Tego Venturi: This comes up a lot is you're getting, we talk about merchandising a home when you're, when you're going to be putting in, in the market. But a really key part, especially today is, is having great photography, great virtual tours of the home. And so we wanted to, you wanted to talk about prepping your home for photography,

Tracy Venturi: Right? So we want to make sure the first impression counts and these days, the first impression is photography. Most home buyers are online shopping. They are looking at the photos and deciding if a home matches what they're looking for and deciding whether or not it's a home, they want to keep on the short list. So they're looking at the photos, they're looking at the virtual immersive walkthrough tours. And oftentimes that's how they're deciding, you know, Tega, we have people who've actually bought houses. Who've never put foot in the house until they're already under contract to purchase the house. So talking about photos is really critical. And one of the things that we really talk to our sellers about, because when that photographer shows up, we want the house ready. We don't want the photographer to show up and say, Hey, you need to clear everything off your kitchen counter. Now we want to tell you ahead of time and make sure that the photos shine. One of the things that's really important to go is

Tego Venturi: Analogy on that is it's like, when you're getting ready to sell your car, you have to detail your car. You have to get it ready. You got to make it look its best. And this is, this is part of that, right?

Tracy Venturi: Totally. Yep. So the, one of the things too, that's really important is if the weather is overcast, gray, snowy, the day you're supposed to have the photos taken of your house to put it on the market, we want to change that. We don't want to let the photographer go on a gloomy day. The whole aura of the house shows in those photos and they're going to feel gloomy.

Tego Venturi: Yeah, well, we live in New Mexico and one of the beauties is this beautiful crystal clear blue sky that we get, you know, 300 and whatever days a year. And you know, one out of whatever, 15 days we get one of those overcast days, don't don't do that. I see homes that are on the market that have been on the market a long time. And you go and look at the photography of those homes and it was photographed on a gloomy overcast day. And it's, you're really, you're really doing yourself a disservice if you let that happen.

Tracy Venturi: Right? So the, the following the rules rules to prepare your home for the best real estate photos. So in general, obviously you want to clean the house, right? Have it all clean, make sure the windows are clean, turn on overhead lights, turn on all the lamps before the photographer up. Make sure you replace all the burned out bulbs so that although the lights work, the brighter, the better typically right, re turn off ceiling fans, turn off computers, turn off TVs. You don't want that kind of distraction in your photos when the photographer comes and they don't want to have to tell you, Hey, you need to do all these things. Now that I'm here, they want to get the photos and make sure the photos are great. Open blinds, window treatments. That's where making sure the windows are clean, ready to go remove personal photographs. If you can, you know, one or two, probably isn't going to hurt. But in general, if you have a lot of family portraits up, you're going to want to take them down because the buyers want to see themselves there. And in photos, lots in, you know, taking photography of the house, showing all these photos can be distracting as well. Yeah. A lot of times people are zooming in to see what's on the wall.

Tego Venturi: Can I say something? I don't know, just talking about knick-knacks and clutter, something to keep in mind when you're, when you're looking at photography versus actually being in the space, it's going to look