Stock Image Best Practices for Your Real Estate Marketing

In the past, it was difficult and expensive to find royalty-free stock photos for your real estate website.

In the past few years there has been a lot of change in the stock photo market.

Numerous photographers, designers, and other creatives have become fed up with high prices for and limited access to premier stock imagery. As a response to this, they have developed free stock photo marketplaces where anyone can download free images.

This has led to more competitive prices for paid stock image services and a better selection of graphics, illustrations, photos, and videos.

Since there are many sites that offer stunning, royalty-free stock images, we’ve compiled the best stock photo resources where you can find the right visuals for your real estate agent marketing.

Stock Image Best Practices for Your Real Estate Marketing

Now that we know when and why to use stock images, let’s look at some of the best places to find them.

If you want people to spend time on your website, it’s a good idea to include images. However, if you don’t include pictures that accurately represent your community (for example, pictures of listings, trendy neighborhoods, well-known restaurants, popular parks, etc.), you could give people the wrong idea about what it’s really like.

It’s important to use your best judgement when creating marketing materials for your real estate website so you don’t mislead your visitors and online audience. For example, if you’re writing a blog post series about the best recreational spots in your market for families with young children, it’s a good idea to include pictures of the actual locations you’re mentioning. But if you’re just discussing fun activities that can be done at these recreational spots (like kids games and sports), using a stock photo of a child playing in a park is perfectly fine.

Subjectivity is involved when choosing stock photos, including those for real estate websites. Carefully consider each marketing activity that needs visuals to decide if a stock photo is good enough or if it would be better to get original pictures (or hire a professional photographer).

Free Stock Photo Websites with Royalty-Free Images

Now that you know when to use real estate stock photos for marketing purposes, you can explore what specific sites and services are available to you.

The databases mentioned in the text offer a variety of free stock images that are royalty-free. It is important to read the terms of use agreement for each service in order to determine what is allowed to be done with the images.

1)  Pexels

• The website features a compilation of stock images from an array of other online sources, making it simple to search across the web for photos.
• Users can search easily through both newly added photos and the most popular stock images via the top two navigation links.
• An email newsletter subscription gets you two updates per month featuring some of the best new images added to the site and 40 exclusive photos.

2)  Unsplash

You can get ten high resolution photos every ten days from Unsplash. You can “do whatever you want” with these photos. The team behind Unsplash has an interesting network of businesses that are all interconnected. If you have time, you should look into them more.

• With this site, you can inspect high-resolution images in extra-large formats to get a full view of each ones in the scrolling gallery and discern which ones are download-worthy.
• Sign up for the site’s email newsletter and you receive 10 new photos every 10 days, which can save you time on manually searching for ideal ones.
• Get real estate photo inspiration by discovering how creatives and professionals use Unsplash images for their blogs, projects, and corporate works.

3)  FreeImages.com

• Use the site’s comprehensive search function to discover specific photo types and themes that fit your real estate marketing needs.
• Image categories range from specific locations, occasions, and industries to more aesthetic elements, like background style/color and patterns.
• Though there are thousands of free images to choose from on the site, a more in-depth premium stock photo service is also available.

4)  Stokpic

• Get 10 new stock photos sent right to your inbox once every two weeks from the service by signing up for its newsletter.
• See the most recent 100 pictures added to the site and which images are considered favorites.
• Categories include lifestyle, architecture, landscapes, and people — each of which could offer the right real estate photos for your marketing.

5)  Refe

• Dozens of pages worth of royalty-free stock images covering several different topics and themes can be found on Refe.
• Business, home, transport, travel, and nature are just a sampling of the many categories you’ll find images under.
• Easily and quickly use the site’s search bar to find stock photos that fit the real estate content subjects featured on your website.

6)  Gratisography

• Thanks to the generosity of the site’s operator, who photographed all of the images featured there, you can download each picture and use them for whatever.
• The pictures may be considered outside-the-box due to their mostly unusual nature, but using vibrant, lively images on your blog every now and then could help.
• You can subscribe to receive photo alerts from the photographer who runs the site to learn when new images are published.

7)  SplitShire

• Lots of great landscape shots and pics of an assortment of people is what you’ll find on the intriguing SplitShire.
• As with the other sites mentioned, the images showcased here are categorized into niche subjects, like technology, interiors, and still life.
• Sensing a theme with email newsletters yet? Yup, this site is yet another that can let you know when new pictures are posted.

8)  Little Visuals

• Numerous interesting pics can be found on Little Visuals, whose photographs offer lots of negative space — perfect for adding text overlays.
• Stunning images of rural, suburban, and urban life can be found, meaning you can likely find multiple photos that work for your market’s climate and neighborhood types.
• Sadly, the site-runner has passed away, but he was gracious enough to share plenty of amazing photos with the world, so there’s no shortage of incredible images here.

9)  Life of Pix

• From fields of flowers to sunsets by the sea, you’ll discover many gorgeous nature shots that could be perfect for your real estate website in some capacity.
• Get regular updates from the team behind Life of Pix so you can see the latest and greatest additions to the site.
• Need stock videos for your real estate marketing too? You’re in luck: Life of Vids is a sister site that offers awe-inspiring, copyright-free footage you can edit as you please.

