Real Estate Photography
Tips and Tricks (a tutorial)

Real Estate Photography Tip 1
Wait for a good day, blue skies sell houses. I've seen million dollar houses photographed in the rain.

Real Estate Photography Tip 2
Take your front shot with the sun to your back, your skies will be bluer and your image will look much crisper. Front shots should not have cars parked in the driveway and the garage door should be closed.

Real Estate Photography Tip 3
Turn all the lights on inside and out and turn all the ceiling fans off.

Real Estate Photography Tip 4
Window blinds Open. Natural light makes a home feel warm.

Real Estate Photography Tip 5
Ask the homeowner to move. I saw a picture with the homeowner standing in the door of the house.

Real Estate Photography Tip 6
Take pride in your work. Try to take beautiful shots. If there is a tricycle next to the pool, or a towel hanging over the shower door, move it.

Real Estate Photography Tip 7
Put the toilet seat down.

Real Estate Photography Tip 8
Try not to shoot yourself in the mirrors. Many times you can squat down or move to a different angle. At least TRY.....

Real Estate Photography Tip 9
Try to avoid your own shadow...sometimes you can't.

Real Estate Photography Tip 10
Take interior shots where you can see out the windows. This takes time and practice. The trick is to balance the interior and the exterior light. To do this you need to turn your flash on. You also need to learn how to manually control the ISO (film speed) on your camera. Lower your ISO to expose for the exterior light as you do this the interior part of the picture will get darker. Increase your flash amount to keep the interior properly lit. Like I said it takes some practice but its well worth it.

Real Estate Photography Tip 11
Shoot exterior pictures in your digital cameras shutter priority mode with the white balance set to cloudy. This will make your photo sharp and yet warm. Know that I think about it read your cameras instruction manual so you know how to do this.

Real Estate Photography Tip 12
Take a photography and a Photoshop class. They will make you thousands.

Real Estate Photography Tip 13
Take a few minutes and clear of the counters in the kitchen and bathrooms. I also like to clear any junk from the fridge door.

Real Estate Photography Tip 14
After loading your picture in Photoshop, use the auto contrast, auto levels and auto color options. There located at the top of your screen under image and then adjustments. Apply each effect separately.

COCONUT GROVE: Despite foreclosures, Coconut Grove is doing OK

More than 200 properties in the 33133 ZIP Code have entered preforeclosure during the past six months, but real estate agents and analysts say the area's market is holding strong.

DAVID SMILEY, dsmiley@MiamiHerald.com

Cecilia Millan says Coconut Grove is like no other place, so when she moved away from the area 20 years ago, she felt she would return.

And last year she did come back, moving into a quaint home on Charles Terrace, in the Village West.

"I felt I had come full circle, to move back to the Grove," she said.

But now Millan, 50, is doing an about-face -- but not by choice.

Last March, her landlord lost the house to foreclosure, and she says a judge gave her 60 days to find another place to live.

Thursday, May 15, is day number 60 and Millan is moving the last of her personal possessions and her home office into a house in the Little Gables.

"Leaving the Grove is the hardest part," she said.

The threat of foreclosure has placed others in Coconut Grove in a similar situation.

During the past six months, more than 50 properties in the 33133 ZIP Code have gone to auction and about 200 properties have fallen into preforeclosure, according to RealQuest.com, a database that tracks real estate trends and foreclosures.

The possibility of foreclosure has loomed over duplexes in Silver Bluff, to million-dollar-plus homes in the South Grove, to Millan's 837-square-foot home, which her landlord purchased February, 2007, for $495,000.

But even with foreclosures in Miami-Dade up dramatically from last year, real estate agents and analysts say Coconut Grove and the rest of the 33133 ZIP Code, which includes other Miami neighborhoods and parts of Coral Gables, is in good shape.

"I feel really comfortable in saying that Coconut Grove is the strongest market in all of Dade County," said Randie Koroglu, broker and president of Coconut Grove Realty.

Realtor Riley Smith said there aren't that many foreclosure properties on the market right now, so the number of preforeclosures reported by RealQuest sounded high.

"I can't even fathom that 33133 would be in the 200s right now," he said.

And Gary Hecht, a realtor with the Cherry Group, said a majority of foreclosures have been condos, which have little bearing on a market comprised largely of luxury real estate.

"The places foreclosing -- an awful lot of condos, in particular -- don't really affect the luxury home market," he said.

The majority of foreclosures in the 33133 ZIP Code have been the result of mortgage fraud or condo investors buying high and hoping to make a quick buck, Koroglu said.

For example, Koroglu said, a couple recently came in looking to buy with the lowest credit score she had ever seen because they had invested in -- and then walked away from -- four apartment units.

Koroglu concedes that foreclosures have affected property values some because it is hard to sell when the property next door is worth the same but is $30,000 cheaper.

In the case of Millan's Charles Terrace home, property records show Vicente Gonzalez Pena purchased the house 15 months ago with two mortgages. Within eight months of the purchase, CountryWide Home Loans had filed a lis pendens -- the formal notice that starts the foreclosure process -- on the property.

Records show the house went to auction April 25.

Peter Zalewski, a principal of Condo Vultures, a real estate consulting firm, said though the number of properties turned over to lenders in Miami-Dade during the first quarter of 2008 was up 287 percent from last year, the Grove's long-established market and location has protected it from the worst of the market slide.

"Coconut Grove is a mature market that people have been in for quite some time," he said. "The other issue is that increasingly the buyer today is looking for something east of I-95 and around U.S. 1."

That makes the Grove "a great market to focus on if you're an all-cash buyer," Zalewski said.

Hecht said foreclosures haven't slowed sales but have made lenders wary of handing out loans.

"We're selling more than ever before but usually to cash-rich people," he said.

Zalewski said even the number of 33133 preforeclosures in the past six months is a little low compared to other areas, such as Westchester or Homestead.

That's because Coconut Grove is never at the bottom of the roller coaster that is the South Florida real estate market, Koroglu said.

"Whenever we go through mini-recessions," she said, "we're usually the last market in and the first market out."


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