5 Tips for Preparing Your Office or Commercial Building for a Real Estate Shoot.

Published in

#NoSelfies

4 min readAug 29, 2016

Having professional photos taken of your commercial property is an extremely important step in the sales and rental process. Having photos on hand for online marketplace listings, social marketing, and print ads increases the perceived value of a property and can accelerate interest.

With the tremendous growth in the number of sales and rental marketplaces people are turning to DIY methods of handling the process instead of working with a traditional Realtor. This has been exciting for us at Pretty Instant as we’ve been able to streamline the booking, editing and delivery of commercial real estate photos for individuals and marketplaces across the country. It’s been a lot of fun to be a part of!

As we’ve grown this side of the business however, we’ve learned a thing or two about how to best prepare your property to be photographed. These tips will save you a lot of time and aggravation while making the entire process enjoyable for all.

1) Make a list of specific photos you want of the property.

You’re going to need a photo of all common spaces, conference rooms and lounges, but also be sure to list the unique and special features of your property. Writing this list helps the photographer gauge the flow of the shoot and will help your listing stand out.

2) Make sure your property is clean and free of dust or debris.

Photographers shoot in HD, so if there’s dust, dirt, trash on the floors and counters or cables sticking out of the walls, you’re going to see it. Give yourself a day to make sure the inside & outside of the property is clean and ready to be showcased. If you need help with this there are plenty of commercial cleaning services or on-demand cleaning services like Handy or TaskRabbit who can do it for you.

3) Designate an on-site contact who knows your property.

In order to speed up the photography process and ensure a solid result, having someone who can take a few minutes to go over the notable rooms and property with the photographer is extremely helpful. Make sure that whoever it is you have on-site knows that a photographer will be coming by in order to avoid any confusion or limitations of access to the building.

4) Lighting is important. Find the best time to shoot your property.

Capturing your property with natural lighting makes everything look awesome. Golden hour (the period shortly after sunrise or before sunset) is typically the best time because it’s softer and more cinematic.

5) Expect the shoot to take about 2 hours.

The timing of your shoot depends on the size of the property, but most single level commercial spaces can be captured in about 2 hours. Some variables that effect the length of the shoot outside of the size of the building are if rooms require special lighting, additional staging, or if you need to capture land outside or surrounding the buildings as well.