Photography Hacks to Market Your Properties

David:

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Loop It In, the Door Loop podcast, where we pick the brains of experts in property management, real estate, and investing. Tech, we cover it. Marketing, that too. Whether you want actionable tips or the insider scoop from top performers in their industries, this is one show you won't want to miss. Be sure to subscribe so you won't miss out on any future episode.

All right. Mo, thank you so much for joining us today.

Muhammed:

Thanks for having me.

David:

Tell everyone that's listening a little bit about yourself, where you grew up, your background, history, work, everything. The whole story.

Muhammed:

Awesome, awesome. I was born in Indiana. After that, I went to the Middle East because my dad's an engineer. We started working out in Saudi Arabia, which was a very interesting experience. But I always knew that I wanted to get into something related to content. I always used to play with my dad's video camera when I was young, and whenever the first phone cameras first came out, that looked very terrible, I would record on that.

David:

Nokia.

Muhammed:

Nokia, Motorola. I had one of those. Epic phone, by the way.

David:

Yeah. Sneak. The best game's sneak.

Muhammed:

Oh yeah, of course. Yeah. So that was awesome. I used to record on that, but I had no idea how to edit or do anything like that. So whenever I was recording something, I'd have to record it in sequence, and if I messed up, I'd have to rerecord over that, go back and do another take. But that's really what got me into it. Just making random funny little videos. This is before I even knew about YouTube, but I just always felt like I wanted to do something creative with my time.

So yeah, I went to high school there, as well, and in high school, I took a journalism class. So in journalism class, we'd take pictures of all the events, we'd take videos of all the events that were going on, and I actually found myself spending so much time doing all that stuff. So whether if I had recess, but I had the deadline that I had to meet, I would happily give up my recess to spend time doing that. Or had this; there was one time where, in my senior year, I lived about an hour away from the city that I was studying. So on the bus I'd have my laptop and I'd be editing and photoshopping, doing all that stuff, and I just really enjoyed it. So I knew that when I go to university, I want to study something related to photography or videography or anything in that space.

After that, I moved to Dubai where my brother was, and it was still close to family in Saudi Arabia. So I started study out there. I studied media and film, and I learned a lot there about theory, but I didn't learn enough, I feel, about the practical side of things, how all the equipment works, and you only learn that through trial and error.

David:

Yep.

Muhammed:

Right, it's all theory up to that point. It was good for networking, for having that time to experiment. But yeah, after that, in my third year, I had one year left to go, I ran into some financial issues, so I ended up not completing my last year of university. And I was devastated at the moment, but it actually turned out to be the best thing for me because after that, I got an internship in a big media company, got my foot in the door, worked my butt off, and it all paid off. I got a great job after that, got some amazing experience and learned so much. Learned from some amazing videographers, amazing photographers in the industry that they would shoot fashion magazines and real estate stuff, and I learned so much just doing all that.

David:

Right. Well, actually, it's a gre at segue because I wanted to ask you which brands and companies have you worked with, because it's my understanding that you've worked with some pretty well-known brands in the world.

Muhammed:

Yeah, where do I even start? So I worked in a media publishing house. So we had a bunch of different magazines under our roster and it was everything from fashion magazines, to lifestyle, food magazines, even timeout, we have a timeout down the corner.

David:

Yep.

Muhammed:

Word fly with them, as well. So just to name a few brands, there was GQ, Harper's Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Arabian Business, Timeout, like already mentioned, and many, many others that might not be as well known here. But yeah, I learned so much doing that. And then the brands I'd actually work with, honestly, a lot of luxury brands, so Juicy Couture.

David:

Wow.

Muhammed:

Gucci, a bunch of those interesting brands that are pretty fun to work with. But in terms of real estate stuff, I did a lot with some of the big developers out there, so I'm sure a lot of you have heard of Emaar.

David:

Yep.

Muhammed:

They made the Burj Khalifa, tallest building in the world.

David:

Yep.

Muhammed:

I did a lot with a lot of the properties that they have. So there's Dubai Mall, Dubai Hills Mall, and the Mac Properties, as well, one of the biggest developers out there. It's funny, if you ever go to Dubai, you're going to see these names for sure.

David:

Yep.

Muhammed:

Because on every building, they're going to have their logo at the top.

David:

And the billboard.

Muhammed:

Exactly. Yeah, it's everyone, and people that visit Dubai, they're like, what the heck is this? Why is this name everywhere? What is it? What does even mean? Basically, worked a lot with those types of brands, and then a lot of hotels, as well. So Fairmont, the Palm Jamera, JA Resorts.

