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NOT THE BEST MLS LISTING PHOTOS, NOT THE WORST

It never ceases to amaze me the apparent disdain many agents have for the listing photos they put, or have put, into their MLS listings. In the age of Internet marketing are not the photos one of the most important components of the listing? Do these listing agents not agree that their responsibility it to present the most positive possible aspects of their listing to potential buyers?

Do some of these agents really think that their skills and abilities (and ego?) transcend the mundane marketing criteria mere mortal agents must follow? Or, do they simply lack the skill set or ability to understand what is best for the property in the marketing arena?

Here are a few examples for your viewing pleasure.

My kingdom for a candle!

Every listing should have a shot of the burn pile.

I spend hours trying to get just the right angle.

Was this taken during an earthquake?

Look out all you stagers and decorators, there is a new sheriff in town!

Obviously it is going to be easier selling the tree than the home.

A $700,000 REO, Move in ready??

Got vacuum?

Sorry, the bar is closed. Not cleaned, just closed.

This one is great. A 2000 square foot, 5 bedroom, 4 bath home on 1 acre for $ 6,900,000! Thats $ 3450.00 per square foot. Wouldn't you just rush out and make an offer on this one? How do you like the roof line and curb appeal?

And the WINNER, hands down!

"I am just too busy to worry about pictures!"

Posted by Mike West on 11/27/2007 05:22 PM

Comments (46)

photography

This post has been included in California Information El Dorado County, CA Information

46 Comments on NOT THE BEST MLS LISTING PHOTOS, NOT THE WORST

NOV

2007

Mike:

Thanks for making me laugh! I needed that! Please keep it coming!

Mike, thanks for the good laugh and thanks for sharing.

I believe that many times agents upload photos and then don't check them. I have seen pictures of two different houses with one listing. I have also seen the same picture being loaded twice (picture 1 and picture 2 are the same).

Great laugh! Huge peeve of mine are the horrific pics some agents upload! Messy kitchens, unmade beds, filthy looking bathrooms! Don't even get me started (although I fear it's too late already...).

Makes you wonder, do the homeowners ever check out their listings on the MLS?

Too cute! Thank you. Love the one about the new sheriff in town!

Thanks for the laugh! But its true, we recently had a listing with another office in town where they even took a photo of the kitchen with the dishwasher open full of dishes and laundry on the couch...assume it was clean.

I am sure most of us have taken numerous photos and only used a few because we are just to picky?

I love looking at these - thanks for the giggles :). I think agents that post this kind of crap should have to sit on a naughty mat somewhere!! :)

Fun post! I'm always amazed at the sheer laziness or just bullheadedness that many agents ooze. How can someone list a million dollar home and have no pictures?? It's no coincidence that many of the expired listings I pick up are from that group of pictureless wonders.

The insanity continues...lol. When will these agents wake up and realize that the pictures are a part of the marketing? It is kind of sadistically funny to scan the listing photos and wonder about the agent behind the photo.

Thanks for the laugh!

Nice,

I would rather have lousy picturs that show the truth than no pictures. Many Utah Real Estate Agents still don't even bother putting any photos on their MLS listings. It is a huge dis service to their clients even if the homes for sale really look awful.

You took the sarcasm right out of my mouth, Mike. Nice collection of crappy pics. Good job. These lazy or clueless agents are part of what give our industry and profession a bad name. I don't understand why is takes several days to upload pictures, when the property is listed. Don't these people know there's a short window of opportunity when the listing is "hot"?

You forgot the ubiquitous bathroom shot with the toilet seat up! Wow, an actual toilet? Let's put a full price offer together! I hate to bring it up, but I've noticed that several ethnic backgrounds tend to be frequent offenders of this crime. To me, what it boils down to is that lax (or no) standards and an unsuspecting public allow this poor service to continue. Seems that everone has a nephew or niece they need to use when they move. The agent doesn't have to be good, only "family".

Perhaps agents not meeting minimum service standards should not be proteced by the "no solicitation" rule. It drives me crazy that sellers are getting such bad service and I they don't know it because we are prohibited from contacting them. Have a good one, and keep you chin up. Spring is right around the corner.

Hey Mike I love it..... Just what I was Ranting About on my Blog:

To All the one picture posters out there. STOP!

Chris In Thermopolis, WY

Hi Mike, Great collection of shots. I love to see what some agents are capable of "not" doing correctly. I take great pride in my pictures also and so should all agents. Great post! My favorite shot is still from last year. I can't remember who did the post but it was done on this subject and was of a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling shot. Too much. Thanks for the collection you presented here.
Bob Hammerstein

You can't beat a bad picture blog - I have seen some doozies in my time as well. Thanks for sharing!

This is great! It's amazing when they want you to list their home, the electric is off, there are no lights.

As I suggested somewhere else, some techie should invent and extension cord that you can plug into the cigarette lighter in the car so you can take your own SPOT LIGHT!

Steady as she goes!!!That one was fffffuunnneeyyy! as I shake, rattle, and roll!

those are some bad photos. I actually just got a listing because when I went to preview the property, I took more pictures than the listing agent. It pays off big to have good pictures. I don't even send listings to clients unless they have at least 2 photos, even on land. Show me what you are selling!

I just was writing about this as well. I always love the pictures of the homeowners in the photos. I also recently saw one of the owner packing in the garage, and the photo was blurry. Needless to say my buyers passed on it. The photos were not remotely appealing.

I like the last one best. Those are the listings I always show first.....NOT!

YOU MY FRIEND ARE CORRECT, PHOTOS ARE SOOOOOO IMPORTANT! I STILL SEE REALTORS NOT EVEN CARING ENOUGH TO PUT PHOTOS IN THE MLS.

