Tips to make your properties stand out from the crowd

Have a quick tidy round

First things first, make sure every room is nice and tidy. It’s hard for anyone to see past a messy room, as it’s difficult to visualise the size, to see the furniture that comes with the room, or the standard of the décor and carpets. Collectively, this could result in a property being overlooked.

Finishing touches

Clear the kitchen sides, the shower enclosures and the sink of any clutter or dirty dishes. Put the toilet seat down, make the beds and open the curtains. These small details can really make a big difference to the outcome.

Make sure the property (or room at least) is empty before taking photos

It may sound crazy, but we’ve seen the worst of it (we’ve even had photos where tenants are still in bed while a photo is being taken!). Ideally, you would take photographs when the property is empty, however if this isn't possible, then it’s worth asking housemates to vacate the space whilst you take the pictures.

You can use your mobile to take the photos

These days, you don’t need to use a professional camera to take decent photos, and an iPhone can often be enough to do the job. However, we would suggest purchasing a wide-angle lens to add to your handheld camera, or even mobile phone camera - a good example is this clip-on phone lens. This wide angle will help to get most of the room in the shot when taking a photograph.

Make sure your lighting is right

Photos should be taken when the room is well lit - ideally in daylight – as natural light will enhance the features of the room. You’ll find that the outcome is always much better than artificial light and/or a flash. 

Take a photo of every room

When photographing a property, try to take a picture of as many rooms as possible. Each housemate, within a group who are house hunting, is going to be thinking about what their own room is like, so at a very minimum we would suggest a photograph of each bedroom. This helps the group decide whether the property is right for them. 

Try and include a floor plan

Although it’s not absolutely necessary, a floor plan is quite a ‘nice to have’ piece of information for students when trying to envisage how the house/apartment is laid out.

Avoid filtering your photos too much

There are a few apps you can use to edit your images to improve their quality. Adobe Lightroom is a great example, which is a free iOS app and is very straight forward to use. The app has pre-sets that could be useful to edit quickly. These types of apps are an easy way to brighten and enhance a photo, but we recommend avoiding any heavy filters, as you want to keep the images looking as true to life as possible.

The orientation of your photos

Where possible, it is recommended to take your images in a landscape orientation. This avoids any part of the image being cut off when it is auto-resized for the website. 

Make sure the size of your photos meet the minimum requirements

Although the UniHomes website resizes photographs automatically, it’s important to try and provide photos in the highest quality possible. To do this, make sure the images are at least 1200 x 800px. This means that the images are of a high quality on the website and can be increased in size when a potential tenant enlarges it.

It’s worth noting that, when advertising on our other platforms and online, we must meet a minimum image specification. If this isn’t the case for your portfolio images, then we will not be able to use them when advertising online.

Avoid using watermarks

Where possible, avoid adding watermarks to your images. When logos are placed over the main focus of the room, it’s hard for tenants to see its great features. If you need to include a watermark, then we would recommend placing this in the bottom corner of an image.