David:

Wow. Pretty much all of the big names, basically.

Muhammed:

Yeah, it was great experience overall.

David:

Amazing. So this podcast will be more of a beginner's guide for anyone that wants to get started taking their own pictures of their own units to rent out. Man, I've seen some pretty horrible pictures.

Muhammed:

Yep.

David:

So as have you, I know you've done some apartment hunting recently. So in general, where should someone get started? Do they need a professional camera or can they do it just with their phones?

Muhammed:

Yeah, I'm a firm believer that whatever equipment that you have with you is the best equipment. I think Casey Niestat talks about that a lot.

David:

Yes. Usually you have.

Muhammed:

Exactly. He has access to every camera that he wants. He gets free cameras in the mail all the time. The best stuff cost thousands of dollars, but a lot of times, he'll use something that just costs a few hundred dollars, or he did a marathon recently in New York, because he just moved back there, and he crowdfunded the vlog that he made. So he asked everyone to tag him in the videos that they took, and he made a vlog out of-

David:

Cool.

Muhammed:

Renovated and it was all kinds of cameras, all kinds of cheap phones, expensive phones, just using the, sorry. The equipment that you have is an amazing place to start. Phones nowadays, especially, they're really powerful. They have amazing sensors. There's a lot of R&D and processing that goes on behind the scenes that a professional camera doesn't do.

David:

Right.

Muhammed:

Right. A professional camera, its job is to take, without any bias, it just takes the picture without doing any auto settings, and then the photographer would go in and make the adjustment he wants.

David:

Correct. Right.

Muhammed:

Right. So the camera already has auto HDR, auto optimization.

David:

Exactly.

Muhammed:

They know the average person isn't a pro, so they're going to do the best job for them, basically. And that's the simplest route to do it.

David:

Yeah. Okay. So does it matter what kind of phone, how many megapixels, iPhone, Android, I don't even know if I want to get started on that war right now, but does that matter?

Muhammed:

Not as much as you think. So the megapixels start coming into play whenever you start blowing up a photo. If you're going to print it, you're going to put it on a big billboard or, then, that's when you want even more megapixels. And it also really matters if you're doing landscape photography. Let's say you're on a mountain and you're taking a beautiful view, you're going to want more megapixels because there's a lot of detail there.

David:

Right.

Muhammed:

But one downside that, in general, as a rule of thumb more megapixels has, is that you're trying to fit those megapixels on a smaller sensor. So you have the same sensor but more megapixels, and the smaller the megapixel is, the less light it can capture because it's just smaller area.

David:

Yep. Now we're getting into advanced photography, now.

Muhammed:

Yeah, right.

David:

And now, the camera that we're using, now, 12 megapixels, but it's great for video. Amazing. So I know exactly what you're talking about.

So do you recommend people doing it themselves, taking their own photos of their units with their phone, or hiring a professional for a thousand dollars with a super professional camera?

Muhammed:

That's a great question. It really depends. So if you have the budget, or let's say it's a very valuable property that, maybe it's $1 million dollar home, $10 million home, you definitely want to hire a professional.

David:

Yep.

Muhammed:

But for something smaller, let's say it's a studio or even a three bedroom, a lot of times you can get away with just doing it yourself.

David:

Yep.

Muhammed:

There's a lot of easy tips that you can follow in order to get a nice looking photo. And they don't have to look the way that you said some of the photos that you've seen online where-

David:

Right. Well, talking about the photos that I've seen online, what's the biggest problem you see when people try taking their own pictures? What do they mess up?

Muhammed:

So I think a lot of times where they mess up is just not showing enough of the space. So the angle wouldn't be wide enough.

David:

Right.

Muhammed:

So let's say you have this space, for example, they might shoot two of the walls, but they're not getting enough of the space on the side. So when I'm looking at it as a prospective tenant, I'm left feeling frustrated because I'm like, okay, what else is in this room? I'm not getting enough information. Is it worth going and checking out this property? I might, then, go for another property that has better photos or wider photos where I can actually see the space.

David:

Right, okay. And it's funny you mentioned them because you were just looking for a department yourself. So I feel like some people do it on purpose where they don't show all the pictures, maybe the master bedroom is cut off, so you have to come in and see what the kitchen looks like.

Muhammed:

Yeah.

David:

Is there a fine line there? Do you lean more towards give as many pictures as possible, or hide some? What do you recommend?

Muhammed:

Yeah, I'm definitely on that side where I say give as many photos as possible.

David:

Okay.

