Written from the trenches of Auckland real estate by Amit Sharma — Bayleys agent, 10+ years marketing experience.
Photography day is not the day to start tidying. By the time the photographer arrives, the home should already be camera-ready — because every flaw in a photo becomes a thousand views of that same flaw on the listing.
Declutter ruthlessly. Kitchen benchtops should hold no more than two or three styled items. Bathroom vanities should be empty. Bedside tables should hold a lamp and a book — that is it.
Clean glass, mirrors, and light fittings. The camera picks up dust the eye misses. Replace any blown bulbs and match colour temperatures across the room — mixing warm and cool bulbs makes a space feel cheap.
Open all curtains and blinds, turn on every light (including range hood and oven lights), and make beds with crisp, neutral linens. Hide bins, pet bowls, and chargers. Remove cars from the driveway and the street out front if possible.
Final pass: walk through the house holding your phone in landscape, taking a photo from each doorway. If anything looks off in your phone shot, it will look worse in the marketing.
A small investment in presentation often returns ten times the spend at the negotiating table. Treat photography day like an open home where 10,000 people will walk through — because they will.