The agent did a definite disservice to the seller. I see some of the photos on the MLS that agents use to showcase their listings, and I have been in disbelief at some of them. I do have to admit that the ones you are showing us, take the cake.

I am confident you will do the right thing.

Maybe they appeared that way when the listing was 'Active'

Whats the deal with agents who don't even add any photos??

I want that house. Great for parties!

Perhaps the sellers like to take frequent naps, and they just wanted to show some of the best resting places in the house.

I am betting the agent is one of those agents that is self righteous and indignant towards others when you speak to her/him too! LOL

Bad photos are a huge pet peeve of mine. And the photo examples shown unfortunately show up all the time in our area MLS and on agents' personal sites along with misspelled descriptions or no property description at all.

It's these little things that help fuel the fire for our professions bad rap.

Here are some simple fixes for these problems...

For spelling help try spell check or an actual dictionary.

For photo help there is a free download I suggest, it is Irfanview. This program is so easy to use. You can rotate, resize, sharpen, lighten, brighten, crop and there are some special effect features also. Again this program is FREE from www.irfanview.com.

Unfortunately this program cannot help with the photo composition.

Susan Noble  

I would rather not see any photos....or I guess that will make buyers remember which house we are talking about :-D

LOL....I've seen MUCH worse.  What about the agents that are too lazy to get out of the car to take a pic of the front of the house, but weren't smart enough to make sure they didn't get the side mirror in the photo!  I've seen plenty of those!

That gives new definition to "drive-by shooting"!

I'm pretty sure that someone who lives in a single-wide might find the pictures appealing. It's all relative....

Saw one the other day where they got there at dusk (really not for effect) and took a picture of the front.  All you could see  was the landscape lights.  It looked like an alien landing spot!

Real Estate Agent's Photo Taking Creed - I will not take pictures of toilets anymore, it's safe to assume that "2 baths" in the description means the home has toilets; If I'm over 5ft10, I recognize that most of my photos will include popcorn ceilings, so I promise to scooch a little bit, and I hereby agree that 6 identical shots of the exterior of the home does not a virtual tour make!.

Dan

I love the drive by shooting of the house! Especially when it includes the side view mirror and a finger or two!  Descriptions are important to my sellers too! I ask them to write a list of all the upgrades,highlights about the house, and neighborhood. I try incorporate almost everything and make it a story about the house. I hate it when the agent does not put in any effort about the house description. Everyone likes to hear about their home. It is sooooo personal to them.

Back to the pictures...I am just saw some pictures of house in my neighborhood. I think the photographer was vertically challenged. Every picture has just the bottom half the house or room? The agent had the nerve to come to my open house and critique everything! Figures right!

Okay I am off to the races....everyone have a great day!

Do any of you have anything better to do with your time? Is this a place to just rip other agents, or a place for us to be supportive of each other...........I honestly believe that this sort of behavior detracts from our professional image more than anything else.

Get a life, guys! We have all made mistakes..........talk about being self-righteous! Look in the "blog" mirror!

Here's a guy from NJ who is so upset with bad R/E photos he did a youtube video on it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyfMeo_8Cgc

personally I like the toilet bowl shots. I once read an article where the agent could find nothing worth taking a picture of - so, he take a shot of the street sign. Now - that's his trademark. A picture of the street sign with every listing.

ruh-roh!!!!

Looks like Rhonda needs a closing....

I would contact the agent and let them know. Data is only as good as the person punching the keys or clicking the mouse. I showed a home that was listed with 1.5 baths and my client and I searched high and low for the 1/2 bath and couldn't find it. I called the listing agent and she couldn't remember and thought she saw one. "I guess?"

The tax records showed it too. I am not sure if the listing agent went in the house. I also had a listing in a bad area and a buyers agent called asking where it was and I said you can't miss it and she couldn't find it. Drove out there in disbelief and sure enough my seller tore it down and didn't tell me. Like I could ever get ahold of him

Rhonda, there are serious discussions and then there is a time to laugh. BTW I noticed your link to your web site brings up your office ihouse web site - how does that work? I have seen it with other agents, but I didn't know how they did it, or, why?