Muhammed:

I guess every customer is different, but the way that I see it is if I go to check out a property that maybe they didn't have that many photos, I didn't know what I was walking into, and then I go there and find out, okay, it has this and I don't like this, I don't like the layout here, or the bathroom's not big enough or what I'm looking for.

David:

Right.

Muhammed:

I'm going to be disappointed, and that could sour the entire experience for me. Maybe I won't want to come back.

David:

Right. Okay. That makes sense. And isn't there some data, I think that we saw online, recently, about how professional photos helped, was it Airbnb, rent more units out? What was that story?

Muhammed:

Yeah, exactly. It was a really cool study done, I believe a few years ago, and they took two of the exact same units that are next to each other and they're going for the same price on Airbnb, and everything is pretty much identical except one had really crappy photos and one had photos that are really professionally done. And they got, I think it was something like 40 or 50% more bookings just based on the photos.

David:

Wow. Yeah, I think that articles in-

Air DNA.

Airdna.com has that blog post up, right? Like you read the same stuff. Yeah, we read in the same articles. So, it's funny because do you feel like at least for the millennial, gen Z generation, younger generation, 18 to 35, let's just say, that they're expecting, almost, today, high quality professional content, and if they don't see it, they get turned off by it?

Muhammed:

A hundred percent, yeah. Because if you think about it, they're exposed to high quality content every day of their lives at all times, pretty much. So in, maybe, previous generations, you'd expect that higher quality from a TV show or a commercial ad or something like that, a magazine.

David:

Right.

Muhammed:

But nowadays, what's your excuse not to take great photos? Because everyone has pretty much an amazing camera right in their pocket.

David:

Yep.

Muhammed:

So you're going on social media, you're watching blogs, you're watching your favorite stars, and they're all taking great photos. So you're seeing that all day. Your mind is set towards that, the bar is set high, and then you see photos that maybe look dirty or dark or don't have enough information, they're not done well. That can be a big disconnect.

David:

Right. Okay, so let's get into the actual shooting, now, shooting tips. So does the phone you're using need to have a wide angle motor mix? I know my phone has was a wide angle, 1X, 2X, 3X, telephoto, I could shoot the moon if I want. But I'm assuming wide angle's the most important here. Is that right, and does it matter if you have a wide angle mode on your phone?

Muhammed:

Definitely. I think the wide angle is really important. And if you have it, you should definitely use it. There is one caveat, though. I think what, maybe, people don't realize is that the wide camera, a lot of times, won't have as good quality as the normal lens.

David:

It's a different lens, sometimes, on the camera.

Muhammed:

It's a different lens, yeah.

David:

Okay.

Muhammed:

And the problem is that sometimes the wider lens is not as good as capturing light. So if you're in a dark house and you open the windows and try to get as much light in as you can, but it's still not bright enough, then you'd want to use the normal lens. But like we talked about before, it's not wide enough. So what do you do?

David:

Right.

Muhammed:

So what you do is this trick that I've been using, is that you take a panorama, but not a really wide panorama because a panorama is, essentially, you go into panorama mode and then you start it, and you start moving from one side to the other, and it's stitching images together. Now the longer you go, the weirder it's going to look. It's start warping.

David:

Yeah, distorted, right.

Muhammed:

Yeah. And if you take a really long panorama, then it's not really going to give you an idea of the space and it'll just look strange. So I would say if you want to get a wider shot, do a very short panorama where you get the same effect of a wide lens.

David:

Okay. Got it. Understood. And you mentioned opening the blinds and stuff. So is that something that you always recommend giving, getting as much light as possible in, do you open all the blinds, do you shoot only during the daytime, do you turn all the lights on? What's your method?

Muhammed:

Exactly, yeah. So you only want to shoot during the day. And depending on what the location of the apartment is, which side it's facing, you're going to know best when you get the best light for each unit that you have. So you want to shoot at that time of day.

David:

Yep.

Muhammed:

So that's number one. Number two is that, let's say if you get to a shoot or you get to the apartment that you want to take pictures of, and it happens that all of a sudden it's cloudy and it starts raining, just cancel the shoot.

David:

Really? That bad.

Muhammed:

Yeah.

David:

Even for indoor?

Muhammed:

Yeah, even for indoor.

David:

Wow, okay.

Muhammed:

Because you want it to look warm and inviting. You want that magic feeling of sun rays coming in through the windows. And more than that, when you're shooting with the phone, especially, if you're not using professional lights like we are here, then you want as much light as possible. Because if you're in a room that's not well lit, it's going to look grainy and dingy.

David:

Are you timing the time of day? Are you only shooting 5:00 PM golden an hour or just any time when the sun is up?

