Friday, 6th of March 2009 at 01:15:42 PMI’m spending another day, like so many others, searching through the MLS for my clients. I’m spent quite a bit of time with my clients getting a feel for what they are looking for. I read the data sheets, the notes, comments, look at the map for location and spend some time looking at pictures. I know that I am a visual person, I like to see pictures, spreadsheets, data, information and even in person visits. With the current inventory of homes, I can’t preview every house for my clients, so I depend on the MLS, hey, that’s what it’s there for, to help us (me and my clients).
Over the last couple of months, heck, probably since the day I started serving on the MLS Committee, pictures has crept into a number of conversations. Today, once again, I am reminded of those conversations and the challenge of getting the membership to do their clients more justice. I want to sell your listing, I want to find the perfect home for my client, PLEASE, please, help me to do that. Give me pictures. Okay, let’s clarify, give me good pictures that will help to sell your listing. This is an example of a picture that doesn’t do that:
What does this picture tell me?
Okay, the floor looks dirty? What room is this, guess it doesn’t really matter, this picture doesn’t tell me anything and of course, I now have to make a trip to the house to see if it would qualify for my client, add it to my all day house preview day, which I know have to prioritize because there are too many.
Now, let’s swing to the other side for a second. One of the great benefits of FlexMLS is that we can have as many pictures as we care to upload, I love this benefit. Of course, now I’m starting to hate it for reasons I couldn’t imagine until recently. I was looking at a Condo listing today, 48 pictures, awesome, going to get a feel for this listing. Not a single one of those pictures was of the inside the condo, that’s right 48 pictures and I still don’t know what the inside of the condo looks like. Add it to my list to see, guess I don’t have to spend anytime outside looking at the complex, I have every angle covered there.
Then there are the listings that have one single picture, of the front of the house, question, did you even get out of the care to take the picture? Do you care if your listing sells? Do you want to get paid for taking that single picture?
The recent one that has cracked me up is the pictures with borders… I can imagine my buyers conversation:
“Look honey, this one looks great, doesn’t the border make it seem warm and inviting?” “Why yes dear, let’s call Craig and make an offer.” Thanks for taking the time to add a border, not sure what you think it will do, maybe save the time and take some better pictures instead.
Ideally, I suggest around 10 pictures, covering the front of the home, major living spaces (kitchen, living room, master bedroom), backyard, views if they are nice and anything else that gives a good impression of the home. Remember, it’s like a book, if the cover doesn’t look good, then the buyer won’t ask for a showing and without a showing, there will not be an offer.
If you don’t feel comfortable taking pictures of your listings, I have been rather happy with the professional photographers that I’ve used especially paired with a good staging service. Let’s make sure we do our part for our clients.
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The ones I like are the ones where they have 3 pictures… you go back and look when the house was sold last time 5 years ago and ITS THE SAME 3 PICTURES. Lazy realtors=more business for us good ones when we take care of our customers
Dean, Thanks for the comment, when you find those listing that recycle the pictures and it’s a different agent, go ahead and hit the “Report a Violation”, it’s against user policy to user another agents photos for a listing.