David,

I love my phone's photos.  We would NEVER recomment that anyone take listing pictures themselves.  There is an art to lighting and angles.   The photos should be Architectural Digest quality.   As a professional, one should value other professionals.  A

I see way too much of it. We call ourselves professionals and get upset when people don't treat us like professionals and then so many of us turn around and fsbo the pictures instead of hiring a professional photgrapher to do it right.

clients deserve professional quality photos, which cannot be obtained from a cell phone.

It is all but unethical to have bad photos on a home where agents receive a $5,000+ commission. When you buy a car for $30K, you get a 4 color glossy book and a 200 page b/w buyers guide on how it works. Yet, when we sell a $300K house, and the agent whips around taking a few terrible shots, and puts MLS sheets in the house, our industry suffers. It's not which camera you use, the camera doesn't do the work, the photographer does. Most agents point it at a window, shoot floors, don't turn on lights, fluff pillows. Even worse they shoot vertical. I have a $2K camera with a $1K lens, lights and flashes, but still use my phone for quick shots. It isn't the camera, it is a trained eye.

we hire a professional photographer....unless the home is a toilet.... fix and flip.... or teardown.... I just bought a iphone 8Plus.... takes good photos... 

Nothing beats a wide angle lens on a camera in my opinion. 

Oh no! I use my phone for fun photos but, all of my listings, no matter the price, have professional photography and videography. It's a small price to pay for making a much bolder first impression. 

I'm so old I go back to the days we had to take the film to the one-hour photo shop to be developed.  No professional photographers for real estate. 

I hire a professional photographer for each of my listings. I want each home looking its best when buyers start searching online.

Nope. My dependable Nikon 800E does the right job

There are entire websites devoted to the things that occur in real estate that appall many. Much of it is negative and there is no reason to "out" them - we see evidence.   

There are endless opportunities to "stand out" from those who take listing photos with a cell phone instead of having a professional in place.  

Never, ever, ever. I'm a rotten photographer and I hate taking pictures. I don't care how good the phone cameras are... I can never achieve the same results as a top of the line professional photographer. And I don't remember seeing one of them use their phones to take pictures!

We generally take photos with several cameras, then choose the best photos from the collections.

Even if your phone takes a good picture, its not the same quality the professionals using lightroom or other photoshop type software can produce to make the room "pop".   Also is not a good use of your time. If you get in the habit of doing that youself you will cut down your time to prospect for new clients. Finding the "Right" photographer is key...one that gives you lots of angles to pick from and doesn't charge an arm and a leg is a real good thing to have in your pocket. 

A unnamed broker friend in my area hates doing listings but gets referrals all the time because buyers love him. When it comes time to Sell they call him because of the relationship. However, he hates doing listings so he does the min to get by (until this month) when he was forced to pay for professional picures.

He called me because he had a listing around the 350-400K price point that wasn't getting any showings and it was way underpriced for the market standard for new construction.  First thing I did was look at the MLS pics...it was obious he had taken them with his own cell phone.  The pictures were TERRIBLE..only part of the rooms showed in the photos and they were portrait shape instead of landscape. Nothing filled the screen and it was a brand new home with nothing in it. Vacant rooms don't photograph well, esp. with your personal phone.  I suggested he change the photos.  He broke down  and took better ones that weekend and had a contract 3 days after that.  It had been on the market for a month before that with the old pics. 

Image is everything when selling against other "right priced" homes.  What you save in photo fees ($150-$300) you loose in commision when you have to drop price or stay on the market longer and ruin your "selling" stats in the eyes of other potential listing clients that may be thinking of hiring you.

You will get other listings when you are known for providing the extra other agents don't. I don't do drone footage, virtual staging or 3D tours for the less expensive homes but I do pay $150 for good pics for anything 90K and up and my homes in that price range sell in 5 days or less.

I also have begun to stage my vacant houses with little things like towels and shower curtains, inflatable beds, night stands, bar stools, kitchen items etc and anchor pieces in the rooms that are odd shaped to help clients "size" a room up.

I do provide professional pictures even to my 100K homes. Sellers talk so you will make up in volume in no time what you think you are saving by not spending enough on the one home for professional pics.  A fun (and easy) virtual staging site you can buy for $10 a room is http://visualstager.com/ but you have to run it on Chrome. It won't work on Firefox. If you have good vacant room pictures you can get even more views by using virutual furniture. Imagin a room that could be decked out as a dining room, a play room or a living room because of the shape. You can't move all that furniture in and out for real pictures but you can virtually....it gives people without vision enough to see what the room could be for them. We have to be smarter than ZILLOW to protect ourselves....so be better!