Muhammed:

Yeah, I would say any time when the sun is out. If you want to be really picky with it, then you could find that right time where the sun is actually coming through the windows.

David:

Okay.

Muhammed:

Which would be even better.

David:

Fair enough.

Muhammed:

At least as a bare minimum, make sure it's a bright day.

David:

And are you using, I'm assuming that people don't need to use a tripod, they could just hand hold their phone. That's more than enough.

Muhammed:

Yeah, exactly. A lot of times the reason that photographers will use a tripod, they want to take a long exposure. So long exposure is, instead of taking the picture in one second, it'll take in two seconds or three seconds. So it'll open the shutter, let all the light in, and then close it after a couple seconds.

David:

Got it. Okay.

Muhammed:

If you're not handheld, or if you're not using a tripod, you're going to have little tiny shakes that are going to make the image look really bad.

David:

Got it. And then before, you were saying wide angle, ideally, if not, panorama. So is there ever a line that you need to be careful of crossing where you're making it look too big, and too wide, and it's so obvious that it's so wide, that even the room looks bigger. Where do you draw that line between reality and not reality?

Muhammed:

Yeah, that's a good point. Basically you don't want to lie and make it look a lot bigger than it is.

David:

Right.

Muhammed:

A little bigger is fine. You don't want it to look too small. I would say lean on the side of making it look a little bit bigger, but not going exaggerated with it.

David:

Okay.

Muhammed:

Because then that's another disconnect that they're going to get there to the property and be-

David:

Disappointed.

Muhammed:

This is not what I saw online.

David:

And then, historically, whenever I looked at photos online, I noticed they're all just seem so, at least the professional ones, they seem always so bright. And in photography terms, it's overexposed.

Muhammed:

Yeah.

David:

So with a camera, it's easy to do that. With a phone, you can tap, at least on an iPhone, and then increase the brightness while shooting. Do you recommend slightly overexposing when shooting, or do you normally handle that when you're editing the photos?

Muhammed:

Okay, interesting question. So if you're taking picture on a phone, and you're probably using a JPEG format, which is the standard format for any image online or any on any app.

David:

Okay.

Muhammed:

That's a regular image JPEG, I think we've all heard of it. So JPEGs are better when they're a little underexposed. So if you're taking a raw image, which essentially, one step higher, you have more room when you're editing to bring anything that's too bright, you can bring it down a little bit more and make it look well exposed. And a JPEG, you can't really do that.

David:

Okay.

Muhammed:

So it's better not to overexpose anything or make anything in the room or in the scene too bright.

David:

Okay.

Muhammed:

Because you won't be able to bring it back later.

David:

Okay. So pretty much what I'm hearing is let the camera do its thing, it will auto adjust. But I was taking pictures, recently, of a living room, and I noticed the windows were super bright, so the camera was exposing for the bright windows and reducing the overall brightness of the living room. And the living room, all of a sudden, got very dark, so I had to manually, forcefully increase that exposure.

Yeah. So I'm assuming that's fine, but the windows are blown out, nothing you can do there.

Muhammed:

And a lot of times, yes. There is one trick that you could try, which is the HDR feature.

David:

Okay.

Muhammed:

So HDR just means high dynamic range. And dynamic range is like what's the brightest part of the image? What's the darkest part of the image? So a lot of cameras, they'll have different dynamic ranges that they can capture. We can capture this much brightness, this much darkness, at the same time. But the thing is, there's a limit to how much it can do in one scene. So in HDR, it'll take a darker image, and a medium exposure image, and then a brighter image, and it'll merge them all together to get all the brightness and darkness that it can at the same time.

David:

Got it. So you basically want to check your phone settings to make sure you have HDR, and if you do, turn it on.

Muhammed:

Yeah. And a lot of the newer smartphones, they'll do it automatically.

David:

Okay.

Muhammed:

Without even realizing, you can't even control it. But always check your phone just to make sure that you can do that. But there is a limit, though, so it won't be perfect, but it'll definitely be better than not using HDR.

David:

Got it. So I know on my iPhone, I have I think three modes. I have JPEG, raw and high efficiency. I think it's like HEIC , think it's called, or HEIF, one of those different ones. So do you recommend just JPEG if you're starting out, but if you want to go really pro, go raw?

Muhammed:

Well, it all depends on how much editing you want to do.

David:

Okay.

Muhammed:

If you really don't have time for it or you don't want to learn how to do any editing, then just use the JPEG. But whenever you're using raw or when you are using the semi-raw HEIC format, then you won't be able to upload that right away to whatever you're using.

