I ran across an interesting article today that claims
"the number of photos included in the listing has an influence on how fast the home sells." They quickly qualify this claim by saying that in the Bay Area there is little correlation between number of photos and speed of sales unless the listing is on the market for more than 20 days.
The article is based on a study done by the on-line real estate brokerage famous for their notorious "Zestimate" which purports to estimate (get it?) the market value of residential properties whether on the market or not.
This article originally caught my eye because I spend a lot of time taking quality photographs of listings for myself and other agents and I've always believed that quality photos have become an increasingly important marketing tool ever since listing information became widely available on the internet. But this article goes too far when it says that a property listing with more photos will sell a faster than a listing with fewer photos. And if you look at
Zillow's actual study you'll see they make no such claim.
There are far more significant factors that affect the speed of a sale -- the most important are:
- demand vs. supply
- asking price compared to perceived value
The market in San Francisco is a great example of the first point -- there is great demand resulting in many listings receiving multiple offers well over asking price, often within two weeks of the initial listing. The second is just common sense -- if buyers perceive the asking price to be greater than actual value they do one of two things. Either they simply look elsewhere or they may make an offer under asking price and closer to what they believe is the market value of the property. In a market like our current market in San Francisco, buyers won't bother to make an under asking price.
This is not to say that listing photos aren't important but the effect of listing photos is more subtle and nuanced and probably not subject to easy quantification. Our experience (and that of our colleagues) tells us:
- It's extremely important that photos accompany a new listing when it is first published. Especially in a competitive market, agents and their clients are watching for new listings very closely. If a new listing surface with few or no photos, the reaction is generally to skip by that listing (and not come back for a second look) and a suspicion that there is something wrong with the property "so they're not showing us what it actually looks like".
- Quality photos create the impression of a quality property for both buyers and agents -- and the opposite is true as well, with poor quality photos suggesting the property is in poor condition and in need of repairs.
- "Missing" photos also lead to suspicion that there is something wrong. If there are no photos of key rooms such as kitchens and bathrooms buyers and agents are likely to think the worst. Same thing if there are no photos of a feature mentioned in the description.
- The photos must reflect the reality of the property. If there a utility poles and wire in front,
