Monday, August 15, 2016

The Ethics of Real Estate Photography

This is a big topic but here, in one screen grab, sums up my take (pardon the pun) on it.

A newish company in the real estate listing photography business is offering two "enhancement services".  1. They will add a blue sky to a photo instead of the gray sky that was there the day the photos were taken.  2.  They will turn the brown lawn green.  They normally charge extra for these services but during this promotion they are free.


In my view, one of these is OK and the other isn't.

We don't always have the luxury of photographing a listing on the perfectly sunlit day.  Adding a blue sky enhances the photo without changing the presentation of the property.  On certain days there will be a beautiful blue sky above; on other days there won't.  In any case the sky it's not part of the sale.

On the other hand, the brown lawn is going to be there until the season changes or new sod is installed.  It's part of the sale.  You could argue that the lawn will be green in the spring.  Maybe or maybe not.  And, the prospective buyer is going to see the brown lawn as soon as they arrive at the showing.  What message does that send?  What other edits or "enhancements" have been made in the marketing materials?  What other important information about the property is the seller/listing agent trying to hide or misrepresent?


New Listing Market Watch -- right on track (almost)

We could almost repost the same information we showed a year ago since  the number of sales and the percentage going into contract for the last two weeks is almost identical to a year ago.


During the last two weeks 90 single family homes came on the market compared to 102 last year in the same period.  4 homes went into contract compared to 2 last year.  129 condos came on the market during the last two weeks compared to 114 a year ago.  6 condos went into contract compared to 9 a year ago.



Price reductions for single family homes is also in line with last year:  22 during the last two weeks compared to 20 a year ago.  The only number not consistent with a year ago is the 33 condos posting price reductions during the last two weeks compared to only 13 last year.




Tuesday, August 2, 2016

New Listing Market Watch -- summer doldrums, kinda

New listings for the past two weeks are about the same as this period last year (239 vs. 229) and the number of listings going into contract is similarly similar to last year (32 vs 32).



This is traditionally the time of year when new listings drop until after the Labor Day holiday.

However, the number of price reductions is several times what it was a year ago.  During the past two weeks there were 28 price reductions of single family homes compared to 9 for the same period last year.  For condos, the numbers 42 vs 12.


The vast majority of these price reductions were for properties originally priced at over $1million.