Rhonda, speaking for myself - no.  If I had something I would rather be doing, I would be doing it.  That's one of the beautiful parts of being a Realtor.  I think I'm going to go cut the grass, closing is not until 2.

Rhonda,  the public has a bad enough opinion of Realtors without one of our own adding to it.  When I went from being a paralegal to a Realtor, I was under the opinion that Realtors were professionals in all aspects of the job.  Apparently not.  There is a company where I live that puts its logo in place of the front of the home on the MLS.  Yes, everyone makes mistakes but leaving out room dimensions, taking lousy pictures, etc. are not mistakes but sloppy workmanship.

Marcia, good to hear you are working your way up the food chain (insert eMotion here). My MLS won't allow me to make any reference to me or the company in picture or the public remarks. I would sell many more homes if I could just put my picture up instead of the house itself. I'm sooo pretty.

I still find this sort of thing hard to beleive.  I was commenting on the subject on my last blog post:  

http://jtomlin.blogspot.com/2007/05/problem-with-real-estate-listings.html

The research that we did for our last article in Realtown shows a huge difference in online response when better listing data is published.  

By the way, did everyone see Norm Fisher's virtual tour?

http://www.visualtour.com/show.asp?T=830679

It's a must see if you haven't watched it yet.

Gary, I have actually seen worse, hard to believe. My pet peeve is VT pictures that have the name the camera gave them instead of taking the time to put in a description. Beautiful spacious living room with music and all and the description says MVc-30 or something like that. Maybe it is secret agent code.

Ronda, I don't feel we are doing any harm if we are learning from the mistakes of others. There have been no names mentioned as to whose pictures these are. It's all good.

LOL @ Phil and Greg.

Wow, that was just TOOOOOO FUNNY! "Someone needs a closing." LMMFAO

Jeff, that was hilarious!! "Let's see how it looks for Fluffy", "I just bought those shoes". Good stuff. Thanks for sharing!! I think I have taken some lame pictures too, my bad.

Listings with bad pictures or without one at all are often skipped by customers. Check out your listings stats. The more pictures you have, the more people look at them. The same is with Realtor.com Always take good pictures... Sellers trust you to do a good job. Also, add something on the remarks block. I read somewhere that listings without remarks take longer to sell. Is it true?

Jeff, that was really great!

The other Ronda is piping in now.. I have seen photos of rooms that you can't tell what they are. So dark that it looks fuzzy. Maybe the agent that Gary is referring to, had one to many and thought they were straight.

Rhonda, This is not agent bashing this is all of us reminding each other to do our best for our sellers. If we can't critique ourselves how will we know when we need to improve.

Exactly, not bashing, just merely posting an observation. Anyway, thanks for posting Gary! I don't understand why some don't take that little extra step to pay attention to detail.

I'm totally with the photo from the vehicle that includes the side mirror. Oh my gosh that's funny! Also too, seasonal photos are kinda my pet peeves. If it's summer, uh, I'm sorry but it looks bad if the listing has been since winter and hasn't been updated. That looks REAL bad and not a good representation for Mr./Ms. Seller.

Oh well...to each his/her own! I love this business! Good to look at the light side of things!  We deal with enough stresses and serious stuff sometimes.

I'm with Todd and Gary. Who's bringing the wine?

;)

Gregory,  

The company that put their logo in place of the listed home was fined and had to delete the logo.  They no longer do anything relating to a listing in the MLS that is against our Association rules.  

Yes Gregory, I agree....you are soooooooo pretty.

Oh Marcia, now we will never be able to live with him.....

Some funny pictures and thanks to Jeff for providing Norm's tour. The lesson I take away is to take as many marketable shots as possible. We can all learn something about photography from this and I'll think about this post when I shoot my next listing. (Actually, I have to go back and reshoot a listing when I rushed the shots because there was a tenant in the house at the time, now it's vacant and it should actually show better.)

That Norm Fisher video is great! I love it!

