Who Is Your North Texas Home Competing With

Mar 21 2011

Are you a real estate agent selling a home, or a homeowner looking for a realtor to put your home on the market? In either case, it’s important that you put your best foot forward in marketing a home. Especially in today’s market where there are an abundance of homes to choose from, buyers need to be enticed to come and take a look at your home. With upwards of 90% of home buyers starting their search online, your one and only chance at impressing them could be with the photos on your listing. Who is your home competing with?

We sampled 260 properties for sale in Southlake, TX. We placed the properties in four main categories, based on the photos provided in each listing:

Homes that were professionally photographed
Homes that were new construction or lots, so they showed images of the lot or computer-generated images of the home
Homes that did not have any photographs
Homes that were not professionally photographed – we assume the photography was completed by the agent or homeowner

As you can see from the chart, the majority of homes were shot by the agent or homeowner, 61.9%. Only a small portion were professionally photographed, 15%. When a buyer begins their home search online, they pick a collection of homes in the area they want to live and they determine which homes they want to visit based off the online photos. Who is your home competing with? Are you competing with the smaller piece of the pie, the 15% of homes that have professional photography and standing out from the rest? Or are you lost in the sea of homes that don’t have professional photos so your home may be overlooked by a buyer?

When a home is represented by photos with dim lighting or blurry images, buyers tend to move on to the next home because they assume the images accurately represent the home. They can’t see beyond the low-quality photos so they don’t give the home a chance. Using a professional real estate photographer, you increase the chances of your home being at the top of the buyer’s list which will increase traffic and help bring the perfect buyer to your listing.