How to prepare a house for listing photos

01

Start the day before, not the morning of

The thing that costs a shoot more often than anything else is trying to do the whole list in the hour before I ring the bell. Counters get cleared into a pile on the dining table, and then the dining table is in shot too.

Give yourself an evening. None of this is hard, there is just more of it than people expect, and rushing it shows up in the photographs.

02

Flat surfaces do most of the work

Kitchen counters, bathroom vanities, nightstands, the top of the fridge. Not tidied. Empty, if you can face it. Somebody scrolling on their phone reads clutter as less space, and there is no editing that back afterwards.

One deliberate object per surface is fine, and sometimes needed so a room does not look cold. A bowl of lemons on the island, yes. Six appliances, a knife block and a paper towel holder, no.

• Countertops: soap, sponges, dish racks, toasters, coffee makers away
• Bathrooms: everything off the vanity, toilet lids down, one folded towel per rail
• Fridge and any other surface: no magnets, no photos, no school schedules
• Bedside tables: chargers, glasses of water, books
• Floors: shoes, pet bowls, toys, laundry baskets
• Trash cans out of every room, including the bathrooms and the kitchen

03

Open the blinds, and please turn the fans off

Open every blind and pull back every curtain before I get there. Natural light is what makes a room look like somewhere you would want to live, and a closed blind reads as a room with nothing worth seeing outside it. If a window looks onto something you would rather not show, tell me and I will frame around it.

Then turn every ceiling fan off. A moving fan photographs as a grey smear in the middle of the ceiling and there is no fixing it afterwards. It is the thing I end up asking for most often once I have already started.

04

Every light in the house works and matches

Switch on every lamp and fixture the night before and look for dead bulbs. Then look at their colour. A room with two warm bulbs and one daylight bulb photographs with a green cast down one wall, and pulling that out costs quality in the file.

If you are replacing bulbs, match them across the room. Soft white through the living spaces is the safe answer in most desert homes.

05

The desert-specific things people forget

The pool, always. Skim it the morning of. Leaves floating in a listing photo read as maintenance nobody has kept up with, which is the last thing you want on a property where the pool is the selling point.

Then the patio. Cushions on and squared up, umbrella open if it is not windy, hose coiled or out of sight, and the barbecue cover either on properly or off completely. Half on looks abandoned.

Desert landscaping collects a surprising amount of blown debris against the base of walls and under shrubs. Ten minutes with a blower before I arrive and the exterior frames come out noticeably cleaner.

06

The driveway is in almost every exterior shot

Cars off the driveway and off the street directly out front, including your neighbours' if you can ask nicely. Bins round the side or in the garage.

This is the one that most often sends me back for a second visit, because a car in frame is not something I can honestly edit away. I know it is a nuisance on a busy morning. Set an alarm for it.

07

Things you genuinely do not need to do

You do not need to rearrange the furniture into what you think a photograph wants. Rooms read best when they look like the room they actually are, and I will move whatever needs moving on the day.

Two things worth knowing. Cleaning the windows but not the screens makes it worse, not better, so do both or neither. And do not repaint the week of the shoot unless it has time to cure and air out properly.