A common thing I see in the MLS and other places are the photos that make a 2 story townhouse look like it is about 8 feet tall and 75 feet wide. I think this is just a Realtor or 3 or 12 or more, getting used to new technology, new digital camera with lots of fun features, not knowing how that wide angle pic will look online, etc. Surely no agent wants to do a bad job.

Before I had my license I invested in RE (still do) and I saw a listing on "Realtor.com" for a beautiful, 3000 sq. ft., 2 story, new construction on 140 acres for a list price of $249,000. I called the agent and said I might buy that thing today, sight unseen but want to verify everything. It turns out the lot was 140 ft. deep...typed in the wrong box on the MLS listing, became 140 acres... and a real bargain! ;)

Everyone makes mistakes.

I agree with you Rhonda, You can see who the real professionals are here ! (Just my opinion)

Thanks Dan! I think you're a great guy too :)

Why even bother with pictures?

One reason for more serious agents to farm expireds!!!!!!

Sagine

I have started featuring one bad listing photo a week on my blog (no property info of course). Here is the latest:

http://www.604homes.com/blogs/matthew_collinge/archive/2007/05/02/bad-listing-photo-of-the-week-go-canucks-go.aspx

It's good to see a serious subject put out there with a light heart.  Some times we see photos that make us chuckle and others we feel sorry for the Seller who has a bad photo of the house for the world to see.  Couple of things to remember with this new technology for featuring our homes for sale:  1.  The neighbors used to go thru open houses and take the flyers to find out the price, now they just go online.  The Sellers may still be living there and have to see those same neighbors every day  2.  We have inavertenantly created a video archive of peoples homes, ie electronics, valuables, security systems etc.  and not to mention condition,  unless it is a virtual tour that expires when the listings do those pictures are there permenantly.   3.  When you are taking a picture of a room with a mirror or a big screen tv PLEASE step to the side, it is amazing what we look like when we think no one will notice.

In all fairness to the agent, they must have fallen and couldn't get up ... but shot the picture anyway!

I am not sure where this post really went...All over the place I would say.  I am not in this business to bash other realtors either but as we know there are those who do the job well and those who don't within any profession.  I really didn't take those photos as humerous rather a reality check at the difference between good and bad agents.  Those who would post photos of that sort for a seller are in need of some direction and need to realize that they would hate to actually hire someone who would do this to them. I am however shocked as to how agents are talking to each other in these posts. Let's try to be a little more professional. I'm not getting a whole lot from these posts so I am off to do some business.

Wait a minute, Matthew.....I have a similar Red Sox pic....you got a problem with that?!?  LOL

Cathy

Dan, doesn't Skyline Realty require you to put their logo on the web site? My boss has heart failure if my name even appears bigger than his logo. Is NJ and Washington the difference or did you just forget?

I wonder if the seller had ever seen these pictures? It's just unbelievable!

Gary and others -

No matter how bad they are, my MLS doesn't allow the re-publishing of photos that appear there.  It is copyright infringement.  Photos on our MLS have been "stamped" with the MLS logo.

Does your MLS have similiar rules?

I guess, at least in this case, I'd have to agree with Rhonda Nemcek since RELiberation is available to the general public.

We can add, change or delete any photos we want to our MLS.

 Gail Fritz, what happens when you want to post a pic and the weather is bad for several days? Do you not have pics up then or just put up crappy ones?? That's an odd MLS rule.(IMO)

We also can add, change or delete them at any time.  The only rule we have is you have to have atleast one pic in there.  And no pics of agent info and logos.  OK, so that's two rules.

Man, comments are flying all over the billboard on this one.  

The blog post was a good one to remind us as agents to keep our business as sharp as we can.  Humorous and sad at the same time because the seller's obviously were not internet savvy and the agent didn't understand or care.

I am reminded to (a) stick to business; (b) don't forget to laugh; (c) stay connected with my fellow Realtors especially through Point2; and (d) make sure I do the most professional job for myself as well as my clients.

The market is tough right now.  While we need to focus on our business and not gossip, there has to be some room for a smile in it as well.  

Thank you all for your comments.  You made my day better!

Barb Van

Our MLS just recently required at least one photo in every listing which I think is wonderful! The agent has about a week to get the photo in the listing or will be fined.

