Why professional photos for AirBnB and VRBO properties are critical to booking success
This is a solid example of just how updating a VRBO listing with professional photos is a guaranteed way to increase bookings! In this case bookings are up over 300% already and we arent even into the holidays! These guys got results in the first week after posting updated vacation rental photos to their property listing on VRBO. That feels great doesn’t it!? Instead of the random weekend bookings it went to totally booked weekends that spilled over into mid-week guests!
As is the case with so many listings on the popular vacation rental websites Airbnb.com and VRBO.com, this home had very basic photos taken by the owner. Pictures that covered the basics and showed features of the home but weren’t highlighting them. In our consultation I showed them before and afters of past properties so they could see what they were in for. **sidenote: When a prospective guest weeds through all the other property listings to get to your listing, you have under 30 seconds to dazzle them. Putting the best foot forward and showcasing a home for all it has to offer is crucial. Not only that but picking the right order of the most important features and keeping a flow in telling the story of the home is critical to keeping the interest of the viewer. Guiding them through the house filling in all the gaps for them and allowing them to feel comfort in the place they will call home for the night is what turns a visitor into a guest.
The pictures that were being used prior to our shoot “worked good enough” but the bookings were just so/so. The owners had tried a few tricks before reaching out to me and even played a bit with lowering prices to stimulate more bookings, however, soon realized they shouldn’t lower things much more than they were. Something had to be done. The owners got a hold of me and I rolled over to check the place out in person and see what I could do to help. I was totally BLOWN AWAY!! This place was AMAZING! but the photos they had were executed poorly. I let them know that this is the case with so many of the properties I see. Fortunately the troubles they were experiencing in getting bookings were no fault of the home or its location… or really anything that I couldn’t fix for them in an afternoon.
We discussed possible layout arrangements that might look and feel better and set a date to stage the place. The smell of fresh baked cookies and sound of Bob Marley on the radio stimulated senses when I arrived to take photos. I busted out my wide angle primes and got to work doing a bit of real estate photography. Shots of each room followed up by video. We would first fix things by revamping their property page with new photos. That needed to be done a year ago. The video clips are bonus and part of a new strategy I have in really putting the potential guest at ease in the home. That 30 second commercial cut will be coming soon… so for now, enjoy this grab of pics from my day out at the Farmer House.
Not bad huh? Had fun doing something a bit different at the Farmer House… definitely gave em an editorial magazine flavor on the edits. Yeah I know, crisp and clean works most times but they wanted to add a little flavor to the recipe on this. Stand out from the others like the Purple Cow, which is exactly what we did.
After getting my feet wet in Costa Rica last year photographing the beautiful Tambor Tropical Beach Resort, I’ve had the itch to do more Resort Photography and stuff of the real estate / architectural variety. Challenging on a whole set of other levels that weddings are not. The pace is so much slower and I really enjoy the beauty in taking it slow and pulling out the best in inanimate objects. If you are finding yourself in the same boat and in need of some fresh perspective on your home dont hesitate to drop a message in the contact form. We are traveling the United States throughout 2019 in our RV with our two [well behaved] children and coming to a town near you.