Or ot the listing website, you have to convert it to a JPEG because they don't accept that. But you would have some more range to bring down the highlights a little bit more, play with the colors a little bit more. It's definitely a good option for those who are willing to learn to edit on a basic level.

David:

Okay. Got it. And you mentioned uploading the files online. So I know that whenever I take a picture of my phone, let's say it's very high quality, but then I send it on WhatsApp or iMessage, it compresses it and it loses a lot of quality. So when you're uploading online, do you recommend somehow sending those images to your computer first and then uploading from the computer?

Muhammed:

That won't really make a difference. So if you're going to upload it directly from your phone onto the listing website, it'll be the same as that computer.

David:

Okay.

Muhammed:

But that's a really good point, I'm glad you brought that up because I didn't think about it. But when you have those photos, you shouldn't send them through anything that's going to compress it first. So if you send them to someone on WhatsApp, it's going to compress it, it's going to lose quality, and they're going to download that WhatsApp image, because WhatsApp's trying to save space because it's free. So it's going to take that image and then upload it, it won't look as good. So if you have to send it to someone, you could use something like WeTransfer, Google Drive, Dropbox, where it'll actually save the file as it is without changing it.

David:

Got it. So if you're taking pictures of your own unit, but you have a realtor, don't text them the pictures. That's the message.

Muhammed:

No. Exactly.

David:

Okay. Send it in Gmail, Google Drive, Dropbox, any other method. Okay.

Muhammed:

Yeah.

David:

That makes sense. And before you actually take any photos, are you preparing the space, cleaning it, setting it up in any way, shape or form?

Muhammed:

A hundred percent, yeah. Especially if there's furniture in there, obviously you want to make it look nice, fluff the pillows, do all that stuff, get the trash cans out of the shot and just make it look clean. But let's say if there's no furniture in there, then you still want to do some preparation. So a lot of times, you mentioned that I was looking for an apartment recently, and I came across that a lot. So there'd be a stray wire that's just coming out of the wall, and maybe that's a necessary wire, could be for anything. So no one's going to be mad that it's there, it's not a problem, but it doesn't look good in the photo, it dirties it up, so you want to hide it behind the door or just try to find a way to get it out of the shot as much as possible.

And then, besides that, obviously, make sure it's clean. Everyone who works in real estate knows that they have to clean the apartment, clean the space. That one's pretty obvious. But you don't have any cleaning materials out there in the shot, as well. So we still have a broom for when you last cleaned or some bleach or whatever it is, you should move that.

David:

Okay. And how about something like family photos? Do you move those off the walls or off shelves, or do you make it look more homey and inviting? What's the balance there?

Muhammed:

Yeah, I definitely wouldn't include any photos of anyone there because you want them to project themselves in this house. You don't want them to be thinking about someone else that it belongs to someone else at all.

David:

So it seems a very similar device if you're going to show the unit or have an open house, just how you set it up for that.

Muhammed:

Exactly, yeah. So you wouldn't leave things dirty if someone was coming to visit, right?

David:

Okay. Now when you're taking pictures on your phone, are you shooting in portrait mode, vertical or horizontal?

Muhammed:

Yeah, I always shoot horizontally. So put the phone sideways just to capture as much as I can when I'm shooting.

David:

Okay.

Muhammed:

Because you don't really need this, you need this.

David:

Right.

And for those that are not watching.

Muhammed:

Oh, yeah. Oops, my bad.

David:

He's showing horizontal way.

Muhammed:

You want more information on the side.

David:

Right.

Muhammed:

Basically.

David:

Well, generally when you look at pictures on Zillow, which is where most people are probably posting and/or Craigslist, Airbnb, wherever, they, it's all horizontal photos, from what I've seen.

Muhammed:

Yeah.

David:

Yeah. Okay. And you mentioned that there might be a wire hanging out of a wall, something doesn't look good, a blemish on the wall, maybe a hole in the wall, who knows what you have. Is it okay or is it illegal to edit that out and clone it out of the photo?

Muhammed:

Definitely don't want to do that.

David:

Okay.

Muhammed:

So hiding a wire is fine because that's part of the house, it must have a purpose there, but hiding any blemishes or holes in the wall or scratches, stuff like you said, you definitely don't want to Photoshop it out.

David:

Okay.

Muhammed:

So when you're editing, this is more of an enhancing the image that you already have, not changing it.

David:

Got it.

Muhammed:

Because that, it's false advertising, you don't want to do that.

David:

Got it. So just put a picture frame over the big hole in the wall.

Muhammed:

Yeah.

