8 Camera Tips to Capture a Room's Size

Make sure every square foot counts when photographing interiors. Try these tips to expand the space.

By Melissa Dittmann Tracey | August 2010
Source: Realtormag.com

Buyers love spacious homes. They also love to look at online property photos. But it’s not always easy to squeeze square footage into a camera shot—and sometimes furniture arrangements or floor coverings actually do a disservice to the way your listing is presented online or in marketing photos, says Debra Gould, president of home staging company Six Elements Inc. in Toronto and creator of the Staging Diva training program.

She offers these tips for making sure that every room of your listing looks as large in photos as it does in real life.

1. Remove area rugs. Rugs break up the expanse of the floor and can make rooms look smaller. Keep the floor as clear as possible.

2. Use a wide-angle camera. A camera with a wide-angle lens (28 millimeters or less on a DSLR, or the equivalent on a point-and-shoot) is best for interior shots because it magnifies the distance between objects and showcases a room’s depth, Gould says. But beware of fisheye lenses or ultra wide-angle lenses, which tend to make rooms look wider but can mislead buyers into thinking there’s more space than there is.


3. Get creative with furniture. Make sure that furniture doesn’t block views or walkways so you reveal as much of the floor as possible. If there’s too much furniture packed into a room or the furniture is too large, it can also work against you in photos.

In a crowded room, try removing a few pieces of furniture or swapping in a smaller piece. In a kitchen or dining room, it might look better if you remove that extra leaf from the table. Try using furniture to create new spaces in large rooms and really show off that square footage. For example, Gould added a reading corner in a master bedroom to show that more than just a bed could fit.

4. Fill up an empty space. Buyers have trouble imagining how their stuff will fit into an empty room; the space can seem smaller than it really is. If possible, bring in furniture for staging. "If the rooms are furnished, they look larger and much more inviting," Gould says.

5. Use mirrors to your advantage. A reflection in a mirror can reveal more of a room when you can’t squeeze everything into your photo. This can be a great technique particularly when photographing bathrooms. Use the reflection of the bathroom mirror to show the extras, such as that soaker tub. Just be sure to shoot photos at an angle so that you don’t capture your own reflection!

6. Lighten up. In photos, brighter rooms typically come across as more open and welcoming, whereas dark rooms can look small and dingy. Pay attention to the light sources in a room to get a better shot. Turn on all of the lights and open the curtains to let in natural light and expand the space. But don’t shoot directly into a light source; it’ll darken a room.

7. Shoot at an angle. The diagonal line is the longest visual line in a room. Try shooting from the corner; back up as far as you can before you shoot. But don’t limit yourself: Take shots from three or four different angles so that you have plenty of options, Gould recommends. Also, try getting low to the ground to show off the length of the room. Eye level doesn’t always work best to capture floor proportions.

8. Remove clutter. You’ve heard it before, but clutter makes a room look cramped and steals attention from a room’s intended focal points. Clear away paper stacks, crowded walls of artwork, cluttered countertops, magnets covering the refrigerator, and towels hanging from the stove.

Finally, do your best to ensure that any major changes you make to a room’s layout for the purpose of photos are kept in place for showings. "You’ll create a disconnect if the house looks great only in the online photos," Gould says. "If buyers feel let down, they’re not going to buy the house."

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10 States with Pricey Closing Costs

Info from Realtormag.com

Closing costs have risen an average of 36.6 percent compared to 2009, according to Bankrate.com’s annual survey.

The big increased was caused by the U.S. government requiring lenders to provide accurate good faith estimates of closing costs. Previously, lenders weren’t penalized for a bad estimate.

On average, the origination and third party fees on a $200,000 purchase mortgage added up to $3,741.

Here are the 10 highest states:

1. New York, $5,623
2. Texas, $4,708
3. Utah, $4,605
4. California-San Francisco, $4,566; California-Los Angeles, $4,406
5. Alaska, $4,327
6. Oklahoma, $4,254
7. Pennsylvania, $4,236
8. New Jersey, $4,110
9. Idaho, $4,077
10. Massachusetts, $4,025

Source: Bankrate.com (08/16/2010

Fannie Mae relaxes limit of 30 REO listings per broker

By Jon Prior
Source: Thisweek@KW.com

Fannie Mae has relaxed its limit of allocating no more than 30 REO listings per broker from any one Fannie Mae source, acknowledging the abilities of “higher-performing brokers.”

At the end of June, HomePath, the division of Fannie Mae that manages REO inventory owned by the government-sponsored enterprise (GSE), imposed a strict limit of 30 REO listings that a broker of record could have at any time with a single Fannie Mae source. The restrictions also limited listings to a 25-mile proximity. Fannie warned that “100% compliance” was expected.

This sparked a response from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and Keller Williams Realty, which in support of its brokers and real estate agents, asked for some leniency from Fannie Mae.

While NAR agreed with Fannie that it should not have an inflexible limit on the number of REO listings, the trade group urged Fannie to rely on documented success and professional performance of real estate brokers.

In a letter to Michael Williams, president and CEO of Fannie Mae, Mark Willis, the CEO of Keller Williams Realty, said REO listings require focused market attention “from experienced, results-oriented real estate professionals,” and that the real estate firm disagreed strongly with the limitation.

Willis wrote: “Recent conversations with real estate professionals who are immersed in the REO arena have confirmed our contention that these limitations will impede the objectives of both Fannie Mae and the real estate professionals who have invested heavily in people and systems to efficiently move REO properties. Clearly, the REO arena is an extremely specialized field, requiring dedicated professionals who possess distinct expertise and sufficient financial and organizational resources.”

He went on to address the concern that the limitations would drive talent away from the REO business, which is, by its nature, growing in volume but generating low margins.

Fannie replied July 9. In that announcement, Fannie stated as a general rule, it does not allocate more than 30 active REO listings from any one Fannie Mae source at one time, which has been a long-standing practice.

But Fannie went on to acknowledge some higher-performing brokers can handle more than 30 properties at a time and still exceed Fannie Mae’s standards. The company announced it would approve special exceptions to the limit and clarified that a broker can have 30 listings directly from Fannie and another 30 from outsourcers without Fannie Mae approval.

A spokesperson for Fannie Mae said it was the last action the company took on the matter.