Lazy, ignorant or just plain incompetent...which is it?
photo courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kretyen/2782900308/sizes/m/in/photostream/
I am usually a pretty easy going, laid back kinda gal. While I have been accused of being hyper and talkative, I am not one to anger easily or roll my eyes in frustration at the mistakes of others.
BUT....
I must take a moment to rant. I have seen many folks complain about this exact thing here on Active Rain and I apologize for adding yet another blog complaining about it. That being said....I just don't get this one, I just don't understand why on earth an agent would engage in this practice and be allowed to survive in the business.
What is this egregious act???
Well in short it is the failure to take pictures of your dang listing! I was browsing some listings today on behalf of a new client who has some fairly specific requests and low and behold, for the umpteenth time I came across a multitude of listings with very few pictures and crappy ones at that! Our MLS allows us to add 25 photos...free of charge mind you. Most of that information gets sent out to various other websites dedicated to selling your listing. So why would an agent be so lazy as to not take as many opportunities to showcase their listing as possible?
Well its a fixer upper, you say. I don't want to take pictures of a gutted kitchen or the missing fixtures. Guess what??? If I am looking at properties as fixer uppers, I am not going to expect granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances. It is actually helpful for me to see that all the sheet rock is missing and there is no flooring to be found. What is not helpful is your description of "needs a little TLC" or "sold as is, repairs needed" combined with one crappy picture of the front. I can't tell from that how extensive the repairs might be.
For the rest of the folks selling homes not in need of extensive repairs, there is just no reason I can possible fathom as to why you would not want as many pictures of your listing out there as possible. I am by no means a professional photographer and I am quite certain that there are lots of people out there who do a better job than me, but I always take my time to make sure my pictures highlight the best qualities of the property inside, outside, front, back and side to side! I usually take a minimum of 30-40 pictures then take time and care to pick out the 25 that best represent my listing. Then I take the time to upload the 25 to our mls, go create a Postlet with the best 6 pictures then send that Postlet to Active Rain, Craigslist, Zillow, Trulia, etc. It really isn't rocket science and doesn't take that much time....and by the way...IT HELPS SELL MY LISTINGS!!
Photos sell houses folks...its as simple as that. When I send homes to my buyers many times they will not even care to make an appointment to see a home that has bad and/or few pictures. If anyone out there has some thought on a good reason to limit pictures, please share because I can not think of one!
On a side note: I do know that there is the occasional seller that instructs the listing agent to put only limited photos or minimum photos required, that is not what I am talking about here.
Just my two cents!
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