When buyers are looking for properties online, or even in the window of their local estate agent, their mind will be made up in seconds. Photos are the number one weapon in your arsenal of property marketing tools, because we all know how much first impressions count. In the world of marketing your home, people really do judge a book by its cover, so not only does your home need to look immaculate, you also need to know how to take a decent picture.

Good photos (and plenty of them) will help you sell your home faster. FACT. So how can you prepare for a successful SELF home photoshoot?

• Pick your time of day carefully. If there was just one piece of advice we could give, this would be it. Natural light will make both the inside and outside of your home look its best. Make the most of a bright, clear day when your home will be bathed in natural light inside and out - but open up those shutters and curtains and, if you need to, switch the lights on too.
  
  
• Use good quality equipment, either a digital camera or a smartphone with top-notch photography capability. You might even want to use a tripod and a wide-angle lens to make sure you get a fantastic quality and in-focus picture that shows off an entire room easily.
  
  
• Have a shot list in mind. Get as many photos as possible to show off every positive aspect of your home and shoot from a position where you're sure to capture as much of that room as possible. At the minimum, you’ll need two exterior shots (front and back), living room, kitchen, dining room, bedrooms and bathrooms. People want to be able to imagine themselves in a property, so the more images that can help them achieve that the better. If your property has any special or quirky selling points, don’t forget to include those on your shot list too.
  
  
• If you need to, move furniture around to make a room appear brighter or more spacious. It doesn’t have to be how you keep the room set up, but again putting yourself in the shoes of a potential buyer will make for a quicker sale at the price you want.
  
  
• Go on a declutter rampage! We know it can be hard to de-personalise your home - after all, it holds so many memories - but try and see it as a short-term fix to help you sell your home and get the new one you’ve been dreaming of. Start small - just tidy up! File that stack of letters, put the dishes away, and hide the dog bowl. Then tackle the more emotional stuff - remove the self-portrait of your 5-year-old from the fridge, minimise the photos on the mantlepiece, shove the kids toys in a cupboard if you can, and just try to remove a few markers which make your home seem too ’you’. It’s like ripping off a plaster, and you might even feel a little lighter for a freshened-up home.
  
  
• Remember, potential buyers will be interested in kerb appeal. They want their new home to look A-mazing, and kerb appeal can also boost your selling price. When you’re snapping away, pay just as much attention to how your house looks from the outside. Make sure you have a newly mown lawn, squeaky clean windows, and maybe even some plants either side of your front door. These little details will take your photos from amateur to award-winning (ok, maybe not actually award winning but you get what we mean).
  
  
• Hone your home-staging skills. Home staging is the art of making your home as appealing to as many people as possible, and again this is all about taking a step back and trying to view your property as if you were seeing it for the first time. Set the scene with items that a potential buyer would expect to see in that room: a full, colourful fruit bowl in the kitchen, folded towels in the bathroom or a vase of fresh flowers in the living room, mirrors in dark or small spaces.
  
  
• And lastly, make use of our clever in-platform photo editing tool to make your pictures really pop! Our easy-to-use photo editor enables you to instantly crop, rotate, resize, and adjust your brightness, contrast, exposure and saturation - no expensive or complicated software needed.

Happy snapping!