This will be a fairly short post. We’re going to cover the things you shouldn’t do when marketing your home. It covers the absolute basics of advertising real estate for sale.

16,000 Words: The importance of real estate photography

16,000—what do I mean? Well as the old adage says, a picture is worth a thousand words. Fortunately for homesellers, the San Antonio MLS allows up to 16 pictures for each listing, even though many Agents won’t display that many. In fact, it wasn’t until late 2006 that Agents were required to upload any pictures at all—you can imagine how effectively you can market a home where you don’t show any pictures!

The point is that your Agent, or their team, should have 16 good pictures of your home to display on the MLS, and the MLS-fed websites. Those pictures can be taken directly from the camera, they can be touched up with software, or they can be images of floor plans, the subdivision, etc, but you need to maximize the use of space by using all 16 picture slots in the MLS. It’s also a good idea to take more pictures so that you can have others available for other media, such as flyers, videos, etc.

So what SHOULDN’T you do with real estate photos?

Here’s what you don’t want pictures of. This picture provides nothing of value to your listing. Why? Because you can’t tell what it is. If I’m looking for a room that has several wall outlets, then maybe I just hit the jackpot! This is the most common type of picture that you’re going ot see in the MLS because it is the easiest thing to do. An Agent stands in one corner and takes a shot of the opposite corner. I actually took this picture– It’s not the type of picture that I normally take, but it’s the kind that I see all the time, so I thought I’d share it.

Here’s another shot. Look familiar? It should since it is the exact same room. That picture was taken about 5 seconds later from about 10 feet away from the first picture. This picture isn’t perfect, but I believe that it captures the room in far greater detail. You can still see the wall outlets and the master bath door, but you can also see the ceilings (which are beautiful), as well as the french doors leading to the court yard. We’ve also added the 2 simple words at the bottom which leave no question as to what you’re looking at. Most agents don’t take the time to do this because they don’t understand the value of taking framed pictures. As a result, you get lots of really poor quality pictures on their listings.

So you have a bunch of high quality pictures—now what do you do? Well here you have the 2 most common forms of “marketing”: the For Sale Sign, and the MLS printout.

For Sale Signs

The For Sale Sign serves one purpose: to make absolute sure that people driving near your home know that it is for sale. Does it market your home? Not usually. Occasionally you’ll see real estate signs with strips at the top or bottom (which are called “Riders”) that say things like “4 bedrooms” or “great view”. That is about all the marketing you’re likely to get from these signs. Next time you get a chance, look at the signs closely—you’re to find multiple ways to contact the Agent or their company, but relatively little about your home. These signs are not marketing—their ads for Realtors and the signs alone will not sell your home.

The MLS Printout

The second item up here is the MLS sheet. The MLS sheet is a lot like the nutritional value statement on food: it informs you of the contents of a product. In this case, the MLS printout informs you of the contents of a home. Is it great to know what’s in the home? Sure, it’s very important. Does this printout romanticize your home? Does it make it stand out from the homes for sale down the street? Not really.

My daughter doesn’t ask for Dora the Explorer fruit snacks because of the nutritional content. I’m not even sure she likes them because of the flavor. She wants them because she’s attracted to the marketing. Think of your home as a very expensive and slightly less delicious fruit snack: you need to market the flavors of your home. Homebuyers won’t fall in love with your home just because you told them how many bedrooms you have.

These printouts won’t do your home justice, but they’re very easy to do since you just print them out. The information on these forms can be cryptic to people, and they do little to make your home standout. You want to make sure that these printouts aren’t the only marketing materials that your Agent uses for your home.

Conclusions

In summary, we talked about the value of pictures and their importance to marketing your home. I hope that you’ve learned a little about what kind of pictures to avoid. I also hope that you’ve learned not to settle for the basic, easy, and lazy styles of “marketing” that some people settle for. If you want someone to fall in love with your home, they need to be attracted to it first, and that’s where marketing comes in.

In the next few posts we’ll talk a little more about how to target your marketing to the correct audiences, as well as how to use the internet to help you sell your home faster. If you have any questions, please feel free to give us a call or to send us an e-mail.

Thanks, and have a great day!