Airbnb photography: the cheapest thing that changes everything

A guest scrolling search results gives your listing about four seconds, and almost all of it goes to the first image. Everything else you spent money on, the mattress, the kitchen, the borehole, is invisible until that image earns a click. It is the highest return spend in the whole project and the one most often cut when the budget gets tight.

Shoot last, not first

The most common mistake is photographing a nearly finished apartment to save a week. You will not go back and redo it, so those images become your shop window for two years.

• Every item of furniture in place, nothing on order
• Fully styled: linen on, towels folded, curtains hung, bulbs matching
• Spotless. Not tidy, spotless. Cameras see dust, smears and limescale that your eye edits out
• Nothing personal, nothing branded, no cables visible, nothing in the sink or on the draining board
• Snag list done. A cracked socket cover is invisible in the room and obvious in a photograph

The photographs are not marketing. They are the last construction cost, and the unit is not finished until they exist.

The shot list

A proper Nairobi short let shoot produces 25 to 35 usable images. Fewer than about 15 reads as something to hide.

1. Hero shot. The best angle of the best room, wide, in daylight, with the lights on. This one image does most of the work
2. Living area, two or three angles including one from the doorway so the space reads
3. Kitchen, wide and then a detail. Show the hob, the kettle and the work surface. Guests worry about kitchens
4. Every bedroom, wide, with the bed made properly and both bedside lamps on
5. Every bathroom, including the shower itself. Guests look for this specifically and its absence is read as a warning
6. The workspace, as a deliberate shot rather than something in the corner of another image
7. The view, if there is one, and the balcony
8. Building amenities, pool, gym, lift, reception
9. Parking and the entrance, which reassures on security and orientation
10. One or two lifestyle details, the coffee setup, the made bed close up. Two is enough

Order matters as much as quality

Most hosts upload in the order they walked around the flat. The order should be a persuasive sequence instead.

• Strongest image first, second strongest second. Assume many guests see only these two
• Then the sequence a guest mentally walks: living, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom
• Workspace early if you are targeting corporate and relocation guests, because that is what they are scanning for
• Amenities and parking towards the end
• Never lead with the bathroom, the corridor or an exterior of the building

The Nairobi specific mistakes

• Shooting at midday with curtains closed. Nairobi light is excellent and free. Open everything, shoot mid morning or late afternoon, lights on regardless
• Phone photos in portrait. Listings display landscape. Portrait images get cropped into nonsense
• Heavy filters and oversaturation. A guest who arrives to a duller room than the photos feels misled, and says so in the review
• Photographing amenities you do not control. The rooftop pool that is closed, the gym that belongs to the building next door
• Hiding the small unit. Wide angle lenses that make a 40 square metre studio look like a loft generate exactly one booking and one bad review
• No shot of the shower. In Nairobi, water is the thing guests are most anxious about. Show it

What it costs and when to redo it

A professional shoot is a one off cost measured in a couple of nights of revenue, against a photo set that works for years. It is not a close call.

Reshoot when you refurnish, when you repaint, when you add something significant like air conditioning or a workspace, or when the images are more than about three years old and the fashion has moved. Otherwise leave it alone.

How Goldstay handles it

We treat photography as part of launch rather than as marketing, and we do not list a unit before it is shot properly. It is charged at a published rate, USD 100 for a studio or one bed and USD 150 for two bedrooms or more, payable up front or from the first payout.

It is one of the standing items in our short-stay management service in Nairobi.

Related reading: why your Nairobi Airbnb is not getting bookings and Nairobi Airbnb startup costs.