I've looked at a lot of photos of houses and very few of them actually show the house well. When you're wanting to get people to come and take a look at your house in order to sell it, the better the pictures the more likely you will be to have someone come by and purchase it.

This is also true for those in the business of listing and selling homes on a professional basis.

Too often, now, it comes down to pulling out an iPhone or blackberry taking one snap from the end of the driveway or from the driver’s seat of the car, and then when inside the home taking one or so from the entrance door to each room. Really couldn't you put in just a few more minutes cause as we all know a picture is worth a thousand words?

So here are a few basic hints. First, we need to know that the item that we are listing is the house so taking pictures of furniture is sort of pointless. There are a few items or places that we should focus on.

One should be the nicest view from the home. Could it be a view of some mountains? A view of the ocean? A field? Or maybe it's the focus of being a child-friendly neighborhood.

Picture number 2 is a view of the entire front of the home. This should include the front door and the garage doors if they can fit in the same picture. This picture will give potential buyers a general idea of what the home looks like and the style.

Picture number 3 the front door, or the grand entrance. Here you should take a little more time to try and compose the picture a bit. Is there a planter or flower that could be in the foreground of the picture? Try to get closer to the door, sometimes just taking a picture of the door handle will be more than enough to draw in someone's attention.

Picture numbers 4,5,6 here a little bit of mystery is ok and taking a picture of every room in the home can be boring, so just focus on the best rooms usually the kitchen, master bedroom, and master bath, then the living or great room.

Pictures 7,8,9 here take a few close-ups. Suggestions could be taking a picture of the kitchen cupboards, the faucet on the bathtub that is if it's nice and clean, then how about a picture of a chandler or of a fireplace?

Taking pictures of a house is not meant to show you the entire house but just enough to give you an idea of the overall feel of the home. With just these ten pictures you will easily be able to tell if the house is a diamond, a diamond in the rough, or just a rock, or as my wife would call it a fixer-upper.

Taking a quick few snapshots will take just a minute or so of your time. Going through this list of 10 pictures will take about 10 minutes. And if a picture is truly worth a thousand words, then in just about ten minutes you've been able to write ten thousand words. And if in this blog I include only one good picture will you remember the words or just the picture?