David:

Put this there. Hide it another way. And we mentioned, also, over editing. So what other edits are you typically doing and what edits are probably, generally, a no-no? Is color, saturation, sharpness. Is there anything that you can't cross the line on?

Muhammed:

Yeah, most of the time for real estate, if you look at most houses without any furniture in it, they're pretty neutral, they're pretty monotone, there's nothing crazy going on. So when you're editing, you might think, oh, let me increase saturation, make it pop more. It looks cool. Wow, all the colors are coming live.

David:

Yeah.

Muhammed:

But you don't want to do that.

David:

Yeah.

Muhammed:

Actually, you want it to be a little more neutral, that's usually how real estate photography is done.

David:

Yep.

Muhammed:

What you can mess around with, for sure, is brightening up the image if it's a little bit dark, because we talked earlier about not shooting too bright, because you don't want to accidentally lose any information that you can't get back.

David:

Right.

Muhammed:

But when you're editing, you can totally increase the brightness. And another thing is the color balance. So a lot of times they'll be maybe warmer lights or cooler lights in the house, and it can make the walls that are supposed to be white look too warm or look too cool. So you want to-

David:

Warm or cool, you mean warm, you mean more yellow, and cool, you mean more blue?

Muhammed:

Exactly.

David:

Okay.

Muhammed:

Yeah.

David:

Got it. And this is all done through the phone. You just take the picture, open your regular phone app?

Muhammed:

Oh, yeah.

David:

Photos app, I mean, and then just click end and just start messing with it. No other apps are needed?

Muhammed:

A hundred percent. Just use the native app that you already have on your phone from your photo app.

David:

Is there any other apps you recommend, free or paid, that do an even better job?

Muhammed:

Yeah, Lightroom is a really good one that you can get on your phone, which will give you a lot more powerful tools, if that's something that you want to do. You'll be able to control things a lot better. But if you're just starting out and you don't want to spend the extra money or learn a new software, then it's really not necessary. You can just do it from your phone.

David:

Okay. Yeah, I think I had a Camera+ or plus plus on my phone at one time.

Muhammed:

Yeah.

David:

But I ended up just sticking with the photos app because it's just easy. It's already there.

Muhammed:

Yeah, I tried a lot of those, too.

David:

Yeah. So before you actually take the photo, are you thinking about framing, composition, are you trying to tell a story? What's your thought process there?

Muhammed:

Yeah, a hundred percent. I would say the way that you want to structure the photos, whenever you're listing them online, would be, the first thing would be to have the nicest photo or what they call the magnet photo. So that'll be like the thumbnail for a YouTube video that gets people excited to click on that, to click on the listing. So you have the nicest photo, maybe it's actually the exterior, or one of the bedrooms, or the view that you have. So you start with that and then you want to start going in order of, for example, how you would do a house tour. So you wouldn't start from the first photo in the kitchen or in the bedroom. You start from the hallway front door.

David:

As you walk in the house.

Muhammed:

Yeah. So sorry, first the exterior, front door, the walkway or the hallway entrance, and then whatever comes up next, naturally. There might be a guest bathroom, living room, and you just take it from there.

David:

Got it.

Muhammed:

Follow the tour method.

David:

Got it. Okay. So definitely taking exterior shots. How about daytime and nighttime? I have seen some people, at least with homes, not as much apartments, they'll take daytime and nighttime photos, especially if there's nice lighting at night. Do people do that still?

Muhammed:

They do. It really depends on if you think this is going to add some value to the property. So in journal, will always take the daytime photos, but if you have a nice pool in the back or some kind of feature, or the house looks really good at night with the lights on from the outside or from the inside, then you can do that as a extra thing.

David:

Okay.

Muhammed:

But always prioritize the daytime photo.

David:

Okay. And how about amenities? If you're in a building or even a neighborhood and there's a park, a tennis court, whatever there is, are you also taking pictures of that and showing that off?

Muhammed:

One hundred percent, yes. So especially in Miami, a lot of times you'll have, let's say, a laundry room that people need to use out. If it doesn't look particularly nice, maybe you can avoid that. But definitely other benefits, like a pool, a gym, you definitely want to show that off. And you can even spend a few photos in your series just adding them up there. So if it's a particularly wide gym, maybe have a yoga room and a weights room and this and that, you can add all those because that could appeal to your audience, definitely, and be another reason that they want to come in.

David:

Got it. Yeah, and I have seen a lot of listings that just take the existing amenity photos off the buildings website and they'll just use those. They don't need to take their own pictures, most of the time. That's also fine.

