Real estate listing photos: what to shoot, what to cut, and what goes first

Step 1: Get the house ready before the shoot

A photographer can't fix a room that isn't ready. Turn on every light and open every blind: bright rooms look cleaner and bigger. Clear the counters and the floors, put the toilet lids down, and put away the cords, the pet bowls, and the family photos. Move the cars out of the driveway. Hire a professional: they bring the lenses and the light, and they keep themselves out of the mirrors. If you have to use your phone, clean the lens, hold it horizontal, and shoot in daylight.

Step 2: Wait for every photo before you go live

A listing that goes live with only the outside of the house tells buyers the inside is bad. When the inside photos show up two days later, the buyers who scrolled past may never come back to look. Hold the go-live date until every photo is delivered and checked, and tell the seller why a day or two is worth it.

Step 3: Pick the first photo on purpose

The first photo is the one buyers see in the search results, and it decides whether they click. Use the strongest photo of the house. That's usually the front, but not always: if the front is plain and the kitchen or the backyard is the best part, lead with that. Never lead with a bathroom. Look at your pick small, on a phone, the way buyers scroll.

Step 4: Cut the repeats, and put the rest in walk-through order

More photos aren't better photos. Six shots of the same bathroom, or fifteen of the outside before the first room inside, make buyers work and make them wonder what you skipped. Keep the best angle of each room, one or two at most, and cut the rest. Then order them the way a buyer walks the house: the front, the living areas, the kitchen, the bedrooms, the bathrooms, and the outside spaces. Check your MLS for its photo limit and its rules on what a photo can show.

Step 5: Add a floor plan and a video walkthrough

A floor plan and a video walkthrough let buyers rule the house in or out before they book a showing. A buyer who needs a bigger bedroom or a home office can see right away whether the layout works. The seller leaves the house for fewer showings that go nowhere, and the buyers who do come already know the layout fits.

Step 6: Keep every photo and every word true

The NAR Code of Ethics asks REALTORS® to present a true picture in their advertising, and it names misleading images (Article 12, Standard of Practice 12-10). Light, color, and straightening are fine. An edit that changes the home, like virtual staging or an AI edit, needs a label and its original next to it, and the AB 723 guide below has the steps. The description should back up the photos. Leave out "motivated seller," which invites a lowball offer, and skip the all caps, the exclamation points, the emojis, and filler like "cozy." Say what the photos can't show: the updates and when they were made, and what's nearby.

Where Reddy fits

Make the listing video on the Reddy Content page or in chat, from the listing's own photos and your own clips, with your name and brokerage on the end card. Reddy never generates or edits a photo.

Ask Reddy in chat for a flyer or an ad for each moment, from coming soon to just sold, made from the listing's own photos.

Read next

• AI listing photos and AB 723: label every edited photo and keep its original next to it
• How to set up your listing launch