Expired Listing-
No home seller goes into selling their house to have their home become an expired listing. But it happens, more often then you think. Dracut Massachusetts in the past year had 379 homes sold. Yet in that same time period, 104 homes expired unsold. That is 27% of the market expiring unsold. Now of course some of those will go on to be sold or some sellers will just give up.
Just as a side note, in the same time frame, 226 homes had a total of 359 price changes before they came off the market either as sold or expired real estate listings.
To prevent your house from becoming an expired listing their are several areas to look at to prevent this. The three area are what I call the 3 P’s of selling a home. Preparation, pricing and presentation.
Today we are specifically going to talk about presentation or more specifically real estate photography.
The Story of a Dracut MA Expired Listing
I talked to two disappointed homeowners last December to discover they had their home on the market for 4 months with not 1 Showing!
There were also a number of open houses where there was extremely poor attendance.
I am not a big proponent of open houses but we will save that for another future post.
As a quick reference though, here is an article a friend and colleague of mine, Bill Gassett a Hopkinton REALTOR wrote Are Open Houses Really Necassary.
When listing a home there are a few times an open house is important. First is the very first open house when the home is first listed and new to the market and the second is when there is a major price change of 5% or more.
So I worked with my new clients on pricing, preparation and presentation. We took some time and prepared the house. We tweaked the pricing and then the big difference was the quality of the marketing materials or more specifically the real estate photography. I feel so strongly that the listing photographs of your home is the most significant aspect of marketing your home after setting a proper asking price.
96 hours with 8 showings scheduled, 24 groups of home buyers at the open house, multiple offers by the end of the open house, accepted offer that evening!!
Long story short, in less than 96 hours we had 8 showings booked and the open house had 20 buyers come by. By Monday, we had accepted an offer. The price was essentially the same. We did some staging and prepared the house but the big difference was the quality of the photography. I recently did a post that summarized an ocular study that showed the great importance of real estate photography when selling your home. Here are the photographs of the listing.
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It is no longer acceptable for an agent to snap a few photographs of a home on their cell phone and upload them to their local Multiple Listing Service. Today’s home buyers are extremely image driven. Here is a quote from the ocular study I previously referenced:
“Without an eye-catching photo, the battle is lost before it begins,” Prof. Seiler says. “You have to grab people’s attention within two seconds.”
Here are some considerations that I give when I photograph a home to sell:
- Quality Photographs- I offer the highest quality photographs I can for each home that I sell. I use a tripod and multiple lights to provide that quality.
- Time of Day– Especially when photographing the exterior and grounds of the home, I pay attention to the time of the day and the type of day I stop by to do the photography of your home.
- Angles- You would probably never know it, but there is much thought put into the angle I take a photograph. For example, I will never photograph a house head on. I will always take that front shot 10 to 20 degrees of the front of the house to show the depth of the house. That is just one small example of some of the thought I put into your listing photographs.
- Order of the Photographs- I won’t go into great detail here, but again there is much thought that I put into the order I display the photographs. Usually the first photograph is the front of the home and then I follow up with what I call the money shots. The money shots are the photographs that highlight the best features of the home.
- Quantity of Photographs- Quality will always outweigh the quantity. Yes I will take the greatest amount of photographs I can. But I am not going to fill up your listing with photographs that detract from your home or make no sense. There are agents out there that will photograph a 10-year-old furnace in a messy basement. This type of photograph does not sell your home.
- Preparation- Your real estate photography should only be done after the house has been fully prepared for the market and is in peak showing condition.
I can unilaterally say that the quality of the photographs of this home for sale is what made the listing a success a second time around.
Do not underestimate the impact that the real estate photography can have on the sale of your home. Good real estate photography can get you a higher price, shorter marketing periods and in some case make the difference between your home selling or becoming an expired listing.
If you are wondering how to sell my house fast in Dracut, start with top notch real estate photography.
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Expired Listing- Quality Photography can make a difference! was provided by Kevin Vitali of EXIT Group One Real Estate. Kevin has a proven marketing plan that gets your house sold. One of Kevin’s niche’s is providing professionally quality real estate photography of your home. Quality photographs sells homes. There is no secret to selling your home fast and for top dollar. Kevin can guide you effortlessly through the selling process. Call Kevin at 978-360-0422.
