A back yard can be an important feature for some homes for many reasons: 1) a premium may have been paid for a view lot; 2) a premium may have been paid for the size; or 3) the owner may have invested a lot of money and wants to recoup it from a buyer who equally values the work done.This article seeks to discuss some of the considerations when taking photos of the back yard. Please note that California weather does not allow for the kind of seasonal variation that occurs in other parts of the country, so keep that in mind also. It may be important to take photos months before a home is listed so that the brochure shows the yard in all its spring glory rather than late in the fall when leaves are gone.Here are some general tips:In this writer's opinion, the MOST important aspect to taki... 12/16/2007

This post is in a series.  Please see other posts about Bathrooms and Kitchens. Family rooms are probably one of THE most important rooms in home photography.  The modern family spends more time in these rooms than any other.  How inviting and attractive these rooms are can affect whether an offer is made and for how much.  I try to take a lot of care in photographing the family rooms.Rather than having me yack on about taking family room pictures, I thought I would make this post into a more interactive blog post.  So, DON'T SCROLL DOWN TO THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE YET; there will be plenty of opportunity for that.  Take out a piece of paper and pen and look at all four of the pictures that I took.  Jot down what you think is RIGHT with the photo (or what you really like), and jot down wh... 12/13/2007

Carlsbad has a reputation for some wonderful, and upscale, residential neighborhoods. The area around the Four Seasons, in South Carlsbad, is known as Aviara, and buyers seeking a Carlsbad home have plenty of options among the Aviara neighborhoods, with each offering homes that vary in style, price ($500s to over $2 million), size and feel. Many of the Carlsbad homes in Aviara are detached, but some are attached and there are both gated and ungated communities. Aviara is known for its lush landscaping, beautiful ocean, lagoon and golf course views, miles of trails and sidewalks for bicyclists and pedestrians, and the Batiquitos Lagoon and wildlife preserve. And, of course, the Four Seasons itself, with fine dining at Vivace, a terrific health club and spa, several boutiques, and the fam... 12/12/2007

Someone asked me if I had some street photo comparisons of the same homes that we did pole pictures. I did not, but John had to go shoot a video at a new listing today, so I asked him to swing by and get a street picture of a couple of the homes that we sold last year. Here are the results, side by side. We made every effort to size them about the same, and please understand that we couldn't control for cars. But this will give you a pretty good idea of the difference that perspective can make. I threw a quick patch of blue on the first pic only because it was backlit with a bunch of white clouds and I didn't want that to distract. I didn't touch up either of the street pictures, so they are offered only as real-life comparison photos. I hope this helps show why we like the aerials for ... 12/09/2007

We had a bunch of paint at our house, and we decided to finally get rid of it.  We knew there were hazardous waste drop-off locations for electronics, but we weren't sure about disposing of liquids.To our very pleasant surprise, we found out about Clean Harbors. (Phone: 1-800-444-4244)  They have signed agreements with Carlsbad, Encinitas, Del Mar, Solana Beach, and San Marcos (I think). Just call the number, and they will come pick it up.  If you have the standard amount, up to 15 gallons of paint, they charge $10 in Encinitas (prices may vary in other city jurisdictions due to the contract that they have).  We had more than that, so we had to pay $20, but they took it all away and disposed of it properly!This was great!  Highly Recommended if you need to get rid of some hazardous wast... 12/08/2007

I know I've referenced my Canon 24mm tilt/shift lens that I put on my 5D back, but I wanted to show in photographs why I like this lens so much.  This lens allows you to DOUBLE your total field of view.  To use it, you shift the lens all the way to the left, snap the picture, then move it to the middle, snap a picture, and move it to the right and take a third.  It requires some fairly minor assembly of the photos, but NO stitching.  I just put the middle picture on top of the other two and then use a fuzzy eraser to erase the edges and get the 3-photo composite image that is twice as big.  Remember - this is a 24mm wide angle lens, so it isn't a fish-eye and you don't get a lot of distortion.  Here's an example of one of the images.As you can see, you can't really tell where the three ... 12/08/2007

