The Power of a Photo
Marketing
Or rather the power of a missing photo. I am still amazed at the amount of listings in the MLS without photographs. There are hundreds if not thousands of properties whose owners are not even aware that their Realtor has not put photos in the MLS. With the amount of inventory that is available to show potential buyers today, a listing without a photo is immediately trashed.
In the Miami market, we are dealing with many out of area buyers. Every day we are asked to send photos of prospective properties. This is now a minimum requirement for any Realtor. I recently began working with a buyer from Cleveland who is very specific about what he is looking for. His price range is $2.5 - $3 million and he is paying cash. He will only consider flying in after he viewed the virtual tours of the properties that I was recommending. I was embarrassed to tell him that out of the seven properties that I had chosen for him, only 4 had photos and not even one had a virtual tour available to send him. The listing agents of these properties are not concerned enough to take action. I’m still trying to get him to fly in and view the properties in person and I’m sure he will eventually do that. The challenge is that to him, a virtual tour of a property in this price range is a minimum requirement. Frankly, I agree with him.
If we as agents cannot provide the type of information and communication that the consumer is expecting, than we are losing the battle of proving that working with an agent is more valuable than working without one. I keep hearing agents complaining about how their commissions are being eroded. These are usually the same agents that are not willing to spend $125.00 on a virtual tour.
Let’s all work together to make our profession more professional.
Or rather the power of a missing photo. I am still amazed at the amount of listings in the MLS without photographs. There are hundreds if not thousands of properties whose owners are not even aware that their Realtor has not put photos in the MLS. With the amount of inventory that is available to show potential buyers today, a listing without a photo is immediately trashed.
In the Miami market, we are dealing with many out of area buyers. Every day we are asked to send photos of prospective properties. This is now a minimum requirement for any Realtor. I recently began working with a buyer from Cleveland who is very specific about what he is looking for. His price range is $2.5 - $3 million and he is paying cash. He will only consider flying in after he viewed the virtual tours of the properties that I was recommending. I was embarrassed to tell him that out of the seven properties that I had chosen for him, only 4 had photos and not even one had a virtual tour available to send him. The listing agents of these properties are not concerned enough to take action. I’m still trying to get him to fly in and view the properties in person and I’m sure he will eventually do that. The challenge is that to him, a virtual tour of a property in this price range is a minimum requirement. Frankly, I agree with him.
If we as agents cannot provide the type of information and communication that the consumer is expecting, than we are losing the battle of proving that working with an agent is more valuable than working without one. I keep hearing agents complaining about how their commissions are being eroded. These are usually the same agents that are not willing to spend $125.00 on a virtual tour.
Let’s all work together to make our profession more professional. Take a few photos and encourage your fellow agents to do the same.
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Date: Thursday, November, 29th 2007 @ 10:05:20 AMViews: 282
This blog entry currently has 1 comments posted.
Kathleen MacKenzie
Tom - I so agree with you. A great idea to compensate for the, quite frankly, lazy Realtor is to schedule an appointment at these properties, grab your video camera and walk through the home yourself pointing out all the great features that the prospective buyer won't want to miss. It gets your client the information he/she needs but also shows him that your serious about handling every detail of his transaction. I'm sure Cal will have a blog post soon on how to post that video to YouTube. LOL