San Mateo-Foster City Real Estate News

A Realtor colleague of mine from Connecticut, Athol Kay, has been doing a series on his blog about bad pictures in real estate listings.  He began doing it around his immediate area and with pictures he saw in his local MLS.  As others of us picked up on his blog, we began to submit pictures to him. I've been sending them along for several weeks.  Believe me, it's easy to find them in our local MLS, too.

Pictures that are out of focus.  You know, the kind where you take off your glasses with the hope the picture will look better?  Or, how about the one with the toilet seat up, or the one with a buch of junk thrown into the bathtub and seen through the closed glass doors?  We do see those.  And how about the dirty kitchen?  Yes, dishes on the counter, food out, mess everywhere.  What are they thinking?  

Then the ones with furniture as the focus of the shot.  Are we looking to buy a house or a sofa?  I sent him one of a skylight. Yes, that was the picture and it came from a local Realtor.  It's funny.  It's sad.  It's really a disservice to the seller of the home.  One of the things we as Realtors are asked to do is Market the House.  Pictures are a big part of it.  What's so hard about taking  good pictures?  If you can't hire a professional photographer! 

Bad pictures go along with my complete dismay when a listing goes into the MLS and has no pictures and the agent is too lazy to provide them even weeks into the listing.  I did a survey on that one and 100% of the Realtors I checked with will not show the property and 75% of the the buyers aren't interested in looking at it.  Why should they?  If the agent can't take pictures of the house why should we go see it?  Same thing for bad pictures.  If the pictures are out of focus how can we figure out what things look like and why should be show the property?