In my opinion, it is unprofessional to add poor pictures to a listing! I have seen pictures many times of bathrooms that show the agent's reflection in the mirror holding a cell phone taking the picture. I think one of the worst was a picture of a living room with dirty clothes all over the floor.

We would be unprofessional if we mentioned the names of the agents taking these poor pictures. We are not being unprofessional discussing the quality and professionalism we should have as Reators!

Ronda Kaufman - You misinterpretted my statement.  What I am saying is this:

I cannot copy the photo that you took on your listing and post it anywhere I want for whatever purpose I want.   It is copyright infringement.  It's not any different than copying your ad, or your blog, or any other article you have written without your permission.  Because of the "stamped" logo I wouldn't be to post any bad pictures on this blog or anywhere else without the owner of the photos permission.

What do you mean by bad weather for a few days?  We have up to a week to submit an outside photo.  Bad weather shouldn't affect the interior photos, unless the home is missing a roof :).

So, you put up pics of just the interior if the weather is bad and you can't get a good outside shot?  Ok. But if the weather changes and you can then get better pics you can't put them there? I can't imagine not being able to change my photos if I get better ones. My MLS doesn't "stamp" photos, so I guess I don't understand it..

Bad weather can happen for over a week in some areas.

Ronda -

1) No I don't put up pics of just the interior if the weather is bad and I can't recall ever seeing that done.  

2) I never said you can't change the photos.

3) "Stamping" photos prohibits other people from using yours (copyright infringement).  

4) I'm in Michigan and the saying goes "if you don't like the weather, wait 15 minutes it'll change."  

5) If you enter a listing without the exterior photo, an MLS logo appears with photo coming soon.

6)  If the weather is "that bad" and in Michigan that would mean a major snow storm, the listing appointment would probably be postponed.

7) If you're a smart agent, the weather is good and you have time before the appointment, you do your own drive-by, photograph the house and customize your listing presentation using the photo you took. "See Mr. and Mrs. Seller, I'm ready to begin the marketing of your home"...

Bad weather for over a week?????  Maybe during hurricane season in Florida but who lists their house in the middle of a hurricane?

I guess I know alot of agents who aren't "SMART".. Because I see alot of MLS listings that never have photos up. I have also seen photos of just the interior..

If the pictures are posted for the public view and your MLS "stamped" them then aren't they their pics and not yours?? I guess your MLS is different than most I know.. Have a wonderful day..

Yes Ronda - they become the MLS's with the stamp but I have th original and can use them in my advertising. When they become the MLS's nobody else can use them with the logo.  Example:  Gary wouldn't have been able to post those pictures here and even without the stamp I don't think he could have used them either as they are not his. :)  Another example, if another agent that has a listing that expires, I cannot get the listing and just copy the photos (obviously the "good" ones, who would want the bad?).

Sorry to here about the lack of professionals in your area.

I'm an oddball and several of my past clients must be too.  I have worked with so many clients who aren't local and they want to see other stuff, not just the pretty things.  Because of this and the positive comments I have received,  I have on some of my listings included shots of the water heater and furnace.  I, too, take pictures of bathrooms.  We have an air force base here....many of the web viewers are international.  When they visit in person to tour homes, they don't want to waste time seeing homes with dysfunctional or nasty kitchens and baths.

Speaking as a buyer, not an agent, I do want to see specific pics.  I want to see the kitchen, bathrooms, furnace, water heater, and laundry.  If I don't see what I like there, it doesn't matter what the bedrooms and living room look like and I won't bother taking an in-person look at the house.  Bedrooms and living rooms are the easiest and cheapest to fix if they aren't exactly right.  The others, not so cheap.  This is soooo totally not what we are taught in marketing our properties but like I said, I'm an oddball!

I need to see these photos!!!!!!!!!!

I love it when other agents post bad pictures, no pictures or give incorrect information or even better omit it all together.  When it expires, I am all over it.  Excuse me seller, could this be why your home didn't sell?  The other day I went to an expired that was listed as a 2 bedroom, but it was actually 3 and even showed so on title.  How is that representing your clients properly?