Muhammed:

Oh yeah. As long as you get permission, there's nothing wrong with that.

David:

So I know that we have this, I think I've seen a checklist that you made one time, maybe for a webinar, a photo editing checklist.

Muhammed:

Yeah.

David:

Where can people find that? I'm sure we'll probably throw it into the podcast description. Is it anywhere else? Maybe on our webinar page?

Muhammed:

Somewhere, yeah.

David:

Well, we'll put it in the podcast description. So Mo has a really nice checklist.

Muhammed:

Yeah, I remember we sent that out. But on the webinar page, for sure, you can find it there.

David:

Okay, so we're going to switch topics a little bit into video.

Muhammed:

All right.

David:

Well, before we get into video for a few minutes, is there anything else that you think we should cover, photo related?

Muhammed:

Yeah, so what I would say is that just take your time whenever you're doing the photos. Really think about it, don't just rush in and say, okay, I need to get this room, this room, this room, and then you're done. Really think about it because this is your marketing, essentially. This what's going to get people in the door.

David:

Yep.

Muhammed:

So it's your way of standing out against other comparable units in the area. If someone's looking for an apartment or a house or whatever it is, then they've already put in all their filters. So the area they want to be in, the square footage they want, the number of bedrooms, the bathrooms, so that's all done. You can't change any of those things. You can't add an extra bathroom just out of thin air.

David:

Right.

Muhammed:

But what we can do is market it the best way possible so they'll be excited to go and see your apartment first.

David:

Right.

Muhammed:

Or your unit first, sorry. And then once they see yours first, they're going to have that in their minds. Then any other unit that they look at, they're going to be comparing it to yours. Right?

David:

Right.

Muhammed:

So you're in their mind for a lot of the times in a day and age where attention spans are very limited, that's a very powerful thing.

David:

And when you're taking the picture, every picture, are you standing at eye level? Are you bending down to the floor, looking up? Are you up, down, or is it just really just eye level?

Muhammed:

I usually go with eye level, usually looking down a little bit, because for most people that's how they're going to come in and see it in person. And especially if you have a bathroom, you don't want to go too low because you want to see what the sink looks like and what the inside of the tub looks like, or the shower, you want to see the counter space that you're working with in the kitchen.

So I would say eye level almost all the time.

David:

Okay.

Muhammed:

99% of the time.

David:

And switching topics a little bit, for a few minutes, then we'll wrap up is video. So a video is a big thing today. After you take all the pictures, do you recommend also taking a video or is it one of those cases where only if it's a very expensive listing, what's the scenario there?

Muhammed:

Yeah, a video can be very powerful. Right now, videos are exploding. Look at TikTok, even YouTube with their shorts, Instagram, everyone's doing video. So videos a very powerful tool that you can have at your disposal. Now, what some people would do, just to save them a little bit of effort, is they'll make a slideshow out of the pictures that they have in order, and you can do that on your phone. There are different apps that you can use, but that's very easy to do. Choose a music track, just do the slideshow. iMovie works a hundred percent. That's the easy way to do it.

But if you want to add a little more value, then you could actually take phone videos in the same way that you would take the photos.

David:

Okay. And I know that the phones today have such good stabilization, you don't need any gimbal or anything fancy, just pretty much, are you just walking through the house in one straight shot or are you doing some cinematic pans and tilts over here?

Muhammed:

That can be a bit tricky. Actually walking through the entire apartment, I've done that a few times. I did that in a mansion once. It was a beautiful place right on a golf course. Incredible. I can't even remember how many bedrooms it had and it was just an amazing, amazing place. But the client actually wanted me to do the entire walkthrough. So I started from the outside, from the garage, go inside, and I had someone behind the door that opened the front door for me. And that took quite a while, and it takes a lot of planning because you don't want to miss anything on the way.

So a much easier way is just to go to each room, and the same way that you would take the photo, you just take the video. So you pan from left to right, just to show the entire space and you can use your normal lens. You won't need it panorama in that case.

David:

Got it. So it sounds like you have two options. You could do a full walkthrough, which is probably the easiest. There's no editing involved, just one shot, goodbye.

Muhammed:

Yeah.

David:

But if you want to make it more cinematic and make it look more professional, I know at least on my phone, the iPhone, I have a cinematic mode, it makes it even look better and it can blur backgrounds.

Muhammed:

Oh yeah. So you could take 20 or 30 different clips and then stitch them together afterwards in an iMovie program. A hundred percent. Yeah.

David:

Okay. So cool. That was it for video. Any other quick video tips?

