The importance of listing photos in MLS

Arnie Stein discusses the importance of listing photos and the improvements made by Metrolist.<!--more-->

Dan: Today we are talking with Arnie Stein, broker associate with Fuller Sothebys International Realty and head of the Stein team. Arnie welcome.

Arnie Stein: Hi Dan, how are you?

Dan: Great to have you here.

Arnie Stein: Well thank you for having me.

Dan: Well today we are talking about the importance of listing photos, and I guess for those people in the real estate industry or even consumers we could all kind of guess the importance of photos, because when somebody is interested in a house, whats the first thing they say?

Arnie Stein: Show me. What does it look like?

Dan: Yeah, and they want to get on they want to take a look at photos, can you share some of your thoughts about the philosophy of listing photos for your particular buyers and selling?

Arnie Stein: And as a marketing agent, the number one priority that I have is to really set the house up as positive as possible to make it look as good as possible, and you do this with the best quality story telling photos that you can possibly have.

Dan: Sure. I mean you and I have both been in the business a while and we have seen some horrific photos online, like there is a nice shot of the bed.

Arnie Stein: Sure.

Dan: I think part of this, I think people dont understand is not only do you go in and prep the seller and prep the houses you just mentioned, but its probably a good idea to meet the photographer out there right?

Arnie Stein: Oh absolutely because I think the photographer is an extension of how you want the house to appear, and I think every house has a story to tell.

Dan: Yeah and you mentioned also high quality photos, because these days these photos are not only being used on the web, but they are also being used for print right?

Arnie Stein: Absolutely.

Dan: Yeah, one of the things I wanted to mention is that recently Metrolist has expanded and now allows you to upload 25 photos into your Metrolist listings, before it used to be 10 and I think this is going to be great for everybody buyers, sellers and realtors?

Arnie Stein: Dan thats absolutely right, its a wonderful enhancement that all of us should really take advantage of and its not only how they provided this possibility of using 25 photos, but also you can include captions for each of the photos as well. So its a tremendous improvement.

Dan: Yeah I forgot about the caption feature which is great because you can actually tell what room they are specifically looking at, they maybe confused is it the you know family room, is it the living room and so forth, but the other thing is that for you as realtor.com use still allow 25 photos if you had enhanced listings.

Arnie Stein: Right.

Dan: And now those if you put 25 in the MLS they can roll right into realtor.com.

Arnie Stein: Right.

Dan: How important do you think photos are to the ultimate sale of the house?

Arnie Stein: Photos are everything. Basically our number sense for viewing real estate is with photography, is our sense of sight and so the better we can make the house look, the better story we can tell with our photos, the better the house is going to present itself to the consumer and my theory is the faster it will sell.

Dan: And I dont know as long as you have been in the business I have never heard of a buyer saying "Jesus I wish there were less photos" they always say "I would like to see more photos" so by being able to put 25 into the MLS now really going to help you, help us, help everybody.

Arnie Stein: Right. Dan its a tremendous advantage to everyone.

Dan: Arnie, thanks for the information, thanks for being here.

Arnie Stein: Thank you.