Special Reader Feature - What I Look For In Real Estate Photographs
June 18th, 2007 Bad MLS Photo of the Day, Deeper Thoughts, Photography, Rules of Good Photos
I’ve been specially blessed in having found a great reader friend in Cecilia Hutchings. Cecilia has turned into my number one source of “Bad MLS Photo of the Day” pictures. Occasionally we’ve disagreed over what a “Bad MLS Photo” is, mostly because I’m looking for a funny image and Cecilia is trying to find a house to buy. She’ll explain it. My sole addition to the post is tacking on some of the many many photos Cecilia has sent me.
Hello Athol, hope this is acceptable and helpful to you for your blog. I sure like reading your blog even though I am not a realtor. It is entertaining as well as educational.
Our family includes three adults, six horses, four large dogs and a budget that is not going to replace the farm we have in North Alabama with one having the same amenities and in as good condition as ones we find north of Tulsa. Location, I know, is everything, but this is about realtor photos not about location.
Athol tells me I am frustrated by what isn’t in the photo. For example the single photo of a certain property on the MLS I went to see would not meet Athol’s bad MLS photo criteria but it was a bad MLS photo to me because the house sits on over-grazed reclaimed mining land littered with junk, dotted with several so-called ponds and a price tag to cause my right eye to twitch when the agent declared, “the value is in the land, not the house.” Valued for what I thought.
I am a visual learner, I need pictures, diagrams to go with the words. That property above showed a lovely rock home on the outside. The fact that the kitchen was plopped down smack in the middle of a great room right over some old carpet with large stains on a floor that sagged from end to end probably wouldn’t have been visible in the picture. But a photo of it and one of the land would have saved me indigestion.
When I look at MLS photos I want to see the front of the house, the kitchen, some pasture and a barn if there is one. I don’t want to see multiple shots of an outdated bathroom for example. Unless it’s an award winning designer bathroom we really only need one shot but not in place of the kitchen. I definitely don’t need to see any photo of anything large that does not convey like the kid’s playhouse in the yard.
I don’t care for bedroom photos very much. If there is something special about it like a balcony, access to a patio, a sitting area or some unique architectural feature I would like to see that but not in place of the kitchen. And in place of a bedroom I prefer to see a dining room, living room and family room where we actually do spend our time.
I don’t need to see “garden” tubs in master baths at all. With master baths it’s the same as with bedroom shots. One garden tub is the same wasted space to me as another. We don’t like them.
As for the so-called media rooms, photos of the big screen TV are a turn off for us. But if a room has built-ins I want to see it. That goes for fireplaces too, definitely that.
The kitchen, a fireplace, dining space and the living room, those are shots I look for. Preferably one where I can see something besides an overstuffed old grey-brown-beige couch filling up the entire photo frame like some Jabba the hut surrounded by forty-five family photos haphazardly placed on a wall space that begins at the ceiling and barely makes its way down.
Old, “as is” houses sometimes have charm that for me as a buyer have an attraction. I can discern from a photo of the presumably outdated kitchen whether or not I’d like to restore it. Mid-century modern is all the rage among some of us. Let’s always see the kitchen! Let’s never see the toilet, definitely not ever with the seat up. Actually, I rather liked one house where there was a stack of lovely decorative towels on top of the closed toilet lid with some decorative soaps on top in a guest bathroom. Later I found out the owners are both women and I bet they seldom have to see the naked commode with it’s lid flipped indignantly up for all to see that dirty ring in the water or worse, a floaty.
Thank you, Ceci Hutchings.
I have no idea why she thanks me, she’s done me an enormous service here. I’ll have some follow up thoughts on this tomorrow, I don’t want to add too much here. My warmest thanks Cecilia.
June 18th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Ceci -
This post *rocks*! It is *so valuable* for a real estate agent to understand what it is that a client / potential client wants and needs to see.
You should start a blog about your home search adventure. Seriously!!
Thanks for sharing!
Jay
June 18th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Cecelia please come and guest blog at my place anytime! Your comments are most enlightening!
