How to Stage Your Maui Property for a Photo Shoot

You only have one chance to create the first impression. 

You have one thumbnail photo as your cover. 

You have a few seconds to capture your audience to click into your listings among all the other online listings.

According to the National Association of Realtors, “85% of those buyers say it’s the photos that are the most important factor in deciding which homes to go view.”

I often suggest to my clients, that if it is a home for sale, your main goal is to clean it very well. You do not need to be over-staged with things that are not even included in the sale. But if you have an empty house, you may want to consider staging it with furniture or have us virtually staged for your potential clients to visualize how the space can be used. 

If it is a vacation rental, give a little bit more effort to stage it. Your wine, fruits, and Aloha decoration will give off vacation vibes better than an empty home. If you are thinking of staging it yourself, check out these staging tips:

First task: Declutter & Clean

The very basic task before adding anything else is to declutter. Less is more. We would rather have fewer unnecessary plants, old books, and worn-out decorations than to have more. Throw away things that have been in your condo since you bought it over 15 years ago. Not everything there is what people want. Not every extra decoration adds value. If it looks too old, half-used, or almost falling apart, please get rid of it. 

Here is another article about how to clean and tidy your home for photos. 

Accessorize Smartly

One of the easiest ways to update a room is to accessorize it well. A few of our favorite main areas to stage are the lanai table, kitchen island, and coffee table. These are the areas that we would take the most photos of, and the more “colorful” it is, the more your photo will stand out. 

Here are some general suggestions, just pick a few, you do not have to do it all: 

Lanai:

• Place freshly cut colorful fruits on individual plates (mango, papaya, watermelon etc.) or cheese, and grapes on a wooden chopping board.

• Place one flower next to the fresh-cut fruit plate 

• Place a glass (be mindful of the wind)

• Place a centerpiece in the middle of the table (e.g. Pineapple or a bottle of wine or juice or flowers)

• If you have colorful table mats you can use them

• Set only for 2 persons for small size lanai table

*Some of these sample photos are staged by a professional stager or by our clients, and some photos are staged by us. Ideas credit to original stager.

Kitchen Island and Dinning Room:

• Place a bowl of colorful fruits (no need to cut) in a beautiful bowl OR

• Fresh flowers

• Your gift for guests: Aloha Chocolate + Special Complimentary Water 

• Set out the table for 2-4 persons if you have an island with a bar counter or for your dining room

Bathroom:

• Less is more, mainly to show super clean towels, remove any unwanted items

• Sometimes we put a single plumeria flower on the counter 

Pay attention to the bathroom

Along with kitchens, attractive and clean bathrooms are an important selling feature in a home and will be scrutinized when viewed online. Even if your bathroom is a little outdated, you can spiff it up for minimal effort: Clear everything off your sink top except for soap, roll up some towels and put them on an available shelf for display, buy a fresh, bright shower curtain, and perhaps most important is to make sure the toilet seat lid is closed. That last item makes a huge difference in photos.

Coffee table: 

• Maui book, or anything colorful that helps your photo pop, but not too much. 

Bedroom: 

Ask yourself, is it time to buy a new set of bedsheets? The color of the sheets itself would change how a bedroom feels in the photo. Some people may hate bright red or green color sheets, maybe changing the sheets itself can already help boost your booking. Choosing more neutral colors and ocean themes with a beach vibe is usually fitting for Maui. 

Potential suggestion for bed:

• A tray of “breakfast”/ bread with coffee mug

• A beautiful lei 

• OR nothing on the bed, because it could be visually too busy and unnecessary if you already have colorful sheets or room decor

• Appropriately display art on walls, and make sure it is in the photograph position to add color to your background that would add a wow factor to pictures viewed online. Note that grouping also looks best in odd numbers and at varying sizes. 

