If a picture is worth a 1000 words, does this say buy me 5000 times
Internet search by real estate consumers has grown immensely over the past few years and at the top of the wish list of every potential home buyer are lots of pictures of homes that meet their search criteria. Many real estate agents provide exactly that and the newest trend by some agents include offering the services of a professional photographer and a website for the home including an online video tour. If you want to get the attention of the online shopper, pictures matter.
With record inventory of homes for sale in the Charleston South Carolina real estate market, it's more important than ever to showcase your listings online. The Charleston MLS recently increased the number of pictures that agents can display from 9 to 24 which is significantly more than many other MLS systems around the country. Point 2, my website provider, gives me the ability to display up to 36 pictures and a photo tour of the listing. Photo tours are becoming increasingly more popular than virtual tours simply because they load faster and move from room to room more quickly allowing consumers to get a better and quicker sense of the property.
More than simply putting a listing in the MLS or on your personal website is the ability to syndicate your listing to many of the most popular websites in the world. The best real estate agents are now marketing their listings on Craigslist, Google, Yahoo!, Trulia, Zillow, UTube, Facebook and many other popular websites in order to find today's online real estate buyer. An agent with a strong online presence offers properties far more exposure than was previously ever possible with a little black and white ad in the newspaper or a little color picture in the many real estate magazines.
Taking pictures one step further is video tours. A 4 or 5 minute guided tour of the home with narration is the next logical step in real estate marketing technology. A video tour on a dedicated property website is one more way to make your listing stand out from the crowd and appeal to the online real estate buyer. In today's crowded real estate marketplace, it's more important than ever to list your home with a real estate agent who has both technology and marketing skills.
On the other hand, how about these pictures?
Note: There were a total of 6 pictures but I purposely omitted the picture of the front of the house for privacy purposes.
A nice start with the kitchen, it looks pretty nice with hardwood floors, nice looking cabinets, it might even have new countertops. As you can see, it goes downhill fairly fast from there.
Next we have a nice picture of a wall, then a dark room and the house obviously has 2 bathrooms which must be a big feature. Toilet set up (oops!). Nice.
Will these pictures make this house stand out in the crowded online marketplace and compel real estate buyers to call their agent to make an appointment so that they can view this house asap?
I learned an important lesson about photography from one of my clients when listing their home. I took about 100 pictures so that I could narrow down to about 30 good shots. One picture I included in the listing was of the master bedroom and even though I took at least a half dozen shots, I knew that none were really great.
I always send my client's listing to them so that they can see how I am marketing their property and how it looks online. Wouldn't you know that my client loved every picture except the picture of the master bedroom?
As they said to me, "Why did you include that picture of the master, it really doesn't look good, we don't have a really pretty comforter and we're pretty sure everyone looking at the pictures of our house knows that we have a bedroom."
Lesson learned. In addition, I only take pictures of the marketable areas of the house. I rarely take bathroom pictures unless the bathroom is really special, nicely sized, light and bright with quality upgrades, etc. Everyone viewing the pictures online can probably figure out that there is a bathroom without a picture or two.
And I always put the seat down.
Taking those photography lessons a step further, I am now investigating and finalizing my choice of which new camera to buy so that my listings will look even better. I think I've narrowed it down to the Canon Powershot SD 800 which offers the ability to capture a wider panorama which is critical in real estate photography. Bottom line, less of the wall and more of the room.
I hope everyone had a little chuckle over the real estate pictures I provided as an example of what not to do when taking photos of a home for sale. If you are considering listing your home for sale, please ask me how I can help you sell your home for the best possible price in the shortest possible time and with the least inconvenience. I'll make you this promise. The pictures of your house will say "buy me".