Marketing Your Rental Property In Edinburgh
Are you an Edinburgh landlord, struggling to generate viewings for your rental property? Whether you are marketing the property yourself or using a letting agent, it may be time to revaluate your marketing pictures to ensure they are showing the property at its best. We have compiled our 5 top tips for creating great marketing photographs, which can help to generate interest in the property, increasing the volume of viewings and minimising void periods.
The Edinburgh lettings market is currently buoyant, properties – particularly one and two bedroom flats – are being snapped up quickly by tenants (as was confirmed in the most recent CityLets quarterly report). However larger properties can take longer to let and, regardless of property size, it is always important that your property is seen by quality tenants.
The vast majority of tenants now search for their next rental property using only online channels such as property search engines (Rightmove, Zoopla, LettingWeb, CityLets) and letting agent websites, meaning that marketing pictures are more important than ever. Below are our top 5 tips to help your property stand out from the crowd and increase online click through rate (CTR) through enticing marketing photographs.
1. Create quality photographs
As you are relying on photographs to grab the attention of potential tenants, it is important that they are of a high quality. One of the best ways to ensure that your photographs are high quality is to use a professional spec camera with a wide angle lens and flashgun. Other factors to consider include:
- Lighting
Lighting is key to creating quality interior shots. Ensure that all curtains and blinds are open to maximise natural light and turn all of the electric lights on. Dark corners don’t present well in photographs so it is worth investing in some basic lighting equipment, or a good flash should help. Always avoid taking pictures at night.
- Weather
Although the weather in Edinburgh can be notoriously difficult to predict, bright days and blue skies are optimum for quality exterior and interior photographs, maximising natural light.
- Tripod
Use a tripod to produce clearer, sharper images.
2. Dress the property
It is important to always show the property at its best, which can be difficult if it is tenanted. It is worth asking tenants to tidy up before photographs are taken and having stock images of the property on file that can be used in the case of particularly messy tenants – take a look on any of the property search engines for pictures of unmade beds and piles of washing.
Potential tenants have to be able to imagine themselves living in the property when they see the photographs so it is best to minimise personal items such as ornaments, pictures and posters. This will help your photographs to appeal to a larger group of tenants. Similarly, if the property is vacant it can be a good idea to add items such as bedding to create the feeling of a home.
3. Positioning
One common lettings photography strategy used to be to photograph a room from a corner, taken as high as possible to maximise the floor in the shot to make the room appear larger. Tenants are aware of this tactic and would most likely rather see a true representation of the property that they are considering letting. To avoid this, our advice would be to try to get an equal amount of floor and ceiling in each shot.
4. Select the best images
Depending upon the size of your property, you should choose 1-2 quality shots for each room showing it from different angles. The aim is to give the prospective tenant an idea of what the whole room looks like.
Once you have selected the best images they should be arranged to showcase the property in a logical order, grouping photographs for each room together. Letting agents tend to start with an exterior shot followed by kitchen, reception rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms and garden. However, although the exterior image is the one most commonly used in property search portals, you should always play to your strengths – if your property has a spectacular kitchen or reception room then lead with this.
5. If in doubt, use a professional
As mentioned above, having enticing property marketing photographs is crucial to increasing interest and generating viewings for your lettings property. If you are unable to capture your property at its best, then using a professional photographer would be a good idea. Although this has an initial financial outlay it will provide a stock library of high quality images that can be used each time you let the property.