{"id":92736,"date":"2017-12-12T15:59:49","date_gmt":"2017-12-12T22:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=92736"},"modified":"2024-02-19T13:57:06","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T20:57:06","slug":"airbnb-photography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/airbnb-photography","title":{"rendered":"Airbnb Photography: a Godsend for the Gross Apartment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With <a href=\"https:\/\/www.airbnb.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Airbnb<\/a>&#8216;s growing popularity comes growing competition. Gone are the days when you could throw up an Airbnb listing with a few vague sentences and an iPhone photo that conjured\u00a0<em>struggling bachelor\u00a0<\/em>at best and invoked\u00a0<em>Silence of the Lambs\u2013<\/em>level creepiness at worst. Actually photos like that still exist, but now they:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Don&#8217;t get booked<\/li>\n<li>Get booked less than they should<\/li>\n<li>Get booked <em>for<\/em> <em>less<\/em> than they should.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>There&#8217;s good news for people with creeper apartments, though: Airbnb is here to help you present a less-embarrassing lifestyle.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TCjeUZTAXho\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Enter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.airbnb.com\/professional_photography\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Airbnb photographers<\/a>. This service is available for most places for free, and it&#8217;s a Godsend. (For the record, this is also true for nice apartments. Professional photographers just make your place look better and this is an important step when you&#8217;re competing against pages upon pages of listings.)<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Related:<\/strong> <a href=\"\/renewsblog\/2015\/06\/08\/upsides-downsides-airbnb-landlords-perspective\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Upsides &amp; Downsides of Airbnb: A Landlord&#8217;s Perspective<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Why You Want One<\/h2>\n<p>First, the photographers know how to arrange your furniture in a way that&#8217;s most appealing to the eye. They also know nuanced photography tricks that the average person just doesn&#8217;t, like shoot from the hip and not somewhere else (like your chest or your face or wherever you normally hold a camera.) Second, they have amaaaaazing filters. Models-in-magazines-level filters that lighten and brighten your place until your garden-level bachelor pad looks like the SoHo pad of a rich kid. Here&#8217;s proof:<\/p>\n<h2>BEFORE<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-92737 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-04-at-8.36.16-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"412\" height=\"271\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-04-at-8.36.16-PM.png 412w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-04-at-8.36.16-PM-300x197.png 300w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-04-at-8.36.16-PM-214x140.png 214w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 412px) 100vw, 412px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-92741 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-04-at-9.10.57-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"409\" height=\"271\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-04-at-9.10.57-PM.png 409w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-04-at-9.10.57-PM-300x199.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 409px) 100vw, 409px\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>AFTER<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-92738 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-04-at-8.36.21-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"417\" height=\"268\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-04-at-8.36.21-PM.png 417w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-04-at-8.36.21-PM-300x193.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 417px) 100vw, 417px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-92742 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-04-at-9.11.02-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"405\" height=\"267\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-04-at-9.11.02-PM.png 405w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-04-at-9.11.02-PM-300x198.png 300w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-04-at-9.11.02-PM-214x140.png 214w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 405px) 100vw, 405px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Related:<\/strong> <a href=\"\/renewsblog\/2013\/11\/18\/vacation-rental-owners-mistakes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">13 Mistakes New Vacation Rental Owners Always Make<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Some people wonder if this is ethical or is somehow a misrepresentation of what they own. I can&#8217;t answer that, but I can say, that&#8217;s our place\/was our place (let&#8217;s be honest,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/users\/jec83b\" target=\"_blank\">James&#8217;<\/a> place) and, in my opinion, it looked closer to the first photo than the second, and we never had a single complaint about it. No one ever said to us that the photos were misleading. We had outstanding reviews on the place. It&#8217;s not that I don&#8217;t think people noticed the discrepancy, but I think we got them to consider us based on the photo, and then won them over with customer service.<\/p>\n<p>The best thing about the Airbnb photography is that it&#8217;s free and available for most listings. Simply Google &#8220;free Airbnb photography&#8221; and a host of options will come up. If your place doesn&#8217;t qualify for photography, it&#8217;s still worth shelling out the $100-$150 to get your place professionally photographed. Trust me when I say it&#8217;ll be worth it.<\/p>\n<p><em>[Edit: Airbnb no longer officially offers free photography, and availability depends on your area\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.airbnb.com\/help\/article\/297\/does-airbnb-provide-professional-photography-services\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">per this update on their site<\/a>. We still advise that hosts upgrade their photos, whether for a cost or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.airbnb.com\/help\/article\/746\/how-can-i-take-great-photos-of-my-listing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">by informing yourself on basic photography strategies<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/real-estate-investment-calculator?utm_source=renewsblog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-91220\" src=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/blog_ads-02.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"85\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/blog_ads-02.jpg 700w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/blog_ads-02-300x36.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>What tricks have you used to make your photographs more appealing to Airbnbers?<\/em> Let me know in the comments section below!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With Airbnb&#8217;s growing popularity comes growing competition. Here&#8217;s how professional photographs can make your listing stand out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":281659,"featured_media":92836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7271],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-term-rentals"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/281659"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}