There is a blog, by Athol Kay that publishes bad MLS photos, they are very easy to find and are sent to Athol from all over the country. Some are from Minnesota. Athol publishes the photos to raise awareness among Realtors and to get agents to take more of an interest in their property photos.
Properties are marketed on the internet and that is where most buyers are introduced to homes for sale. If a home looks appealing online there is a better chance that buyers will want to see it.
Property photos are hard to take and to be honest not all homes are photogenic. Realtors do not have to take their own photos, they can hire a professional photographer. It isn’t very expensive, and worth the investment.
The most common mistakes agents make when they take photographs is shooting into the light, not having enough light, or using a flash and having it reflected right back into the picture by a mirror or a window, or taking pictures of things that are not very appealing, like a small closet or a dark hallway or a toilet with the seat open. There are also property photos with people or pets in them, or open garage doors, or a lovely trash can on the curb right in front of the house. I saw one photo taken by a seller where the air was so full of dust that it looked like there were ghosts in the picture.
There isn’t any better way to say I don’t care than to have pictures of homes covered in snow on the internet in July. There are plenty of them out there. When I see the photo the first thing that goes through my mind is that it has been on the market for awhile and then I begin to wonder how motivated the seller is. I am left with the impression that nobody cares about the home or if it sells. The snow makes the home look like it as been abandoned and is just sitting out there on the internet.
Photos need to be to lighten and tweaked a bit before they go onto the internet. Often MLS photos look like they went right from the camera to the internet.
Some agents don’t have the right kind of camera. There are a wide range of cameras that will do the job, it doesn’t have to be expensive but a wide angle lens is a must.
My clients don’t expect me to be a photographer but they do expect and derserve to have property photos that make their homes look as appealing as possible. When I list a home that is not very appealing I am selective about what I photograph. If I can’t make it look wonderful I hire someone who can. I don’t want my listings rejected by buyers or other agents because of the photos.
Agents sometimes don’t understand that the picture you put in tells a story. There is a cat (smelly and allergic people cross it off their list immediately – EVEN if the house is pristinely clean). It looks like a garage conversion or a converted dayroom so I would think that they have over-exaggerated the number of bedrooms (I KNOW – it is the kind of closet they have but you only get 2 seconds for me to look at it and that was my impression). Speaking of closets, the house OBVIOUSLY does not have enough storage since they have to have a free-standing closet. With 17,000+ listings in my market those things matter! Great post!
Tara – you are right about the cats, people love them or hate them, either way they don’t belong on the MLS. The picture in this case is of a loft and the closet is likely to be a + as lofts often have little in the way of closets or storage space that is built in.
I’m of two minds about this.
On one hand, you are marketing the home and trying to attract interest by only showing the positive aspects of a home.
On the other hand, you aren’t actually hiding the negative aspects from the buyers. You just make them visit the property to actually discover the negatives in person. This can back fire, annoying people who continue to view properties that looked great on the MLS and look not so good in person. We got to the point we made a game out of it, guessing what would be horrible based on the absence of pictures.
I think this is why staged homes get an advantage. Sellers get tired of seeing homes in disrepair, so a home that has truly been prepared for the market is a welcome sight.
So true I see dozens of pictures that anyone with any sense of knowing what they should be doing would not take more-less post on MLS. Then those same agents wonder why they can’t seem to get homes sold and everyone else is just “lucky”………
Nice pic! I have seen some real nice photos throughout the years, but none with a cat in it. You have to love it.
Bizarre. This post just rang a Google Alert for my name after two years.
Hi Teresa! Long time no see.
Athol