Yet, do not to over-accessorize

Accessorizing is important, but it needs to be tastefully — and minimally — done. Overstuffed shelves with various books and wall decor can create a visual nightmare. Sometimes, overly decorated with too many “cheesy” Hawaiian decorations would simply shout “too touristy” or “old school”. The main goal is to have a few items that enhance the overall colorfulness of your room, fresh flowers, fresh-cut fruits, some colorful plates, and a beautiful Hawaiian lei will do. 

Do not over-accessorize, just because you have bought those items does not mean you have to put them in the room. Some vacationers prefer a clean, modern look. If there are too many furnishings, where are they going to put their belongings?

We recommend skipping the oversized items or cheesy decorations, old worn-out floral decor which can become more of a distraction than an enhancement.

Do you include those items?

Another consideration is how much of the additional items you used to stage will be included in your actual vacation rental experience. Do you include wine? Do you include the Aloha chocolate as a welcome gift? If you do, YES! put them on the table when we are doing the photoshoot. But if you include nothing, you may not want to mislead your potential clients with high expectations. We also like those units that are tidy without too much clutter for looks. Staging is an enhancement, but it is not a requirement.

It is a fine line for us to promote your listing in the most aesthetic way possible and it is the owner’s decision and responsibility to consider what is a realistic representation of their condo. Do not sell something that you are not offering. That will just end up with poor reviews on your listing.

Don’t forget the small stuff

Remember, it’s those first impressions that are most important when buyers are viewing hundreds of photos of homes online. A few other photo prep tips:

• Hide your wires. Hide TV cords and other cables. 

• Check if your photos are on the wall. Are they placed straight or crooked?

• Move any trash cans (indoor and outdoor).

• Clean any glass and reflective surface (windows, slide doors, mirrors).

Clean everything

We’re not just talking about the counters and floors here. Everything in your home should get a scrub, from muddy siding or dingy carpeting to wood furniture and curtains. Don’t let your potential clients get distracted by a grimy door, walls, or windows — they might start to wonder what other home-upkeep tasks have been neglected.

Share with us what is your favorite staging items. We love to hear from you! 

Hope this is a helpful article for those who are trying to figure out how to stage their vacation rental.

Contact us for photographing your vacation rental in Maui! It’s your home, we do our job to show it off.

Maui Real Estate Photographer Reveals How Property Photos are done can Attract Clicks or Swipe away

What are the differences we can make to Sell your condo with new photos

Where do all eyes go first when perusing a vacation rental listing? The photos, of course.

Owners should never underestimate the importance of investing in a professional real estate photographer to get the very best pictures possible of their place. Because no matter how good an eye you have, owners tend to be blind to how their own home comes across on camera—and, as a result, might have listing photos that don’t show their home in the best light.

Since all it takes is one second for internet surfers to lose interest in a listing and swipe away, here is an example from our photographers on how to make the most out of your listing and how we present a condo different than others.

Recently, we got contacted by an owner who hired 3 photographers to do three differnet photoshoot for his vacation rental. He picked out the best photos out of all three photographers to compile them into his airbnb photos. Well, maybe he already got the best photos, why does it need to be redone? Is it really that hard to find a real estate photographer in Maui?

We made a few suggestions into what we can do differently and one of our photographers, Mark, he redid the photoshoot for our client. Below is a short video showing how we see things differently and what kind of images we can create to make the unit look totally different with better lighting and how we focus our attention to details.

Watch a side by side comparison between our client’s Existing photos —> Our photos.

You can get a better understanding of why quality matters.

“Those who works with their hands, they are Labors.

Those who works with their hands and their brains, they are Photographers.

Those who works with their hands, their brains, and their hearts, they are Artists.”

- Flora Rude, Flocus Studio -

Let us do the hard work, so you can get all the benefits and be proud of your listing. 

We are artists that do your property justice, create beautiful images with integrity so you can see the increase in booking.

If you need our advice on your existing photos, feel free to reach out for a free review on your property photos.

