I would contend that the #1 most important thing to have as perfect as possible with any MLS listing is the photographs. It’s commonly agreed that today, 85% of all home buyers are starting their search on the internet. If that’s the case, think about what that buyer is looking at on the internet: The Photographs!

Athol Kay over at RE Agent in CT has been posting the Bad MLS photo of the day for nearly 6 months. Agents across the country help him out by sending them in, and with the quantity of bad photos that are out there, he’ll never run out of content. As bad as the photos that Athol posts are, there are 2 photos that I find in MLS with great consistency that I find worse:

No primary photo set

This first photo is the result of a relatively easy data entry error in MLS. The person that entered the pictures (6 photos, plus a virtual tour!) into MLS didn’t identify a primary photo. As a result, ARMLS gives you that wonderful red X.

ARMLS reminds data entry people with the big red warning because it is a common mistake. One way to avoid this mistake is to always email new listings to your client for review after they are entered into MLS. If you don’t notice it as you send it to your client, they surely will.

No pictures at all

The second photo is the result of 1 of 2 things. Either 1) the agent has placed no value on having pictures in the listing, and thus has no plans to ever submit photographs. Note: If you are selling any real estate, you should run, not walk away from this agent. Or 2) the agent has plans to provide pictures, perhaps already scheduling a professional photography shoot, but at the time the listing went active, the agent didn’t have any photographs. Looking at this $9M listing, I can only hope that it’s scenario #2 for this seller.

The big problem with the no pictures at all scenario, is that even if the agent later adds photos, automatic searches set up for new listings will never send out the listing with pictures, just because pictures were added. The email will come (as the one above did to me), and unless I make notes about it, and check back at a later date, I’ll never see those photographs. This places the burden on the agent/buyer to find the pictures or visit the property in person, which we can fairly well assume is unlikey to ever happen, particularly with the amount of inventory buyers have to choose from today.

In summary, remember that photographs are essential to successfully marketing real estate.

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