Think from a place of abundance not scarsity and the sellers and buyers and the money will come!

Carol Williams I remember taking a whole roll of film, all the same angle of the same house...taking it to a photoshop, have them make duplicates and made flyers out of each photo. Professional photography of all my listings.

David Popoff 

No, professional pictures only.  The listing only gets one chance to make a great first impression online.

My photographer takes the pictures with a “real” camera with lens to optimize the first impression my roperties. 

We use a professional photographer to take high  quality pictures of our listings in order to entice the buyers who see our listings on their phones to want to see them in person.

No photos taken with a phone camera from inside the car showing the rear view mirror in the photo for us.

Many times I use a professional photographer. 

No I have professional photos done. 

We only use professional photographs.  My clients deserve the best and the highest quality for their properties. 

Nope.

I use a professional to take photos

All my MLS photos are taken by one of pro photographers... in HD. I'm the marketing director, and I create the photo storyboard.

No, professional photos are still my preference!

Unless you are an expert with your cell phone, your clients, paying you a lot of money to best market their home, should expect top marketing from you.  Anything other than professional photos is a disservice, in my opinion.

Nope, never have, never will. I use a professional photographer, but will take supplemental photos with an SLR camera.

My secretary and I would do listing photos together and I'd use my Panasonic SLR and she used her iPhone. I was happy with her pics but mine won out most often David Popoff .

I don't use my phone for listing pictures.

I have a 'nice' camera that I'll take a few initial pictures with. These will be replaced  with the professional photographer's as soon as they are available. Our office also offers drone shots and 360 degree 'tours' for all listings.
Bruce

Like Carol Williams I'm from the days when you would take the photos yourself on a film camera and rush to the nearest 1 hour photo place to get them made so you could get them to the board in time for the weekly MLS update book.  I had a giant flatbed scanner to scan the photos to make flyers.

So no, I don't see anything wrong with taking your own photos.  I'm in the minority here (and on most sites), but my phone has an amazing camera that can take 4K UHD video, huge wide photos with over 12mp.  It can also do panoramas and photospheres.  On top of that, I can review the photo right then and there and I have Snapseed where I can manipulate the photos on the spot!  If I need more, I have GIMP and Darktable at home for greening up grass (or adding in grass), making twilight shots, etc.  Plus I have video editing software, should there be video worthy content at the house.  To top it all off, my phone's camera is far better than the physical camera I spent over $400 on (on sale of course).

I've done a lot of traveling on vacation last year and to conventions the years prior.  Less than 1% of the regular people there have a camera other than their phone.  They take vacation photos and photos they want to keep and share with their phone.  The stigma of using a phone for photos is long gone.

When my camera's pixel resolution was overtaken by cell phones, I decided to just use professional photography.  Cell phones just aren't wide angel enough and the attachments that make the wide angle just make the pictures fish eye.

My Iphone takes amazing pictures, better than decade old cameras for sure. The one thing though. NEVER EVER should pictures be taken up and down. They should be horizontal and many new agents have not figured that out yet

I NEVER take my own photos, I hire a professional.

I still use my Nikon 5100 

No.

No and I suspect my customers would be appalled if I did. If I take a listing on the weekend or holiday that has to go live in the MLS immediately, I use my Sony camera to take temporary photos then later replace them. Our MLS rules require listings to be active with photos w/n 48 hours after the agreement is signed so I will use the Sony but not my iPhone on those occasions.

Some of my phone photos have better res than my aging Nikon..., but I do not use the phone for listing photos.

No. I currently use a Sony with a couple different lenses depending on the shot I'm taking. My Sony 24-105 G master lens gets a lot of use. And whether you shoot raw or jpegs, the camera files are larger and give you more file to work with if you need to crop and/or edit.

I hire a professional, but I have used a few photos that I took that I really liked mostly outdoor shots.

Yes, iphone picture are awesome, but I make pictures only for my leases, not for sales. 

I use a high-end camera or hire out depending on the property.

No, I totally think it is unprofessional.

No. We hire out a professional photographer. We did use to take photos ourselves because John is a trained photographer, went to school for it and has the equipment for it. But after some time we decided, despite his ability to do it, it was a way to leverage our time, show value to our clients, and separate what we do as a professional real estate agent. -K

I don't.  

Interior images need flash lights (often multiple). The CMOS takes average lighting and the camera flash confuses the CMOs.

I use mine all the time.

No, I don't.

Pictures are the first impression of the home.  They should be good quality.