Photo Evidence Required

Photo evidence required

Have agents become lazy with presenting properties online or did they miss the lesson in the “three P’s” that drive sales? The internet should not be an outlet for shabby real estate photography.  Ric Mingramm gives his opinion.

I have recently had the pleasure/frustration of riding the internet sites in search of a property. I’m new to the Brisbane area and have chosen some likely suburbs, and so the research begins. My eyes have now been opened! And I must say, in a surprisingly large number of occasions I have been nothing short of disgusted in the service that some agents are offering their sellers.

As agents, we know that prospective sellers now do a great deal of their research via real estate portals and franchise home pages, so why then would we deliver a lesser quality photograph on this medium than what we would offer in a newspaper? What I saw would never appear in a newspaper advertisement.

"The photographs of properties were extremely poor quality, ill framed, insulting to a seller in many cases and did little to place the property in a zone for sale." I am not advocating workshopping photographs, but I am advocating taking a decent photograph that is well lit, framed and does show the attributes of the house. I do have a firm belief that any photographs should be professionally done – if agents were good photographers then they would be in the photographic business not selling real estate, although from some of the shots on the websites I doubt they are even good at that!

Our role as agents is to secure the sale in a timely manner at a price that is acceptable to the seller. To do this we need to collect prospective buyers by luring them to inspect and shop list our property. Some of the photographs my partner and I looked at were so disgusting that we questioned not only the professionalism of an agent to allow such photographs to be displayed but the living habits of the current sellers/tenants.

We all know that many sellers do not want to spend money on photography or advertising. The way to overcome this is to show a difference that can be achieved by professional photography over those done by an agent. If we believe that “three P’s” drive property sales – position, promotion and presentation, then to not place the property in its best light by displaying and promoting it is, I believe, a failure of our duty to our sellers.

I challenge Principals to spend the time and do an audit of your properties’ photographs and ask yourself, “If that was my property is this how I would like it displayed to the market?” If the answer is NO then provide some training to your staff on VPA, advertisement writing and selling the benefits of professional photography. Of course if the answer was YES, then congratulations – you were probably one of the agents that we actually made an enquiry with.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words; we spend a considerable amount of time in real estate working on scripts, dialogues and how to present a property to a buyer, but I suggest we cut down on words and invest in some good photographs! Some of the more successful agencies now make it mandatory for professional photographs for all auction and exclusive listings and include virtual tours and floor plans. 

Today’s buyers have a wealth of information at their finger tips; our job is to create buyer excitement by using marketing pull strategies. A “pull” selling strategy is one that requires spending on advertising and promotion to build up demand. If the strategy is successful, buyers will seek out the agent for the property. Pull marketing is where you develop advertising and promotional strategies that are meant to entice the prospect to buy. With this strategy you are trying to create a sense of increased, time limited value so that the buyer will come to you to buy.

The question is, why would a buyer come if the product is displayed shabbily and is surrounded by poorly written descriptions?

Maybe this will have hit a few raw nerves and that is good. If it doesn’t apply to you or your agents then do yourself a favour spend a few hours having a look – if nothing else it’s a great lesson on how not to do the best for your seller and some are that bad they are amusing!

Ric Mingramm is a licensed Real Estate Agent and Auctioneer in NSW and QLD. He has a Masters in Management, Advanced Certificates in Marketing and Sales Management, is an Associate Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management and a member of the Urban Development Institute. Ric is the Franchise Development Manager for PRDnationwide.