As summer approaches, many people start thinking about putting their homes on the market.
This is, indeed, a great time to list your home. The summer brings many buyers, as most families with school-age children like to make the move when school is out.
As I look through the MLS system at homes for my buyers, or while checking on comparable properties for my listings, I never cease to be amazed by how many properties are poorly marketed. There are often typos in the descriptions and photos, which hinder the sale of homes rather than help them get sold.
Today, the reality is most buyers start looking for homes online before they ever get in their cars and drive around. They look at listings, photos and virtual tours, and narrow down their choices to a few homes they actually take the time to physically tour. In fact, a lot of people lose showings before they even get one person through the door because of the way they are marketed and presented online.
Great photos make all the difference in whether or not a buyer takes the next steps to tour a home. Some listings will feature one photo of the backyard—that’s it. When an agent can place as many photos as they wish online, it seems strange to just post one.
In many other cases, I find photos that are simply inappropriate—photos with dirty laundry and unmade beds, photos with overflowing garbage cans, and even photos of just ceiling fans. When people look at an online image of a home, they are trying to imagine whether that home will work for them. While I can’t tell you how all buyers think, I do know most of them don’t want to visualize their dream home full of dirty laundry.
Since I have seen so many of these types of bad pictures, I have even dedicated a Facebook page to bad MLS photos because many of them are quite entertaining—especially when you think of them as marketing material. You can check them out at www.facebook.com/BadMLSPhotos.
Here are a few pointers to make your home more marketable online:
1. When choosing an agent, ask them to pull up their current, as well as past listing inventory, and look at the property descriptions and photos they are using to market their listings. Also ask to see the virtual tours they design for their listings.
2. Ask your agent where they market their properties online. Do they use Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist, etc?
3. When your agent comes to photograph your home, be sure to clean away the clutter, hide the dog bed, clear off the bathroom counters, and make sure the windows are nice and clean.
4. Flowers. If you look through any home design magazine, you will see fresh flowers. Stylish arrangements or even potted orchids add a nice feeling to photographs. Other fresh looking accessories include a nice bowl of fresh green or red apples or a bowl of citrus.
5. Make sure your real estate agent doesn’t capture his own reflection in the bathroom mirror. I have seen this many times, and it just looks silly.
6. Try to capture photos of your home at the time of day when your home looks its best. For example, don’t photograph at 5 p.m. if your house faces west, and the blasting sun makes it impossible to photograph rooms without the curtains closed.
I would love to help you get your home ready to sell, but whether you use me or someone else, make sure your home is marketed well. A picture tells a thousand words, and the words you want your pictures saying are, “Buy me. I am the perfect house for you.”
John Karadsheh is a licensed REALTOR® with Coldwell Banker, Trails and Paths Premier Properties. He also is an Associate Broker, Accredited Buyers Representative, and a Certified Residential Specialist. He was voted in the Top 10 Residential Real Estate Agents in Arizona for 2012 and 2013 by Ranking Arizona, the Best of Arizona Business.
You can contact John with any of your real estate questions. Call him at (602) 615-0843, or go to his Web site at
www.BuyAndSellAZ.com.