Prepare your home for the professional photographer

 When the kitchen counters are completely cleared off, it makes the kitchen look more prominent, and buyers can imagine how they might use the space. Coffee makers, mixers, and decorations only distract buyers and often make the kitchen feel cluttered.

Remove everything but perhaps a few decorative items from the countertops and clean all surface areas, including the appliances, kitchen sink, and backsplash.

 Place all of the shampoo bottles, soaps, razors, and other items into a bin that can fit underneath the bathroom sink. This step will help your bathroom look bigger.

Take all items off of the bathroom counter. You want the bathrooms to appear vacant. Clean, neatly folded towels on towel racks are acceptable.

Place all toilet lids down as most people don't want to see inside of a toilet.

  This step is one of the most overlooked items on the list. Be sure to check all of the ceiling lights, as well as extra lamps and exterior lights, to make sure that they all work.

If there are dark areas in the homes add a few lamps will help to brighten them up. Floor lamps that provide up-lighting are great! The more light, the better!

  Lighting is one of the most important aspects of photography. It's essential to have as much light as possible.

Turn on all of the lights in the house, including lamps and exterior lights. Your photographer will be happy to find your home in its brightest light when they arrive and your photos will look better!

 Natural light from windows brings life and emotion into real estate photos. I recommend opening all of the window treatments throughout the entire house to let in as much light as possible. This will also help to make your rooms appear bigger and give potential buyers a view of the outdoor areas to help orientate them to the property.

If you have blinds, take an extra moment to make sure all of the slats of your blinds are even for the photos.

  This is probably the most difficult request for sellers, but it's one of the most important items on the list!

 Removing and storing excess or large bulky furniture can be challenging, but it opens up the floor space and makes the the home flow better and look as spacious as possible.

Remember: "less is more."

  Floor mats and runners are great at protecting your floors, but they can make the overall floor space look smaller, making the room look smaller.

I recommend getting rid of as many floor mats as possible. Photographers use a wide-angle lens that makes rooms look larger. Floor mats tend to get skewed with this effect.

Make sure to roll up and remove all of the floor mats in the bathrooms, kitchen, and laundry areas. 

   Most photographers use HDR photography, which takes multiple light exposures for each photo and combines them into one final shot. Any moving items like ceiling fans or active TV/Computer screens look very strange in HDR.

For this reason, I recommend turning off anything that moves or causes motion blur. 

    This is an obvious one that surprisingly gets overlooked often, especially in the secondary bedrooms.

 Be sure to make and decorate all the beds with matching sheets, blankets, and pillows. Use bedding that covers the entire bed and fits the mattress correctly.

Use decorative pillows to brighten up the bed, if possible. 

If a room is clean, and the bed isn't made right, it makes the whole room seem off.

It's hard for buyers to visualize themselves in your house if your personal items are everywhere. Buyers want to believe that the home was made especially for them.

Since you want your buyers to focus on the house and not on you, you'll need to remove all private photos and articles from the entire home—including patios, porches, and garages. This includes political and religious items.

 Not everyone has pets. In fact, some people are severely allergic to animals.

It's essential to make sure that your house shows no signs of pets, especially pet smells. Please spend some time getting this part right. It is one of the most significant factors in price reductions and negative feedback from home buyers.

Consider that you could be "nose blind" to the smell, as you live in your home every day. Ask a neutral party for their honest opinion before listing.

I once experienced this in selling one of my own homes. I did not have inside dogs but I did have a dog bed was left in my garage and the person that came to look at my property complained of "dog smell" inside my home even though I didn't have inside dogs.