Here are the summary statistics from the MLS for Carlsbad for November 2007 (please note that this information does not include private sales or homes sold through builders that are not in the MLS).Homes for sale - 491 detached, 281 attached (up by about 1% from October)127 detached and 56 attached homes came on the market in October407 detached and 200 attached homes have sold in the last 6 monthsAbsorption (inventory) is 7.2 months for detached (slight increase from October) and 8.4 months for attached homes (about1 month more than in October)Average marketing time was 64 days for attached and 67 days for detachedMedian sales price for detached - $765,125, about the same as OctoberMedian sales price for attached - $441,500, about the same as OctoberCarlsbad home sales prices continue ... 12/08/2007

As a prospective buyer (or even a resident) you should know about the trash services provided by the city of Carlsbad. Yes, I know it's not a fun, interesting topic, but it's an important one from an environmental perspective. And all residents should cooperate in the city's efforts to deal with all the trash we produce.Trash services are provided to residents' homes (which includes curbside recycling pickup - I have been amazed to learn that there are communities that do NOT do the recycling) on a weekly basis through Waste Management. Charges are monthly and come on the city bill that includes water usage; trash service is about $19.00 monthly.The other important thing to know about trash is the RECYCLING FACILITY and Buyback Center (entrance to the City of Carlsbad Public Works Maint... 12/07/2007

This is a continuation of a series that seeks to help agents improve their home photography.  Part one discusses camera backs, Part two discusses the tilt/shift lens used to take the photos in this article.  You do not have to use an expensive camera to implement most of these suggestions--I use the images from from my primary camera/lens only because that's what I use to take my photos, and I prefer to use real-life examples for these articles.  If you like this post, you might also check out the posts on Photographing Kitchens and another on Photographing Family Rooms.Photographing BathroomsOf all the rooms, baths are often the most neglected in photographs.  However, wonderful pictures of the modern retreat can portray the best in modern conveniences of a newer home.  Older homes may... 12/06/2007

The surfing culture is a huge part of daily life here in Southern California. It's apparent everywhere you go.And where do Californians go when the surf is up? To the beach.    No one was at work today, it seems. Everyone was either surfing or out watching the surfing. The reason? Predictions of 18 foot waves, which are rare in our area. There were surf advisories last night on the weather channel, and today the surf continues to be significant.     Seems like everyone in Carlsbad, Encinitas and Cardiff was out catching the waves or parked along the beaches and hanging out at every vantage point to watch the surfing. And everyone had a camera, or their camera phone. Quite a few tripods with video cameras, and digital cameras with huge lenses.    Famous Swami's Beach in Encinitas was mob... 12/05/2007

We have been making full motion video home tours for about three years.  From the beginning, we decided to do "reality tv" style tours where the camera follows the agent around the home as the agent points out the important features.  This REALLY shows off the home and the real estate agent, and with remote microphones, there are no wires to trip over.   After making four or five of them, I began to get the knack of it, and now we can complete a tour with about an hour or so of video shooting.The big difficulty with doing this kind of work is stabilizing the camera.  It's one thing to plop the camera on a tripod with video head and pan the room.  It's another to have it following the agent around the home.  The latter means that you have to have some sort of stabilizing technology or th... 12/03/2007

This the fourth in a series about how we take our photos.  The pictures were taken with a Canon 5D, with a Tilt/Shift Lens.  If you are new to architectural photography, you might take a look at the earlier posts, and here's the quick list of the prior posts: Part 1: Camera/Tripod; Part 2: The Tilt/Shift Lens; and Part 3: Taking the photos/Editing.  I have also posted specific pieces about Photographing Bathrooms and another on Photographing Family Rooms.  Kitchen shots can often be a very important photo because of the role that modern tastes have played in making the kitchen a design point.  Special granites and other surfaces, high-end appliances and fixtures, and expensive flooring mean that the real estate agent must take extra care when displaying the kitchen.  Fortunately, there ... 12/03/2007

We went to the California Association of Realtor expo a few months ago where there was a vendor for postage stamps that you can create on your own.  Here's the web site: PictureItPostage.comI had previously mocked up a prototype to send to their competitor (Stamps.com) as I had been a Stamps.com user for years.  However, I decided not to buy the Stamps.com postage as I ultimately concluded that the size of their postage stamp was too small (or at least the size they allocated to the business was too small).Here's the postage example that I mocked up for myself.  This is approximately real size of the actual postage stamp.So, hey, what do you think of the design?   Anyway, here's what I like about this particular vendor and why I ordered from them. 1) You could create horizontal (good fo... 12/02/2007

