You may be thinking, “why shouldn’t I take my listing photos with my phone?” It’s convenient and it takes great personal photos.

Here’s why not to use your cell phone for your listings:

1. It’s extremely limiting – We’ve seen some amazing photos that were shot with an iPhone, but that doesn’t mean that they have the capability to shoot great interior shots. They don’t. For that, nothing beats a digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR) with interchangeable lenses. You’ll need to have wide-angle capabilities that a phone just doesn’t have for taking critical wide-angle shots of interior spaces. With a wide-angle lens you can get a shot of a wider space instead of taking a photo that is limited to capturing the sofa, an end table, and the corner of the fireplace.
2. You’ll need a tripod. To really get the detail and eliminate image shake, you’ll need to put your camera (not phone) on a tripod. We’ve seen tripods for the iPhone, but let’s face it, most agents who use a phone to take pictures of their listings are not using a tripod.
3. “iPhones are for drive-bys.” We heard an agent say that recently. They told us that they don’t even have to get out of their cars to take a picture of a property, they can just pull out their iPhone and slow down. Needless to say, the photos were horrible. A picture is worth 1000 words, so do your best to make sure people use 1000 nice words when they describe them.

But the main reason is: it shows. Buyers are becoming a lot savvier. Bad photos say bad things about you and about the property. When you use bad photos, customers looking for a home can tell the difference. Bad photos imply that you don’t care about that listing, that it’s not worth taking a nice photo of.. and they can easily pass it by. They also reflect on you as an agent. They say that you don’t really care, you don’t have pride in your business or selling the property.

Over 90% of buyers start or continue their search online. That means that photos are much more important when selling homes.

Good photos really do help sell homes. And here’s a convincing statistic: According to The Wall Street Journal, “listings with nicer photos gain anywhere between $934 and $116,076.” So, if you’re using bad photos, you’re leaving money on the table!