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Survey of Powder Springs Listings

By Bob Southard

Real Estate Broker/Owner with Atlas Realty Service, LLC Ga Re lic. 266576

January 03, 2009 04:52 AM

I have been telling my clients for a long time that there are 3 basic things that every listing should have.

It needs to have multiple photos
Its needs to have a virtual tour
It needs to be in BOTH of the metro Atlanta MLS services (with correct information on the listings)

So when I saw Lane Bailey's post - Survey of New Listings I had to check the details for my own area.

Lane surveyed new listings for Lilburn Ga that were just listed in the last 30 days. Lane found that of homes listed in the last 30 days, only 14.7% HAD a virtual tour and 26.8% only had 0-1 picture. He also broke it down further as to how many pictures each listing did have, but I am just going to stick to how many have a tour and how many have 0-1 picture.

When I list a home I have the photos and tours ready to go on listing at the same time that it is entered in the MLS systems. However some agents have the photographer add the photos and tours to the listing. Personally, I don't think that the delay is acceptable, but I will give these agents the small benefit of starting my search 5 days back and going back 30 days from there.

So here are the stats for Powder Springs home listings from Nov 29 to Dec 29. This is for all homes with Powder Springs addresses in Cobb or Paulding County.

So here is the breakdown for Powder Springs, Ga.

From Nov 29 to Dec. 29 there were 118 new listings in Powder Springs.

Only 17 of them have virtual tours! 14.4% or in other words 75.6% DO NOT HAVE TOURS!
20 had 0 - 1 photo. 16%

I am presuming that by allowing the agents the 5 extra days that more of them got photos attached than Lane saw in his survey. Let me reiterate that I do not think agents should take 5 days to attach photos or tours, I was just being generous. When I did the search for Dec. 3 to Jan 3 it went up to 24% with only 0-1 photo.

Note to sellers and agents: Many buyers are signed up for "new listing alerts" by email. They get an email with your home listing within 24 hours of it going in the mls. If you want it sold ADD PICTURES!

So how many meet my 3rd criteria of being in BOTH mls services? Well I wasn't going to do a search for every address but I was willing to do a sample. I took 13 homes from the FMLS list and searched for them in GaMLS. Here is what I found.

10 were also listed in GaMLS 3 were not. 77% is actually a little better than I expected but still not acceptable in my opinion.

The 3 criteria that I mentioned at the beginning are just what I consider basic. This is not great marketing or even good marketing ... it's just the basics.

Shameless Plug: All of my listings go in both mls services and will have multiple photos and tours attached within 1 hour of mls listing entry and that is just the beginning...

******************************************

Bob Southard, e-Pro, Realtor ®, Solid Source Realty, Inc. Buy a home, Sell a home, in Powder Springs, Marietta, Kennesaw, Acworth, Dallas, Hiram,and Cobb, Paulding, Douglas, North Fulton, South Cherokee, County, Ga. Call me for all of your real estate needs.

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770-656-9134

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Carol Knott

RE/MAX The Woodlands & Spring - The Woodlands, TX

Good for you! I agree that a picture is worth a thousand word. I put my listings into MLS (thank Goodness we only have one MLS) and immediately upload pictures. I tell my sellers the advantages of the pictures in MLS on day one and they do not mind waiting a day or two to get into mls to have things done correctly. Our MLS sends listings to potential buyers every day as they are listed. If a listing goes out without pictures, that opportunity is lost.

Jan 03, 2009 05:06 AM

Robert Havana

Park and Protect- Alberta Real Estate License Parking - Calgary, AB

Alberta Real Estate License Parking

sadly in my marketplace our MLS board is technologically useless. They cant get anything done in reasonable time and often mess it up. Even if submitted at the same time the results are not reliable.

Jan 03, 2009 05:12 AM

Pat Champion

John Roberts Realty - Eustis, FL

Call the "CHAMPION" for all your real estate needs

How right you are photo's help sell buyers want to see before they preview.

Jan 03, 2009 05:17 AM

Glide Tour

Glide Tour - Atlanta, GA

Thank you for that information Bob - very informative!

There is actually a third MLS in Atlanta which is a 24-hour Video MLSat www.GlideMLS.com and membership is included free when agents purchase a Glide Tour. It generates thousands of buyer views each month locally and especially from other cities.

We create narrated video tours of the entire property. There is absolutely no work for the agent. They simply give us the address and zip code and we do all scheduling, we use the supra keys, we also take a full set of photos. We also do all uploading work to the listing services. And we do all of that for not $500 or even $175, but only $129, and we've done it for 6 years. There are no sign up fees - no re-listing fees - no monthly charges, and most of all - ZERO work for the agent as far as complete creative work on their listings.

I think the issue is that "photos only", or Imprev type tours, or spin-around tours are now associated with "discount" or flat-fee" agents because they can get them so cheap. Many agents say that the Glide Tour differentiates them and actually gets them listings.

Not only that, but we also have free flyers at the Glide Tour website that populate themselves with the photos that we take and all the agent has to do is enter the text and press "submit" and they have a flyer. They can also download the entire Glide Tour video to their hard drive to burn to a CD to give to the homeowner as a keepsake - for no additional charge. They can even post their videos to their blogs or facebook pages. And they can download the photos we take to use in their other marketing efforts, and we have very detailed reporting with bar charts to keep your client updated.

Here is a sample Glide Tour: http://www.glidetour.com/view.php?home_id=2033

We are also approved vendors of the local MLS services and a Realtor.com partner.

Eddie James

770-560-9658

P.S.: Shameless plug (smile) - We are a Solid Source partner and on the TMS system!

Also check us out on LinkedIn:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/glidetour

Jan 07, 2009 08:51 AM

Survey of Powder Springs Listings

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