Professional Realtor Headshots

When working in the real estate industry, you'll likely interact with numerous clients via listing sites or social media platforms. Having a professional headshot is crucial to convey your reliability and trustworthiness as a real estate agent. As the saying goes, "a picture is worth a thousand words."

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6 Ideas for Professional Realtor Headshots

If you’re a realtor, the first impression that you give people who contact you is extremely important. And whether your clients hear of you through your website or through advertisement, a headshot is going to create that first impression, so it’s best to aim for an excellent one.

Here are six tips to get a great realtor headshot:

1. Dress as you would like to be perceived

What you wear in professional headshots is important. Using a neutral and clean background–especially when portraying a high number of employees–allows for consistency and for a visually pleasing professional approach throughout the brand.

A neutral background will keep the focus on you, and convey that you went the extra mile and paid attention to detail; you are the person that anyone would want next to their side.

By using a clean background, you achieve that perfect middle ground between looking professional and approachable.

2. Smile

To smile or not to smile? The answer is easy, you should always smile in your headshot photos or professional portraits—smiling is one of the easiest ways to make a good impression on others.

A smile conveys a wide array of feelings to the person on the receiving end of it, such as joy, confidence, success and satisfaction. This facial expression tells people that working with you is enjoyable and pleasant, making you a more attractive option for potential clients.

Being able to show a genuine smile during your headshot photography session will communicate a sense of trustworthiness and confidence. The choice of whether to smile showing your teeth or with a closed mouth comes down to preference, but, generally speaking, an open-mouthed smile makes you look more approachable and younger, while a closed-mouth smile makes you look more serious and confident. Regardless of what you choose, your expression has to be genuine and natural—a forced smile can convey negative emotions.

3. The Right Pose

The pose you strike in your business headshots is going to have a direct impact on your professional image. Our body language says a lot about us, especially when we are in front of the camera.

Poses such as crossing your arms, hunching over or tilting your head can make you appear unprofessional, closed off and unapproachable to your prospective clients. You must avoid looking too stiff or uncomfortable.

Approachability is king when it comes to real estate marketing and personal branding, so it’s better to find a pose that comes natural to you and that shows that you’re a great real estate professional.

It’s completely normal to feel nervous during a photo shoot, especially if it is your first time, but hiring a professional headshot photographer can put your mind at ease, and help you have fun with the experience of getting a headshot that shows the real you.

4. Reinforce Your Branding

Your real estate branding depends on your professional image, so your headshot must reflect your brand identity. Your message has to be consistent throughout your whole brand, so, if you use lively colors in your website, you should wear a professional outfit with lively colors in your headshot.

While on the topic of consistency, it is important to note that your profile picture should be the same in every social media platform, and this also should be the photo in your business cards. Other headshots can be used throughout your website, but your best headshot should always be your profile picture so people can identify you and your real estate business readily.

5. Have Professional Hairstyle and Makeup Done

Your hair and your face are the first things that people are going to notice when looking at your headshots, so they need to look great! You need a style that looks both natural and professional, which is why it’s better to avoid getting anything that’s too over the top—it needs to look like the day-to-day version of you, so your clients can recognize you when they see you in person.

6. Avoid Posing with Props

It’s become very common to use phones or computers as props when taking corporate headshots, but using technological devices in a business portrait that has the purpose of transmitting your true essence can make a bad first impression. It can also be a distraction from the face of the person in the photo, defeating the purpose of a headshot.

Things to Consider for Getting Perfect Real Estate Agent Headshots

It is important to invest time and effort in having a high-quality headshot session to get high-quality results. Remember that these headshots are going to be part of the marketing tools you’re going to use to further your real estate business. Following these tips will help you make the most out of your headshots.

Find a Professional Photographer

A professional portrait photographer is an essential asset to achieve those perfect headshots that you want and need. You might already have worked with a few photographers in the past, but you need to make sure that your headshots are taken by someone who has experience with portrait photography.

When searching for the photographer you’re going to be working with, take these things into consideration:

Ask for referrals: Ask other agents or agencies in your area to give you recommendations. This is going to help you find someone that you know has done a good job in the past.
Look at their portfolio: You need to make sure that the portfolio and style of the photographer matches what you are looking for in your headshots.
Establish copyright rules and discuss the price: Photographers usually maintain all the copyrights, unless stated otherwise, so let them know how you’re going to be using the headshots and confirm the legality of this beforehand. You should also make sure that you know the price and the deliverable product you’re going to get before scheduling the photo shoot.

Choose the Right Location

You need a place that represents your business the best. If you work in the city, you might want to have citylights in the background or, if you work in a suburban area, you may want to have a more natural-looking background with lots of natural light.

It all comes down to preference, but the most important thing to keep in mind when choosing a location is that the background shouldn’t distract from the focal point of the photo, which is you.

If you want your headshots to be taken in a photography studio, a good option is to use a solid color background—this is going to look better when using the headshot as a profile picture in social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.

Photography a group of realtor standing in front of a building.

two men realtors shaking hands in an office.

Get High-resolution Copies

Since your headshot is going to be used in marketing materials, it is important that these photos are high-resolution so they look top-notch wherever they are used. Low-resolution photos can be used for social media profiles or websites, but high-resolution images are always needed when you are going to print advertising or promotional materials.

Avoid Over-editing Your Realtor Headshot

Your headshots can be lightly edited or retouched so they fit your vision perfectly. This is done best by a professional, and your photographer may include retouching the photos in their packages, or they may charge a fee for each photo that needs to be retouched.

It is highly recommended to let a professional do this, since inexperienced people can take edition tools too far, making your headshots look cartoonish, unnatural or awkward. Remember that you should look your best while maintaining your essence.

Update Your Headshots Frequently

It’s up to you how often you want to update your headshots, but you have to consider that it should always look like you. Your clients are more likely to trust you if the photos they’ve seen look exactly like you, so it is important to update them frequently enough so there aren’t too many differences between your current appearance and your appearance at the time of taking the headshots.

It is recommended to take new headshots every two to three years, but you should consider doing it sooner if you made a drastic change to your appearance, such as changing your hairstyle, gaining or losing a lot of weight, etc. Also, your headshots should change as the identity of your business changes, so if you start working for another agency, move to a different city or change your personal branding, you should get new headshots.

As a real estate agent, the most important things to keep in mind when getting your professional headshots taken are your personality and your brand. Consistency and authenticity will make your potential clients trust and want to do business with you.