Part TwoIf you started on this entry, I recommend that you read Part 1 first.  By special request, I have posted this to the General Photography Group and I thought it might also be of interest to the Advanced Group.  I'm relatively new to AR, so if I've mis-posted, please let me know.There are two reasons why I decided to buy Canon rather than other manufacturers for our camera equipment. The first relates to their digital signal processing technology, which is absolutely excellent. Though Canon has had a camera division for a long time, they have been manufacturing DSP (digital signal processing) technologies for a long time. Compare that to Nikon which has been, I think, primarily a camera/optics manufacturer. Here's a good example....did you know that the "engine" that drives a lot ... 12/02/2007

A NOTE ON COST: If you find that the cost of this sort of equipment is too high to justify today, then try to stack up a couple of listings and rent the equipment. Usually you can get a 7 day rental for the price of 3 days, and that will give you plenty of time to get used to the camera. Then, when at the home, take pictures with the rental and with your current camera and compare the results, and you will immediately understand why I posted this series. Good Luck and Happy Home Photos. We take the photography of our listings REALLY seriously, and have found that producing the best photos in the area can really help sell listings and satisfy homeowners with your marketing.  We have often been asked how we do what we do, and so this entry is intended to share some of our equipment secret... 12/02/2007

Recently I decided to upgrade my desktop computer that I have owned for over 2 years.  The old computer had a Pentium chipset (3.2GHz, single processor).  My brand new computer had the next generartion Intel duo-core processor with two 2.6GHz processors.  The old computer had 2GB of 400MHz memory; the new computer has 4GB or 800MHz memory.  Both are running Windows XP.  So, as far as the theoretical computations go...the new machine should absolutely smoke the old machine, right?Well, reality isn't quite what the marketing says it should be.  Overall, I'm OK with the new machine, but it was more of a lateral move to different equipment, not a huge upgrade to a 10,000 sq. ft. luxury manor if you know what I mean.  I've poked around to see what might be going on, and here's what I learned... 12/02/2007

For those of you who read my blog entry on Blackberry phones, you probably saw that my phone had been stolen.  Guess what...I got it back!  The fellow who had it seemed like a fairly decent chap...I don't know how to gauge these things. (Yes, he did buy my phone for a $100 from some unknown guy and he did use it for a month on my service....but he did return it instead of tossing it in a dumpster.)In order to try to track the person down who had been using the phone, we had only ONE thing - the phone records of the phone calls that he made.  So the challenge was to connect these phone numbers to people and people to addresses so that we could investigate and try to find out who had the phone.In the process of doing this, we used several different Internet lookup services: 1) Information... 12/02/2007

  One of the things that makes a community appealing, and viable as a place to live, work and grow old, is the attention paid to the housing and services provided in that community for a broad range of residents. Towns like Carlsbad are attractive to the residents because they provide a range of housing types (e.g., for rent or purchase) and community services that address the needs of the changing population. Carlsbad, with its Smart Growth plan, is also planning for the future growth of the community and addressing not only housing issues (affordability, senior, rentals) but traffic, the environment, public transportation and much more. Carlsbad has been known for some time as a popular retirement community due to the temperate weather year round, the beaches, services for seniors, g... 11/28/2007

Carlsbad has a number of new subdivisions, including La Costa Greens, La Costa Ridge, and Bressi Ranch. The newest real estate community, just beginning construction, is Robertson Ranch, just east of El Camino Real at Cannon Road and College Boulevard (the 55+ community of Rancho Carlsbad is across the street). Robertson Ranch is located adjacent to Calavera Hills (to the north/northeast), a recently built master-planned community centered around Carlsbad Village Drive and College Boulevard. Given the terrain, there should be some nice views, at least from some areas of the community. Robertson Ranch is in the Carlsbad Unified School District. Robertson Ranch is being constructed on land that was primarily agricultural, and the plans call for a range of housing types and densities, wit... 11/28/2007

If you or someone you know is thinking about selling their home, it is important to consider the use of full-motion video and DVDs. We have been doing this for years, and have gotten to the point where we own cameras, remote microphones, lights, Avid post-production systems and more.  Here are a few of the reasons we have found that having video and DVDs is so important in selling a home today.   Open House 24/7. The most critical factor in selling a home for top dollar is marketing exposure. By having full-color brochures with DVDs in the flyer box at all times, buyers can take a DVD and watch it on their TV at their convenience. A DVD makes it easy for buyers to preview your home, and, basically, means that your house is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.Relieves Burden. For some... 11/28/2007