Why Some Realtors Post Horrible Pictures On The MLS...

Hate when they take 20-30 photos of the exterior; bushes trees, sheds (all 4 sides), sidewalks, fences, patio with the cracks. Bird feeders with bird doo all over. Trash on the patio. 3 sides of the garage, broken down dog house. HEY! YOU FORGOT THE SKY!!

On MLS or in the syndicated sites, they only way they get there is due to the pictures the agent posts in the first place. I'm amazed that clients never look at what their agent puts out there. You would think they would pull it up them self or ask for a link. I'm pretty sure most would cry fowl

Can you spell "LAZY"?  Yup, there's no excuse other than stupidty.

With the bulk of buyers researching online prior to viewing I feel that you are doing your sellers a real injustice NOT to take many quality photos and include all of these in the MLS as well as all online advertising.  There are many lazy agents out there that give the rest of us a bad name.  I have seen many sideways photos, a SINGLE fuzzy photo  or photos taken with dirty dishes / grimy pots and pans in the sink and on counters.  First impressions are lasting impressions!

It's true.  We always hire a professional photographer, one who specializes in listing photos, so the price is reasonable.  I like to think I am a good photographer, but I won't let my ego get in the way of first impressions.

It amazes me to see pictures of bathrooms with toilet seats up, the toilet paper is hanging off the roll and the personal hygeine products are all over the place!

I also saw a photo of a laundry room that was in total disarray and it showed that the back door glass had a very large crack in it.  

I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND why these photos are on the world wide web!

My big pet peeve is the open toilet seat. I mean come on, no one wants to look at that.

To a degree I can understand hasty photos of a short sale in bad condition. What blows my mind is why an agent would take horrible photos of a 900,000 home and think they did their job.

This is a major pet peeve of mine to look through listings and see only a few pictures or dark blurry pictures such a dis-service to the owner.

If you are going to list a property  , you need to have decent pictures.  How can you expect to attract the attention of a buyer with terrible pictures.  The  buyer will just past your listing by.

this is supposed to be one (1)  of the easiest things you can do as a Realtor and so many have a hard time with just one pic... almost as easy as spell check

You forgot several reasons that they may be using such horrid pictures. The home Seller chose to use a discount brokerage that pays signifigantly less than the standard commission thus the Realtor has no money to market the property properly. I think the public would be shocked to know what it costs to be a Realtor having to pay desk fee's. The one that got me the other day was when I was visiting one of my new Realtors. She needed to make a copy so I walked with her to the copy machine and she had to punch in her code. You see the Brokerage charged her a dime for every copy made. I about fell over in disbelief. So if your agent is using crappy pictures to show your home it is because he or she is not making enough money to afford a professional to come out and take quality shots which are essential. Something I do for my agents is use software that creates a webpage for each one of their listings. It uses the photo's and turns them into a video tour of the property. You need quality images to make this turn out correctly. In addition this software allows the Realtor to show what a room would look like if it was painted a different color. You have to go the extra step to be seen as the area expert for selling homes.

Steven B. Harkness, I understand what you are saying, but that is not an excuse for poor photos.  I know the costs are astounding, but it doesn't matter if it is a discount brokerage or not, if you are not going to take a listing, you should take good photos.  If you don't like the fees at one brokerage, you move on to the next one.  It is your fiduciary responsibility to your client to take good or at least decent photos.  If you can't, don't or won't, you shouldn't take the listing.

As a brand new agent just starting out, I don't have a budget for professional photography.  Working on getting my first listing and have thought about the pictures.  What would I expect to pay for pictures? Which I assume is paid upfront. I am in Connecticut with average house price is around 3-350,000.  I don't think many agents in the area pay for pictures unless it is a high end listing.  Thanks!

Some folks just post bad photos period.

Sandra Visser $100-250 for professional pictures.. usually comes with a slideshow and/or video tour

William  buddy Scott, I was not making excuses for agents using poor photo's. Infact the very opposite. I was just stating facts. Something that I have discovered over the years is what used to be called the 80/20 law. Thats 80% of the business is being done by 20% of the agents. The percentages have changed due to the skill required to effectively market to the millenial generation who YOU MUST approach where they reside which is online. They are incredible tech savy and that means you need to be as well or do as some agents are doing and that is hiring a virtual assitant. I have taught agents in my area how to get top talent for extremely reasonable rates by using Philippine workers who stay up at night to be available when you need them. Most Filapino's & Filapina's are college educated. They have been trained to speak Englich since earlyest grade school so they are easy to communicate with. You can hire top talent for $20.00 a day and share the cost among several agents. They can do all the editing for you and can post them to your website. The real aggresive agents use them to rotate in the pictures and wording on Craigslist making sure not to break the rules so your posts will not be ghosted.

Pictures sell the listing. I have had two in the past week, 1 in 24 hours and the other in 3 days, mostly because of good pictures.  I can believe I got a call from an agent this past week that deals with alot of listings and she told me the only reason she hired a professional on this last listing is because it was a relo.  I told her that was a mistake.  If you want your houses to sell in a timely manner, get good pic's.

As we all have heard before, "A picture speaks volumes".  I take lots of pictures every time I visit the property.  Things change and updating photos should be part of what a professional does for every listing.  The more I update the shorter the DOM becomes.  My own little magic wand!

I agree.

Good pictures can be expensive. If the agent works for discounted commissions, you will likely to see the best she can do. Also if the house is a fixer, or cluttered, or damaged, you might forget about good pictures as well, no stagger or good photographer can help those houses. I have a friend realtor who always list multimillion houses, the pictures are sublime, we might know why:)