess the gender), vertical shots, upside-down photos, dark rooms without flash. Why do the listing agents do that to their sellers? Because they don’t give a crap. And it shows. On top of this, they are cheap. These cheap agents who discriminate do not want to spend a hundred bucks.

Well, I do give a crap. I don’t discriminate against my sellers. Each listing is precious and deserves my best effort. If an agent is not willing to spend $100 or so on professional photography for Sacramento listings, perhaps that seller should hire a different Realtor whose brand reflects better service? There is no place for discrimination in Sacramento real estate, yet you and I both know it exists. At least you won’t find that attitude with the Elizabeth Weintraub Team. I can’t vouch for everybody else, but I sure would like to see the bar raised.