I agree with Jay about you starting a blog, you are a terrific writer and your observations would certainly serve to improve some in our industry.
Thanks for taking the time!
kk
June 18th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Ceci… this is invaluable information from the consumers perspective. We all need to be thanking you! As Jay and Kristal both said, you’re an excellent writer. The industry could learn from your experiences.
June 19th, 2007 at 5:28 am
Get your grubby mitts off my reader Kristal! She belongs to me!
But seriously. This is a great post Ceci, and I’m sure it’s going to have “legs” and get quoted from a lot around the RE blogs over the next few days.
I mean the toilet lid thing alone… I had no clue. I’m mentally checking every bathroom I ever shot now.
June 19th, 2007 at 5:45 am
Thanks for the compliments everyone. I am hopeful Athol’s “bad MLS of the day” gets VERY popular! And maybe he will write a book, putting an to end this nonsense, agents who think it’s perfectly alright to snap a photo of a kitchen with groceries covering every surface and present it to the MLS.
Long ago we hired the young son of a fellow horseman to sell a farm. He was inexperienced but he had enthusiasm and was familiar with horse farms.
He showed up for pictures the day after my birthday. The diningroom was littered with stuff everywhere, a huge flower bouguet, a bonafide mess. I moved it all and shoved it everywhere on the kitchen counters. He snapped a photo of the diningroom and promptly snapped one of the kitchen but I didn’t know.
He went around. I cleared the kitchen and assumed he took that photo after I cleared it. Nope. It was on the MLS, “BIG PARTY all the time at this house.”
June 19th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
[…] I’ll hoot my horn, or at least Cecilia Hutchings horn on Reagent with her non-realtor actual homebuyer looking to buy view in Special Reader Feature - What I Look For In Real Estate Photographs. What the heck… Required Reading. […]
June 19th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
[…] As a follow up to the wonderful post of Cecilia Hutchings yesterday I’m going to pull out a “what buyers want to see” list. […]
June 19th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Ceci - You said it well. I agree with you 110%. The biggest complaint from clients over the years have been too few pictures or poor pictures. I like to move things around, get the right angle, remove pictures from the fridge, light candles, turn on lights, play with the blinds to angle the light, and now use HDR to really enhance pictures. I firmly believe that the first impression is the most lasting impression. Pictures, followed by well thought description are the first impression. I could go on and on about this. Good job to you.
June 20th, 2007 at 7:33 am
It’s all been said here above but this is a great post and I hope to see more and more comments from home buyers on RE blogs in the coming year.
We’re always assuming they’re lurking here or there and we all know they’ve got sooo much to say. Tell us gentle readers. Tell us and thereby tell other buyers and sellers so that we can get it right.
Photos are an important topic and this post nails it on the head.
June 21st, 2007 at 7:41 am
[…] Read this post from a real estate consumer’s perspective. When I market a home, I assume that the first visitor to my website, the MLS, etc. will be my seller client. When I look at MLS photos I want to see the front of the house, the kitchen, some pasture and a barn if there is one. I don’t want to see multiple shots of an outdated bathroom for example. Unless it’s an award winning designer bathroom we really only need one shot but not in place of the kitchen. […]
June 24th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
[…] I’ll hoot my horn, or at least Cecilia Hutchings horn on Reagent with her non-realtor actual homebuyer looking to buy view in Special Reader Feature - What I Look For In Real Estate Photographs. […]
June 25th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Congrats on winning the Carnival- getting Cecilia involved was a great idea (and we love your insight, Cecilia)!
June 25th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
[…] “Shoot What Buyers Want to See” is the 11th part in a series on good real estate photographs being published on REagent in Connecticut by Athol Kay. On the surface this post doesn’t seem to fit the “consumer-oriented” model of the carnival, however it is a special submission from Cecilia Hutchings that really takes this entry to the next level. And I’m sure there are a lot of consumers out there that agree with Cecilia. […]
June 26th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
[…] A big round of applause and thanks to Cecilia Hutchings who gets a win in This weeks Carnival of Real Estate for her post in What I Look For In Real Estate Photos. […]