In real estate, picture's worth a potential sale

It wasn't long ago that Julie Meier and her fellow real estate agents brought their digital cameras to a new listing to take snapshots that could instantly be transferred to the home's marketing materials.

But most agents weren't trained as photographers, so the shots didn't always show the property to its best advantage.

"Those days are so far gone now because we really rely on the pictures for our clients," said Meier, an agent with Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties' Previews division.

She recently hired freelance photographer David Moore to photograph Stephen and Susan Metter's four-bedroom Maunalani Heights home, which Meier listed Wednesday for $2.175 million.

"You've got that one chance to make your first impression," she said.

Since more than three-quarters of potential buyers turn to the Web first when they start house hunting, that first impression today is often made with the click of a mouse. A photograph can determine whether a potential buyer wants to see a home or not.

"When your photos are really good on the Web, it really attracts them in," said Patricia Choi, president and principal broker of Choi International of Honolulu.

While firms like Choi's that sell multimillion-dollar homes have been using photographers for years, more and more real estate agents are hiring the pros to make even an unremarkable home lure more potential buyers on the Web.

"It really isn't the price of the house or the price of the property," said Mary Worrall, principal broker of Mary Worrall Associates Sotheby's International Realty, which uses up to 20 photos online to market a Hawaii property worldwide. "It's that you get something that intrigues people."

The Internet is such an important medium in real estate marketing that high-quality photos are essential, said Patti Nakagawa, senior vice president with Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties.

Poor photos or no photos at all "really results in a missed opportunity for potential buyers," she said.

Real estate agents typically pay photographers out of their own pockets. Realtor Jo Frasier of Prudential Locations estimates that the cost of hiring a photographer can range from under $100 for basic shots to nearly $1,000 for multiple photos of a high-end property.

Prudential Locations has a photographer that most agents use, she said, but some agents will choose not to pay and still take their own photos.

"In some cases you know exactly who's done that because the quality of the pictures is so bad," Frasier said.

Skipping the photos altogether eliminates a lot of potential buyers, she said.

"These are very, very minor business expenses," Frasier said. "And they are a reflection on you as far as being a good agent and doing the best job for the client."

The trend toward using professional photography has been good business for several dozen freelance photographers around the state, providing them with steady work and income.

Moore, who has been a professional photographer for 25 years, got into real estate photography only about two years ago, after Nakagawa called him for an assignment.

Since then, he said he's shot everything from "really run-down houses to Kahala."

"I'm really enjoying the stability of doing real estate photography," Moore said. "It's a lot more work and it's more reliable."

During a busy week, Moore, whose minimum charge is $300, can be working every day, sometimes shooting two assignments per day.

He typically spends up to two hours on a job shooting 10 views of the home, then spends another two hours processing and editing the digital images, producing both high-resolution images for printing and Web-ready images for the Multiple Listing Service, delivering a CD to the agent by noon the next day.

"The thing is, with a professional, they bring the proper equipment and the know-how to capture the space in the best way possible," Moore said. "It's all about choosing the proper angle, and lighting it to bring out the best."

Moore said a professional knows how to mitigate the less-appealing aspects of any property.

"The main thing is just picking the right angle, and understanding lighting, and being able to use lighting to give the best look of the property," he said.

Augie Salbosa is a veteran commercial photographer who got into real estate photography after working with interior designers and architects, including the late Vladimir Ossipoff.

"Most of my business now is the Realtors, [who] are calling, asking for my services," he said. "So I'm keeping busy."

Salbosa is one of the top photographers of luxury properties listed by Choi International, Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties and Mary Worrall Associates Sotheby's International Realty.

His design and architecture background gives him an edge over other photographers in capturing the details, he said, and he works with the agents to showcase a home's best-selling features.

"It's not a one-way deal," he said. "I work with them very closely so that we can come to a decision that this is what they want."

Choi said the professional photographers she hires to showcase the properties she lists from Diamond Head to Kahala to Portlock comprise a substantial part of her marketing budget, which amounts to thousands of dollars each month.

She also keeps a photographer on staff, in addition to hiring freelance professionals like Salbosa. The firm pays, not the agents.

"The reason we do that is we like to control the quality of the photos," Choi said. "The presentation must always meet a certain standard."