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Matthew Ferrara is CEO of Matthew Ferrara & Company, a technology organization that delivers training, consulting and technical support to real estate companies worldwide. For more than 15 years, he has been a driving force for real estate technology innovation. Matthew pioneered an approach to technology that focuses on objective advice, in-depth skill training and world-class technical support. Please visit http://www.matthewferrara.com/ or call 800-253-2350. |
| No Photos, Please! |
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Regular readers of this column may remember the installment, No Photos, No Buyers, No Kidding, where I exhorted real estate agents to make every effort to upload multiple photos to every listing on their website. Back then, the argument was that online listings without photos were about as useless as jargon-abbreviated classifieds in the back of the newspaper. Truth be told, the consumer vindicated my efforts, with the NAR’s annual buyer survey reporting that the consumer ranks multiple photos as the single most important data they seek from online portals. Some real estate companies have gone so far as to mandate multiple photos as a pre-condition before a new listing will appear online. And yet, while any search (try one now) of REALTOR.COM will still find plenty of listings without photos, tremendous effort has been made by most agents to saturate their listings with photos and virtual tours
What has made me change my mind? Just look at some of the photos now ruining the real estate space online and you’ll join me in throwing up your hands (or maybe just throwing up). And if it weren’t so serious, it would border on ridiculous. And agents, apparently, can’t see it for themselves. Let me illustrate: Agents ask me all the time why I think their listings don’t generate leads. There are lots of reasons, to be sure: No buyer is going to inquire about an overpriced listing; nor will they be interested if your description is typed in all CAPS. But the real killer comes with the initial presentation, such as this “opening photo” from a recent new listing. And it was not alone, accompanied by others, each more gruesome and more grisly than last (all of which can be found on my blog). Could any seller have been so adamant that their property?
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Now, however, I’m ready to admit that I was wrong. I concede defeat. Throw in the towel; anything you wish, if you’ll just stop putting more photos online. Please!