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House portraits are an often overlooked marketing tool in real estate. With many uses, a portrait of the home is an affordable attention-getter.

A stunning sketch, watercolor, or illustration of the home can be an excellent table-top marketing piece or closing gift to the client. 

Many companies offer custom house portraits, but how to decide which one to work with?

So, to help make your decision-making process easier, in this post, we’re going to rate and compare 3 custom house portraits to find the best one in 2024.

But first, let’s take a closer look at custom house portraits and their uses. 

What Are Custom House Portraits?

A custom house portrait is an artistic rendering of a home using watercolor, oils, or sketching. Working from a high-resolution photo of the property, an artist creates a flattering, accurate, and captivating portrait. 

Most house portraits are of the front exterior of the house, but any space or room can be rendered into a portrait. 

What’s the purpose of custom home portraits? Their functions vary but they are typically used as:

  • Client gifts at closing
  • Table or countertop displays at showings and open houses
  • As part of listing photography to add an extra marketing boost 
  • Also, as a housewarming, birthday, or holiday gift
  • Or simply as a desired piece of artwork by a homeowner

So, now you know that custom house portraits are the perfect way to showcase a home’s beauty in a tastefully presented 100% original work of art that will proudly hang on a wall and be viewed and enjoyed every day throughout the coming years.

Overview of 3 Custom House Portrait Services 

Now that we understand home portraits, it’s time to take a closer look at 3 custom house portrait providers. 

Harold Home

Harold Home house portraits

Harold Home is the real estate portrait division of West & Willow LLC, a pet portrait company based in New York City.

Their dedicated team of creatives specializes in custom-illustrated house portraits. 

Harold Home’s home portrait process, similar to the others in our comparison, works like this:

  • Upload a photo of the home
  • Select among various art styles, finishes, and custom add-ons
  • Review a proof when ready

They offer 3 portrait style types (sketch, traditional, and modern) and feature custom services such as tree or object removal, adding a pet, and faster production time for additional costs.

Harold Home aims for a 3-day production turnaround time. Once the proof is approved, shipping schedules vary.

Price: In terms of price, a standard 8 x 10 portrait starts at $69 and doesn’t include framing or shipping.

Welham & Co

Welham & Co custom house portraits

Welham & Co is a custom portrait service based in Melbourne, Australia. Their team of artists seeks to capture memories in eye-catching custom portraits on a variety of subjects — real estate house portraits as well.

Their services include:

  • Framed or unframed options
  • Unlimited edits and revisions
  • 1-3 day turn-around time for a proof
  • 3 styles to choose from — oil, sketch, or watercolor

Price: Their price for a 10 x 8 portrait starts at $69 and doesn’t include shipping. 

Additionally. they maintain multiple warehouses across the globe and provide fast local shipping to the US, Canada, Australia, NZ, and the UK.

So, now let us look at our third provider.

The Perfect Closing Gift

Custom House Portraits

One-of-a-kind house portraits make the perfect buyer or seller gift.

PhotoUp

PhotoUp watercolor house portraits

PhotoUp is a global real estate marketing company offering a full range of services, including photo editing, video editing, virtual staging, single property websites — and custom house portraits

PhotoUp’s custom house portrait services include:

  • Framed or unframed portraits
  • Three style options to choose from
  • Multiple size options
  • Also, titling and other custom addition services are available

Additionally, all portraits are printed on high-quality paper. Production and turnaround time is 1-2 days. Also, rush work and custom options are available. 

Price: The starting price for an 8 x 10 portrait is $49.95 with free shipping on orders of more than $99. 

Our Comparison – 3 Custom House Portrait Providers

Having examined these three custom house portrait service companies, it’s clear they all offer roughly the same services and follow a similar process.

So, now, let’s go deeper and compare them in terms of turn-around time, price, and expertise.

Turn Around Time

Production time needed from receipt of the photo until proof delivery for approval:

  • Harold Home – 3 days
  • Welham & Co – 1 to 3 days
  • PhotoUp – 1 to 2 days

Pricing

So far, so good. Now, we’ll compare the cost for a standard 8 x 10 print:

  • Harold Home – $69
  • Welham & Co – $69
  • PhotoUp – $49.95

Expertise & Quality

In terms of the quality of the paper, detail of the rendering, and overall appearance:

  • Harold Home – no mention of paper quality on the site and many of their portrait renderings border on cartoonish
  • Welham & Co – portraits are printed on museum-quality giclée matte paper. Surveying their samples, there appears to be better attention to detail
  • PhotoUp – also uses museum-quality, giclée paper. Out of all three companies, PhotoUp’s portraits are detailed, vivid, and quality renderings 

The Results – Our Ratings 

So, now, based on our comparison, let’s rate these 3 custom house portrait providers.

All three companies produce good work, but in terms of cost, turnaround time, and quality, here are our rankings:

#1 – PhotoUp
#2 – Welham & Co
#3 – Harold Home 

We reached these results after taking all of the following into consideration. 

First, PhotoUp provides the fastest turnaround times – 1 to 2 days faster than the other companies. 

Second, in terms of cost, PhotoUp is the least expensive for a standard house portrait as well as edits and changes. 

Third, and finally, PhotoUp’s impressive-looking home portraits are a reflection of their long track record of expertise in the areas of real estate and architectural imaging and photography. 

The Perfect Closing Gift

Custom House Portraits

One-of-a-kind house portraits make the perfect buyer or seller gift.

House Portraits With PhotoUp!

PhotoUp delivers beautiful custom house portraits in 3 easy steps:

1. Upload – upload any high-resolution exterior or interior home photo from your phone, computer, or camera. We can work with almost any image you send. Larger prints may require higher resolution images.

2. Select – choose from our three digital house portrait styles:

  • Watercolor is a traditional watercolor look with soft colors and edges
  • Sketch style incorporates more line work mixed with vibrant colors 
  • Illustration-style is a fully hand-illustrated house portrait

3. Approve – within 1 to 2 days, you’ll receive a hi-res proof to examine and approve. Once we get your approval, we’ll produce the portrait and ship it. 

Further, in terms of the quality, here is additional detail on the paper:

  • All our watercolor house portraits are printed in the US on museum-quality matte paper sourced from Japan
  • Each sketch and illustration is giclée-printed on archival, acid-free paper that yields brilliant prints that will brighten up any room

You can also choose to have your house portrait framed, printed on an edge-to-edge canvas, or purchase the digital print-ready file only.

So, why wait? Order a beautiful custom house portrait from PhotoUp today!

We hope this post helped your decision-making process of what custom house portraits service to choose to create a stunning house portrait. 

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Gregory Gronbacher

Real Estate Sales Agent / Professional Blogger

Gregory is a real estate sales agent and a state-certified instructor of real estate licensing and law. Originally from New York City, he's called Grand Rapids, Michigan home since 1995.

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