Castle of the Month: Rochefoucauld
October 30, 2009
Our castle for October is Chateau de la Rochefoucauld, a well-known chateau in the Charente region of France. Perched on a rocky promontory over the River Tardoire, it was built in stages from the 11th to the 18th century and has been owned by the distinguished Rochefoucauld family throughout its entire history. Its phenomenal grand staircase (ceiling shown below), added about 1520, may (or may not) have been designed by Leonardo da Vinci, who was living in Amboise on the Loire and died in 1519. Its library is renowned. The chateau is a popular destination for visitors to the nearby Cognac region.
The market town that grew up around the castle is picturesque, with the river winding through and the Gothic collegiate church with its exquisite rose window, rare among all the 14th century Romanesque churches that dot the countryside.
Castle photos by Jerry White of The Staging Prince.
Sell Your Castle in Weeks not Months
On-Line Photos Sell Your House
October 18, 2009
Make sure your photos are helping, not hurting.
Nearly all buyers look for houses on the web, so your home has to show really well in on-line photos. If your home doesn’t show well in photos on the web, buyers will weed it out and never visit. This is a fact of life in a buyer’s market. And if buyers don’t visit, you’ve lost any chance of getting an offer from them. Here are two simple rules that will help you sell your house and may make the difference between its selling fast and near its listing price, and languishing, waiting for a price cut:
Rule #1: Since a professionally staged home looks better than one that hasn’t been professionally staged, don’t take photos of your house until it has been professionally staged. Makes sense, right?
Rule#2: Since you want a potential buyer to see how attractive your house is, don’t post photos on-line that aren’t of excellent photographic quality. Also makes sense. Let’s see what this means.
Take a look at the on-line photos of other homes for sale. How many are of really good quality? What problems do your see?
- Some photos are so dark that you can’t make out the features of the room. Dark photos don’t entice a buyer to visit.
- A buyer wants to see the whole room as well as the focal point (such as a fireplace) set in the room. A kitchen shot should show the cabinets, some appliances and the table in an eat-in kitchen. A bedroom should show not just the bed but light and space. To take these interior shots requires a camera with an ultra-wide-angle lens. The 28mm equivalent lens of a standard point & shoot camera won’t show what a buyer wants to see. There are several suitable compact digital cameras available with a 24mm equivalent lens, high-resolution and good low-light capabilities at reasonable prices.
- The photos of some homes are mostly exterior shots – with just one or two rooms shown. This doesn’t give buyers much information about those homes, and they’ll select other homes to visit instead. At least 10-12 interior shots are essential to give the buyer a good sense of what a home looks like inside.
- Too frequently the photos are arranged haphazardly: duplicates or even triplicates, and in no particular order. This carelessness virtually assures that a buyer will look elsewhere. You want a buyer to see the home as in a visit: first the front of the house, then the entry, living room, dining room, kitchen, family room, and the bedrooms – or at least the master bedroom and bath – and then the backyard.
- A virtual tour – whether a video or pan and zoom stills — can be very useful to show how spacious your home is. On the other hand, some viewers find that stitched 360-degree circular views of a room make them dizzy because the two side walls are closer to the camera (which is set up in the exact middle of the room) than the end walls, and the resulting distortion induces motion sickness. Not likely to attract a buyer.
Ignoring either of our two simple rules means that most buyers will weed out your house on the web and never visit it in person. Few buyers’ visits means a long wait for an offer. That also makes sense, right?
Clutter eats equity.
There is a saying among staging advisors: “Clutter eats equity.” Even when a photo is of good quality, if the room is cluttered, most on-line buyers will go on to the next house.
You can do two things right now to help sell your house:
1. Have your home professionally staged before you show it on-line.
2. Make sure that you or your agent knows how to take top-notch photos.
Or kill two birds with one stone: Ask your home stager to take photos after he or she stages your home.