Counters, windows and furniture placement are visible in listing photographs before a buyer visits. Preparing those details takes a different kind of attention from fixing a mechanical problem or deciding on a renovation.
Preparing for the photographs
Clear distracting objects, make the lighting consistent and clean the glass that appears in the photographs. Decide on other work after reviewing the particular house and the purpose of the images.
The night before is too late
Plan where items will go before clearing the rooms. Moving them to the garage or basement may simply shift the work if those spaces will also be photographed. Two weeks may be a useful planning allowance for a home lived in for twenty years; a Saturday may not be enough.
What actually shows up in a photograph
- Surfaces. A clear counter reads as space. A counter with six items on it reads as a small kitchen.
- Light. Dead bulbs, mismatched color temperature and half the lamps off make good rooms look grey.
- Glass. Windows, mirrors, shower doors and the oven front. All of it photographs.
- Cords. They are invisible to you and extremely visible in a wide angle frame.
- Scale. One oversized piece of furniture can make a well proportioned room look cramped.
- The yard line. Where the mulch stops and the lawn starts is most of what a front exterior is.
The rooms that get skipped every time
The laundry room. The garage. The utility side of the basement. The space behind the door in the primary bedroom where the exercise equipment lives. Buyers look at all of them, and they are the rooms sellers stop seeing after the first year in a house.
Pets are the other one. Bowls, beds, crates and the yard. Not because anything is wrong with them, but because they photograph as clutter and they remove a certain kind of buyer before that buyer ever stands in the room.
What not to spend money on
A project started in the four weeks before listing can leave rooms unfinished when photography is scheduled. Consider the scope, available time and likely benefit before beginning work that could delay the launch.
Do not repaint the whole interior on the theory that it helps. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it is several thousand dollars spent on a thing the photograph would not have shown. That is a conversation to have in front of the house rather than in the abstract.
Why I would rather see it first
Walking and scanning the rooms helps identify layout details that photographs need to explain: a narrow hallway, a step down into a sunroom or a room used as an office. Those details can be addressed in the presentation before the photography appointment.
Whether a specific improvement returns its cost at resale is not a question I will give you a number for, because the answer varies by house and by street and anyone quoting you a national percentage is quoting an average of houses that are not yours. What a contractor will charge belongs to the contractor. Whether improvement spending affects your basis when you sell belongs to your CPA, and it is worth asking before you spend, not after.
How the house is measured, drawn and shown once it is ready is on the listing marketing page, and the wider question of whether to sell at all is on the Lifestyle Calibration page.
This note is general guidance about preparing a home for photography. It is not tax advice, and what any particular improvement costs or returns depends on your house and your market.