What constitutes a "good" exterior home photo?

When you get a new listing, often the only photo you can include in the MLS is a shot of the exterior of the property.  In fact, you should have that already, and have built it into your listing presentation!

So, you want to make sure that that photo presents the property in the most appealing way possible.  How can you do that?

It's a good thing to choose a partially cloudy day, so that the property is lit, but your camera lens is not blinded.  Walk around the front of the house, to determine which viewpoint offers the most attractive view of the property.  Often, an oblique view, rather than a front view, will make the house look larger, and can highlight a pleasing feature not clearly visible from the front of the house.

Naturally, avoiding "clutter" is important.  With your Seller's permission, move garbage cans out of the frame and pick up any newspapers, while you take your photo.  Move them back into place - neatly! - afterward.  If you live in the North and it's Winter, make sure the walks and driveway have been neatly plowed, before you take that picture!

Avoiding including much of the neighbors' houses is important, too - especially if they are not well maintained.  You want prospective Buyers to focus on the property you've listed, not on the adjacent houses.  You can sometimes eliminate peripheral property elements by shifting your view or physical position left or right, or by moving closer to your listed property.

Take more than one shot, and review your photos before you post one.  You'll be surprised what you did not see, at the time!

If all else fails, you may be able to use a photo-editing program, like Photoshop® Elements, to crop out unwanted items at the edges of the photo.  Be sure to maintain the same aspect ratio, however, as MLS systems expect photos to be in standard format.

Sometimes, Your Client's Home Isn't Fit to Be Seen

Bad Photos

The gang at "This Is Why Your House Won't Sell" have a wonderful time collecting truly horrid photos from real estate listings.  It always makes me feel better, knowing that others take much worse photos than I do!

I have often had the experience of seeing entirely different things in the photo, than I saw in the viewfinder.  Some examples:

• a full-body reflection in a glass storm door (I kid you not!)
• an elbow in the mirror of a tiny powder room
• a foot on a lovely ceramic tile floor.

That's why you should always review your digital photos before you leave the photo session:  you may have to reshoot some.  In fact, I usually review the photos, room by room.  That takes less time, overall.

Poor Staging

A much greater problem is houses that are simply not fit to be seen by anyone other than the inhabitants.  It is terribly hard to find usable images, in houses like that.

Obviously, your first line of attack must be to try to convince the Seller to clean up, throw out, and store all of the extra stuff.  A wall of cartons stacked neatly in the basement is preferable to having excess belongings all over the house.  (You might send them to my relevant blog post.)

If that doesn't work, take photos of only those parts of the exterior and interior that are acceptable, and refuse to take additional photos until the various rooms and the yard are improved.  Explain that Internet-savvy buyers believe that a house with few photos, or with just one photo of the outside, are assumed to be in "questionable" condition, and are, therefore, often dismissed as candidates for purchase.

Do you have other ways of encouraging Sellers to improve the condition of their houses?  If so, please share them in the Comments area.  Thanks!

Blogging About the Good News in Your Marketplace

Whatever their favorite source of news (newspapers, television, or the Internet) consumers are inundated with bad news:  earthquakes, stock crashes, volcano eruptions, tsunamis, job losses, hurricanes, bank closures, forest fires, building collapses, epidemics, budget cuts, and on and on.  Some days, it's hard for us to keep smiling!

So, let your blog be a respite from all of the dire news that consumers see everywhere else.  Instead, focus on the good that is happening in your marketplace.

Certainly, you want to blog about real estate:  your featured listings, improvements in market conditions, low interest rates, helpful government programs, and so on.  But also, blog about the accomplishments of organizations (did the little league team win, this week?), businesses (is someone celebrating 10 years serving your community?), and groups (are some teenagers raising money for a selfless cause?) that are operating within your marketplace.  Cheer their successes!


Where can you find this good news?  Three sources are available to anyone:

1. Keep your eyes open:  there are signs (literally), everywhere - town billboards, store signs, posters on telephone poles, notices on library and supermarket bulletin boards.  Make a note of who is doing what, and blog about it.
2. Read your local newspaper as soon as it comes out.  Highlight and blog about the good news items you find there.
3. Monitor your town's Internet site for news and announcements, and help them spread the word.