Muhammed:

Quick video tips? I would say that whenever you're taking a video, one problem that I ran into when I was first starting out is that I almost treated it like a photo. So I would go into one room and then quickly go to the next one. I'm like, okay, I got that, I got that. And then I go to back to watch it, and it all happens so fast, there's no time to take anything in.

David:

Right.

Muhammed:

So you really want to slow yourself down. Because your mind works really fast, but the footage is only so fast, right?

David:

Right.

Muhammed:

So take your time with each shot that you're taking. If you need to count to three, okay, I got this. Go to the next part. Count to three.

David:

Got it. Okay. And if anyone listening wants to purchase a professional camera and go down that route and take a little bit more professional pictures, what do you recommend price-wise and brand-wise?

Muhammed:

All right. So I think you can't go wrong with Sony or with Cannon.

David:

I was hoping you'd say Sony. Yeah. We have a debate here. How about Fuji?

Muhammed:

Ell, the reason that I say those is because with Sony and Canon, you'll get a full frame sensor, and full frame sensors are amazing for real estate.

David:

Okay.

Muhammed:

Because when the sensor is bigger, then you can use the same lens as you would on a camera with a smaller sensor, but you're getting much more in the shot because you have a bigger frame to work with.

David:

Yep.

Muhammed:

So it's really good for that. They're also much better for capturing lights, so you won't need as much light whenever you're taking the video or the photo.

David:

Got it.

Muhammed:

And normally, they are more expensive. So you can go on different websites where you can buy refurbished versions of the camera, I think.

David:

Yeah. Adorama, B&H.

Muhammed:

Exactly. Yeah. So I think a few models that you could check out would be the Canon 60, that's a pretty good one. There's the Sony A72, A73, A74, A7R, there's so many.

David:

So many, yeah.

Muhammed:

The newer ones are going to be more expensive, but you can find some really good refurbished ones that work perfectly fine for, let's say, around $1,000.

David:

Yeah, for sure. Maybe with the lens.

Muhammed:

If you're lucky.

David:

I purchased a lot of stuff, personally, from eBay, I've had great results, or even local offer up or Craigslist. But to me, the camera isn't everything. You can get the best camera in the world, but if you don't know how to use it, it's going to look like a point and shoot Polaroid.

Muhammed:

A hundred percent. It goes back to what we were talking about earlier, that it's all in your hands when you're using a professional camera. So you really need to learn exactly how it works, what the features are and everything. Each camera's very different, so it takes a lot of practice. But yeah, it is worth it for the results.

David:

And I will probably say, in my experience, using a $1,000 camera body versus a 4,000 for this, in real estate, is not that big of a difference. You probably don't need to go with the 4,000 for this. But Fuji does also make full frame cameras?

Muhammed:

No, they don't. They make something called Medium Format, which is a crazy huge sensor.

David:

Okay,

Muhammed:

And they make smaller sensors, as well.

David:

Is that better or that's too expensive?

Muhammed:

Well, it's slower, much more expensive.

David:

Okay.

Muhammed:

It's just that's more for, you could say, a landscape or really, really high end fashion shoots.

David:

Got it. So if people want to learn more, especially in the professional higher end side of cameras and stuff, and they want to pick your brain, where can they contact you?

Muhammed:

You can always reach out to me on LinkedIn, just Muhammad Abu Goche. You'll find me there.

David:

Awesome. Sounds great. Or contact us through Doorloop's website, I'm sure.

Muhammed:

Oh yeah.

David:

Or your email we'll put in the podcast comments. And I think that's it. Any final words of wisdom?

Muhammed:

Oh, final words of wisdom. It looks easy. Taking photos, taking videos, you're going to get frustrated in the beginning, but there's nothing wrong with that. For me, it's all second nature for me now, but I struggled with it a lot when I was first starting out. Got some terrible results, and looking back, I cringe at that, but it was a great learning experience.

And you just got to start. Don't get demotivated if it doesn't go well the first 1, 2, 3 times because you're going to get it there.

David:

Right. Awesome. Mo, thank you so much.

Muhammed:

All right. It's been fun for me.

David:

Thank you everyone for tuning in. We will be back on the next episode with many more tips, and if you have any questions, please just send them our way. Or if you have suggestions for future podcasts, go to doorloop.com/podcast and you can actually suggest or request future podcast episode. That's it for today. Thank you again, Mohammed Abu Goche.

Muhammed:

Thank you, David.

David:

Thanks for listening all the way to the end. Don't forget to give us a good rating on whatever platform you're tuning in from. And we'll be back soon with another new episode. We hope to see you there. And until next time, this has been in.

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