OMG the earthquake reference was too funny! I am an instructor and was using the photos from a recent listing as an example today. Here's the thing, the home was listed by a local agent three weeks ago and she used the primary photo from when the home was list in 2000 - SEVEN years ago and the other photos are from 2005. No new photos. Here's what kills me, she's been listed for 18 months so the photos are older than her license!

Nice! A pictures does say a thousand words, in this case only bad words.

That's pretty funny. I like the pictures where they are trying to make a particular"point" like a slate floor- trouble is you can't tell WHAT IT IS because it is floating around out of context. So there are gray slabs???? WHAT ARE THEY? WHAT IS YOUR POINT? Or the photos that go down stair wells for no good reason, what's that all about?

Horrible, I know. It makes me nuts because with so many on the market I want to see as many pictures as possible, and I'm a Realtor. Buyers want even more pictures

Oh yes, don't you just love all the time and effort that goes into some of these photos. Thanks for sharing.

I have seen some really bad listing photos and talked to the agents who took them - they don't care!!! Photos are just another thing on their to do list right up there with the sign on the lawn,

Oh, I so wanted to blog on this subject. I don't understand what agents are thinking. If you can't take halfway decent pics you owe it to your seller to latch on to someone who can take good pics.

That being said, if, despite all of our good advice, sellers will not meet you halfway and clean up after construction, get the seven loads of laundry off the floor or haul the garbage that's in the yard to the dump, then the pictures should wait until the home is properly prepared.

There have always been two schools of thought on whether to have hardly any pics, so that people will be curious and want to see the home; or to have as many pics as possible. If the home is in no condition to be photographed, better to just have the one or two shots that are required.

NOV

2007

Mike thanks for sharing, I couldn't agree with you more about the listing agent's responsibility and pictures in this day and age!

It really is pathetic some of the photos that are out their.... A picture is like 1000 words... but in some instances just 1- GROSS!!!

Your MLS must be much different than ours. Ours does not allow us to take photos that were uploaded by others and use them elsewhere. It's amazing to me how different things are in other areas of the country. Here, the photos are for the MLS only and becomes the property of the MLS once uploaded. We can't freely share them as you have done here. That would be a big no-no.

Yes, you really have to wonder about their ambition. To say the least, those photos are horrid. Shame on those agents.

Mike, Some great examples. As someone who provides video tours and photos I am constantly scanning what realtors use for photos on their lisitngs. In my area the towns are pretty high end, so I don't see messiness (dirty dishes and laundry) as much as dark caves instead of rooms or a close up of a bed or kitchen table instead of the room. I am amazed at how bad the photos are on some million plus properties - if I listed my house (at any price) and my agent did that I'd make them hire someone to take pics or get a different agent. Bad photos are a great disservice to your clients who are paying you to market their home well!

Thanks Mike for the reminder that decent photos shouldn't be a luxury.

Amy Hunter, www.rezvid.com Hearth and Home Residential Videos, Metrowest MA

Too funy in a very sad way ... I cannot believe that some people would be so lazy

In my office we would send the agent back out and specifically tell them what they needed to do before taking the photo. Only had to do that once before the agent understood that photos sell and poor photos sell poorly

this made my day.....i am still trying to adjust my photo taking skills because photos really do mean so much. i look at listing photos in the mls and learn what NOT to do...

I couldn't agree with you more. It's like internet dating, you need great pics if you want anyone to notice.

My first New Years resolution will be to promise not to take pics of bathrooms for my listings !!!

It would be funny if it weren't so appallingly true! Great post.

I would like to thank you one and all for you comments. For those agents who CARE about properly marketing their listings there are some simple solutions to correct the most common problems. Dark rooms, or caves as some of you have called them and shots that put the home at an angle, rather than level can be corrected in your computer, before you put your shots on the MLS.

Those of you who still use a film camera can have your photos placed on a disk. Those disks come with photo editing software. Another option is to purchase specific editing software. PhotoShop Elements 4 can be purchased on line for under $ 50. Elements 6 is the latest version but you don't need to spend the extra $ 100 to get the job done.

Here is an example:

BEFORE

After.

Which photo is likely to attract a buyer? Is it worth the $ 40 - $ 50?

What amazes me more than the agents who use these photos are the sellers that tolerate that kind of "marketing" from their agent.

Looks like you have some great information to share.

Great example.Congratulations on the feature

Don't forget the MLS listings up here in the midwest that in, say June, have nice external pictures of the house covered in snow! For those of you in Florida-we don't get snow in June here :)

In this market, the pictures can also be like that right now except-we haven't received any snow yet this year so far so its apparently a picture that's about a year old.

I 100% agree with the pictures-and I love the pics you put on your blog-thanks for the laugh!

Unbelievable!! No right to work like this. Represent the Seller YOUR CLIENT in a good way.

Thanks for post

NOV

2007

One of my pet peeeves with this are the photos that are extremely messy, especially of vacant properties, because it doesn't take much to clean up a little. There's one on our MLS right now that has trash and belonging scattered all around in the pictures, and even a note in the agent remarks that it's "a great house, despite the mess".

My fave is when the listing agent only puts one pic on MLS and it looks like anyone of those you have found! Serioulsy only 1 pic and they wonder why thier home has not sold!

My pet peeve are photos of toilets with the seat up. Also, house photos with people walking in front or in the rooms.

DEC

2007

This has always been a pet peeve of mine also. I have picked up, vacuumed, cleaned, polished, dusted to get a good pic. I have been contacting agents for REO lately and there is always one picture of the outside. So what if it's bank owned? You are the listing agent, take some damn pictures!!!

FEB

2008

I love the pictures of the corner of the room! Or the picture of a very small bathroom where the door is included in the picture. Sometimes it's better to leave a picture out, most bathrooms look the same, we don't need to see a picture of the toilet to know the house has one!

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