Listing Photo Prep Checklist

Why Prep Decides How The Gallery Turns Out

This is the page we send with every booking confirmation. It is written to be forwarded straight to the seller, so it talks to them rather than to you.

The single biggest predictor of how a listing gallery turns out is not the camera. It is whether the house was ready when we arrived. A well prepared 1,400 square foot home photographs better than an unprepared 4,000 square foot one, every time.

The night before the shoot

• Replace any dead bulbs, and try to make the bulbs in one room match. A room with one warm bulb and one cool one photographs with a color cast we then have to fight.
• Run the dishwasher and empty the sink. Dishes are the most common reason a kitchen photograph gets retaken.
• Put the trash cans out of sight, including the kitchen trash can and the recycling.
• Charge or hide the robot vacuum. It will find its way into a frame otherwise.
• Decide where the pets are going. Contained in one room, in the garage, or out with a neighbor. Beds, bowls and litter boxes go away entirely.

Thirty minutes before we arrive

• Open every blind and curtain. All of them, all the way. Natural light is what makes the room, and we photograph the window and the room together.
• Turn on every light in the house, including lamps, under cabinet lighting and the range hood light.
• Move every car off the driveway and away from the front of the house. This includes yours, the neighbor's if they will move it, and anything on the street directly in front.
• Clear all kitchen counters. Everything. The toaster, the knife block, the kettle, the fruit bowl, the mail. A bare counter looks larger and cleaner than any amount of tidy arrangement.
• Clear all bathroom surfaces. Toothbrushes, products, soap, bath mats, and take the towels down or hang fresh ones neatly.
• Put the toilet seats down. Every time. This is the most photographed mistake in real estate.
• Make every bed properly and straighten the pillows.
• Turn ceiling fans off. A spinning fan photographs as a blur.

Room by room prep

Kitchen

Counters completely clear. Nothing on the fridge, including magnets, photographs and the children's artwork. Dish towels and dishcloths away. Trash can out of the room.

Living areas

Remotes, chargers, cables and games controllers away. Cushions straightened. Throws folded or removed. Reduce the personal photographs, not because they are a problem but because buyers look at them instead of the room.

Bedrooms

Beds made, floors clear, closet doors closed. Under bed storage pushed fully under. If there is exercise equipment or a laundry pile, this is the room to deal with it.

Bathrooms

Every surface clear. Shampoo and shower products out of the shower entirely, not just pushed to one end. Fresh towels or no towels. Seats down, and the shower door or curtain open the way it looks best.

Outside

Lawn mown a day or two before, not the same morning. Hoses coiled, toys and garden tools away, patio furniture straightened. Pool cleaned and the cover off. Cars gone. If there is a trampoline, consider whether it helps.

What we bring, and what we do not move

We bring the cameras, the drone, the 3D scanner and the lighting. We will move a small item out of a frame and put it back, but we are not able to move furniture, and for insurance reasons we do not go into locked rooms, attics or crawl spaces.

If a room genuinely cannot be made presentable, tell us and we will either skip it or shoot it in a way that is honest about what it is. An empty or awkward room is often a good case for virtual staging.

On the day of the shoot

The seller does not need to be there, and it is usually easier if they are not. We need access and about an hour for a standard home, longer if a 3D tour, floor plan or video is booked. Pets contained, please, so nothing wanders into a frame or out of an open door while we are carrying gear.