As the old Harlen and Mercer song says, "Ac-cen-tu-ate the positive, e-li-mi-nate the negative, hold on to the af-firm-a-tive. Don't mess with Mr In-Between." (1944).  Your blog can become the go-to place for good news about your community and marketplace.

And don't forget to share your blog posts, via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Posterous, and other social media sites.  That will draw more readers.

Frequent Touch: How Often Is That?

When you were taking your early real estate training, you learned about the importance of "frequent touch" - contacting members of your Sphere of Influence or your "farm" regularly, would ensure that your name would be "top of mind," whenever those people were ready to begin buying or selling a home.

A number of vendors would be delighted to sell you their ready-made "frequent touch" prospecting programs. Such programs usually consist of cards, newsletters, and a calendar. When you examine the details, you learn that you can buy several levels of program: monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly.

Each level of program offers a different number of "touches" each year - 4, 6, or 12. If the program is to be effective, isn't there a minimum number below which you should not fall? Or a maximum number you need not exceed?

The magic number depends on the individual, but many experts recommend 5 to 7 contacts each year. In the case of the ready-made prospecting programs, the middle ground - alternate months - should work well.

However, you should not rely solely on ready-made programs. They're informative, but rather impersonal. So, plan your own prospecting program to include face-to-face contact, phone calls, and e-mails. You could, then, select the least expensive ready-made program (just to give your prospecting some consistency), and supplement that with your own personal contact, to achieve the desired number of contacts each year.

Using the Listing to Get the Listing

How can you use the listing, before you have the listing? (No, I haven't "lost it"!)

Technically, of course, you can't. However, you can create a marketing presentation that shows the seller exactly how your splendid marketing of their home will look.

For example, consider these simple options:

• Drive to the seller's home, ahead of time, and take a high-quality digital image of the exterior. Use that image in your customized listing presentation and in all of your marketing "mock-ups."
• Using an existing Featured Listing from your website as a base, create a dummy Featured Listing of the seller's property, including all of the information that you currently have about the property. (You can make up the rest, borrow it from one of your existing listings, or use the standard "lorem ipsem" nonsense text as filler.)
• Similarly, create an Open House Listing Sheet, and any other kind of marketing collateral that you typically use.

The sellers will understand that, with incomplete information, your marketing samples will not be complete or accurate. But, they will be impressed with the extra time and effort you invested. And, they will be able to visualize, much more easily, just how your complete marketing system can work for them.

Provide Monthly Updates, with Real Numbers

One of the questions to which consumers seek answers is, "What is the real estate market doing?" Make it easy for consumers to find the answer to that question on your website.

Each of the MLS systems of which you are a member will generate a snapshot or summary view of what your chosen real estate market has done, for any recent time period that you specify. I recommend that you establish a specific page or tab on your website, on which you summarize this information.

You can provide the information in tabular or bullet form - as long as it is easy for consumers to understand. Here's just one example: Watchung Borough, NJ (07059)

Be sure to update your market snapshot, faithfully, every month, so that consumers know they can count on you, to provide the latest information!

Previous Jobs Can Help You Get Business

I know: you're saying to yourself, "Robin is stating the obvious, again. I have already milked my previous jobs dry, in building my Sphere of Influence (SOI)."

But wait - there's more! Along with previous jobs, you also get ...

... skills, knowledge, and experience.

In a previous post, I asked "What do people see in you?" Through this post, I'd like to help you direct people's attention to the skills, knowledge, and experience you gained through previous jobs: the richness of your life experience, if you will.

So, your first task (after entering absolutely everyone into your SOI database) is to enumerate the skills and knowledge that you gained at the various jobs. Then, consider how you can adapt each skill or class of knowledge to improving your real estate business. Admittedly, some (such as running a particular machine) will be a stretch. But others (such as managing inventory, collective bargaining, or filing business papers) will readily generalize to real estate.

Apply that selected list of skills and knowledge to improving your business plan, your prospecting and marketing plan, your customer relationship management, your presentations, and your web site.

Next, inform the world of how your rich, varied experience enables you to work better with people, to market listings more effectively, and to provide first-class customer service. In your web site biography, describe how your work experience makes you a more effective real estate professional.

My own background is a tapestry of different kinds of work in various businesses and industries. Yet, I can honestly say that I have used practically everything I learned, along the way, in each successive career. I hope the same is true for you.