Contact Us

We are honored to be featuring Kai Lenny for The Wall Street Journal Story

We are so grateful for the opportunity to be the photographer and drone videographer for The Wall Street Journal featuring their story on the world famous surfer Kai Lenny and Ridge Lenny. We are so stoked to be filming them on hydrofoil in the North Shore.

Feature Story on 6th November 2021 in Transportation section:

“Surfers Want to Transform Your Commute With Hydrofoils”

Entrepreneurs are seeking to make so-called foil boards as ubiquitous on the water as electric scooters are on land

View Article Online:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/surfers-want-to-transform-your-commute-with-hydrofoils-11636210841

Online Version:

Video Online Version:

Print Version:

How to Create a Killer Marketing Portfolio for your Luxury Listing: Project Highlight: The Wailuku Estate

There are many agents who called themselves “Luxury Property Agents”, what does that actually mean in terms of your Marketing Portfolio? Are you taking care of your client and going all out in creating a killer portfolio that looks absolutely stunning? Are you hiring the Best Photographer in town to do the photoshoot? What you provide your client in the marketing materials you create represents you and your brand. Just be honest, you can’t call yourself the luxury and high-end agent if you are trying to please your million dollars buyers and sellers by giving them crappy photos. Your portfolio creates values, trust, and tells the story of how you are ‘taking care’ of your sellers.

We were very honored to be the photographer for this luxury Wailuku Estate. The property has 5.39 acre estate on the slopes of the Kahakuloa hills. This luxury hideaway estate has 7,200 sqft, three beds, 4 full baths, 4 half beds, kitchen, bar, multiple living room and entertainment space. We were hired to take the photos of the property, drone photos, video, 3D Matterport as well as Virtual Stage this unfurnished property and we would like to share the process of this photoshoot and how we have created amazing content for the agent to market this property.

We started in the morning with drone, and all the exterior shots as the location can get pretty cloudy later the day. We took the advantage of the sunniest moment to make sure the drone shots, especially video shots are sunny and the least amount of clouds. Then we started with doing photos for each room, starting from one side of the house to the other, then the 2nd floor and basement. Because of how big this property is and all the rooms are vacant and some look alike, we marked each room location while doing the shoot, so we don’t forget which room the photos belong to in post. It took about 3 hours to finish all the interior photos.

While doing the photoshoot, we provided our clients our sets of virtual furniture library so they can discuss and visualize the furniture in the space while being on the property. I hand sketched a floor plan on my iPad and marked down all the furniture sets they selected.

Our goal is always to provide our client the best service, most practical solution in an effective and beautiful manner.

We are done with choosing virtual furniture by the time the interior photography is done.

Next, we started the Matterport, since it is a very large property, with elevators, staircase, we took extra care to ensure the staircase areas are scanned properly without missing information. In that way, post-production will be easier. We also know that the more attention to details we pay on-site and go the extra mile to fix things, do the job properly, the less error it will have for Matterport. We don’t skip steps, or do a hasty job that would require a reshoot - we absolutely do not want to waste our client’s time so we usually pay extra attention to details and never miss anything on site.

We finish the interior photoshoot with a video walkthrough. Since the property is primarily empty, the client would like to have a teaser video instead of a room-to-room walkthrough. Also, since the client is not from Maui, we provided local suggestion in how to sell the Maui experience, what other lifestyle clips to put in, and what we should avoid to focus on.

Last but not least, we took sunset photos for the property. It was not the most beautiful sunset that day as it was rainy and dark clouds. So most of the twilight effects have to be done in post-production. However, it is still helpful to get the photo of the exterior of the building with lights on. We always try to keep the photo as authentic as the original property, so it is a realistic depiction with aesthetic touch and angles. That will do the justice of the property without exaggeration or misrepresentation. Natural and Beautiful is the message we want to give off.

Photos are delivered in batches to the client, since there are over 100 of photos, that way client can get a sneak peek and start planning their marketing materials without compromising the timeline. All photos are delivered within one week, with virtual staging completed, video, drone and 3D model.