I just read a post written by Franklin MA listing agent Barbara Todaro, Listing Agents Who Use MLS Need Nothing More To Secure a Transaction. As her title suggests, Barbara believes there is nothing more powerful than our local MLS to market our listings. While I do believe the MLS is a powerful tool, it is useless if agents don't use it to its fullest extent.
All agents are not created equal and neither are the listings that these agents input. The strength of an MLS listing is only as good as the agent who enters it into the MLS. Garbage in/garbage out makes it difficult to sell your Franklin TN home. That's right. Some agents will input garbage into the MLS. When they do, sellers will have a difficult time finding a buyer for their home.
The most common example of garbage in/garbage out is the use of bad MLS photographs. Oftentimes, they are dark and blurry but you'll also see listings with no photos or very few photographs. You may even see photos of silly things like the seller's dog curled up in his dog bed. If it doesn't show off a feature buyers are looking for in a home, then it shouldn't be in the MLS photos.
Today, I showed a listing in a neighborhood where homes are going under contract the first day on the market. This home has already been on the market 18 days; a long time by our standards. The buyers were wondering what was wrong with the house. I told them the MLS photos were terrible. This home looked much better in person than it did in the MLS. With so many buyers relying upon the internet to determine which homes to view, bad photos can really hurt a homeowners chances of selling quickly.
Next on the list of mistakes is the absence of essential information. Our MLS gives us the opportunity to search by a number of parameters including swimming pools, fenced yards, bedroom descriptions (is it a main floor master?), basement homes, etc.
If a listing agent hasn't included a key feature in their MLS listing, then it's going to be very hard for a buyer who wants that feature to find a home. I once showed a property that had no mention of an in-ground swimming pool (a hot commodity in our market). They didn't even include a photo of the pool. They cut out a lot of potential buyers who may have been looking for this feature.
The last mistake I most often see is the property description. Unfortunately, our MLS only allows 250 characters for the description of a home. Even so, that description is Google-friendly. Many agents don't recognize this. They could attract more buyers by using a phrase like "updated kitchen" in the property description making it easier for home buyers to find.
As real estate agents, we rely heavily on our local MLS especially when we're working with buyers. If the information provided in the MLS lacks essential features, contains bad photographs or doesn't include an accurate description, not only will buyers not find your home, neither will the real estate agents they use.
Garbage in/garbage out makes it difficult to sell your Franklin TN home.
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