Close the toilet seat- Your guide to successfully marketing your rental property

A picture is worth a thousand words, and when marketing a rental property, pictures bring in prospects. If you start your search on the Internet, where over 82% of potential home buyers and renters begin their search, you will find plenty of stagnant listings. Lets face it, some properties are not renting because the pictures of original shag carpet from 1970 and the dusty fake plants are not appealing to any potential renter. Others have been photographed so poorly, that they are completely bypassed by prospects that could be a great fit. Here are a few, simple tips to getting the visual appeal that brings prospects through the door.

Properly Photographed Toilet

1) Turn on the lights

I am amazed at how many property owners and management companies don’t turn the lights on for marketing pictures. The first thing you should do when you go into a property for pictures is turn on every single light. If light bulbs are out or missing, bring a couple extras to put in for picture time. Having the lights on makes the pictures much warmer, more inviting, and give the hardwood floors a nice shine. Try it; the difference is night and day.

2) Get the Angles!

Take pictures from corners of rooms or in the doorway. This gives the viewer a much better idea of room sizes and makes a small bedroom much more appealing.

3)Don’t post pictures that are sideways or upside down

It really throws people off when they see a toilet coming out of the wall.

4) Clean up the space.

You don’t need to break out the Clorox, but move trash and clutter to a corner of the room and take the picture from that corner. Mildly deceiving but so is dousing the home in Febreze before the prospects arrive.

5) Keep Em’ Even

Keep all the blinds at the same length and openness. When they are all at different lengths, it looks bad and creates strange light patterns on the floor.

6) Take A Lot of Photos

If you are not great at photography, take a lot of pictures. Chances are you will have a couple keepers in the mix.

7) Use A Camera

Your flip phone camera isn’t cutting it anymore. If you don’t have a digital camera, go to Rite-Aid and buy a $5 disposable digital camera. Renting the property and not leaving it vacant for another month will offset the cost of the digital camera.

8) Close the Toilet.

No matter if it is squeaky clean or not (usually not in most cases), no prospective tenant is interested in seeing what the inside of the toilet looks like when they are reviewing pictures of a potential rental property.

 

 

Written by :

 

Tripp Cox