10)  Death to the Stock Photo

• Featured in major publications like Entrepreneur magazine, Death to the Stock Photo aims to provide stellar, royalty-free stock photos bloggers and professionals would actually want to use.
• Sign up with your email to get a free set of stock images once a month in your inbox, in turn saving you the trouble of searching across the web for ideal pics.
• Though there are many free stock images you can secure through the website, there’s also a modest premium package: just $15 a month to get numerous stellar shots.

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11)  Superfamous

• You’d be hard-pressed to find more remarkable stock photos than on Superfamous, which highlights seemingly every beautiful facet of nature.
• The site is beyond straightforward: The grid layout makes it easy to scroll through and find which images could serve your real estate marketing best.
• One great use case for these photos? Add inspiring quotes as text overlay and share them on your real estate social media channels.

12)  picjumbo

• “Jumbo” hardly begins to describe how many phenomenal royalty-free stock photos you can download from this top-tier website.

• Download more than 600 photos for free (or a suggested small price — throw in a few bucks if you can) for a free stock image pack.

• Do you use Photoshop? Then consider also downloading the picjumbo plug-in for the software, which allows you to easily edit and modify photos for your marketing in the platform.

13) Image Source

If you want to find pictures that are suitable for families, Image Source is the best place to look. You can find some great pictures of kids “around the house” on the website.

14)  StockSnap.io

• View new, trending, popular, and most-viewed stock photos instantly on this premier stock image resource.
• Receive a new batch of stock images weekly by signing up for the site’s email newsletter.
• If you need help designing around the photos you use from the service, use its sister offering, Snappa.io.

15)  Magdeleine

• View the intricate details for each free stock photo offering on this site, including what camera the photographer used and its tags and resolution.
• Need a certain color palette for your real estate website photos? Use the tab at the top of the screen to navigate through different hues.
• Scroll through both images with Creative Commons Zero licenses (no attribution required) and those that require photographer/source citation.

16)  Jay Mantri

• “Do anything” and “make magic” are the themes behind this fully equipped stock photo website, per the gentleman behind it.
• You’ll find some of the most amazing images of nature and architecture in this collection: from the beach to the forest, and everywhere in between.
• Get an all-at-once glimpse of every photo Mantri has shared on the site by checking out the archives section.

17)  Cupcake

• Whereas your average Instagrammer needs to use pre-made filters to make their photos “pop,” the images on this site are of a true professional quality.
• The Swedish youngster behind the website doesn’t offer a terribly large number of free stock images, but the ones he does are beautiful.
• If you’re a big fan of his work, head over to his Creative Market site to check out for-sale stock images you can use in your real estate marketing.

18)  epicantus

• Every week, seemingly without fail, new, top-of-the-line stock photos are added to this in-depth online resource.
• Close-ups of inanimate objects, wide-angle views of famous landmarks, and shots aimed at the sky are what you’ll mostly find here.
• It may take you some time to scroll through the bevy of alluring images featured on the site, but chances are you’ll routinely find useful pics.

19)  Free Nature Stock

• Blooming flowers, starry skies, (presumably) babbling brooks — that’s what you’ll see … all in just the first handful of images featured on the site.
• The site’s operator notes he posts one new photo daily, so check back again each day and you’ll see a brand-spankin’ new pic.
• The gentleman behind the site also sends occasional news and info to subscribers regarding his images, so feel free to sign up to get updates.

20)  Negative Space

• Twenty new photos are published each week on Negative Space, which allows for filtering of images based on a few key categorizations.
• The negative space in each photo allows for easy additions of text, so you can use these for blog posts and add in the titles over the images.
• Whether you want to include copy over the left, center, or right portion of photos, you can find plenty of each kind on the site.

21)  Good Stock Photos

• The aptly titled site hosts a random mixture of photos: landscapes, office and household objects, and much more.
• A full membership to the site allows you to pay a nominal fee (some of which goes to charity) to get 20 images sent to you via email every month.
• A simple search function can aid your photo exploration efforts and pinpoint the right images based on tags.

Paid Stock Photo Resources with Royalty-Free Images

We get it—the terms “paid” and “royalty-free” in the header above might be confusing. But it’s actually pretty simple: instead of getting images for free, like the ones above, the services below sell photos using a credits system, one-time purchases, monthly subscriptions, or some combination of the three.

There are no extra charges for using the images offered by these companies. The images are either royalty-free or come with other images for editorial use that have royalty charges. Look at each option to see if it is a good fit for your needs.

Paying for stock photos allows multiple agents at your firm to use them across their online marketing, which could make it a worthwhile purchase for the head(s) of your company. Ask your brokers if they would be willing to cover the cost of the subscription, or see if other team members would be willing to pitch in some marketing dollars to get a certain number of image downloads each month.

Although you may work alone, it can still be beneficial to pay for stock photos – especially if you write a lot of real estate blog posts every month, produce lengthy content such as ebooks, detailed real estate reports, or regular creative infographics. You should examine each website to see if any of them offer a plan that suits you.