I'm in the market... My family is 'thinking' of buying a new home. And while I spend a lot of time with other buyers, it is a different beast when putting MY money on the line. It shouldn't be... but it is. I think it is a fantastic learning opportunity for me. So, this is a series of posts about the things I am 'unlearning' as a real estate professional, and learning from the buyer's seat.
Dear Listing Agent,
Please don't put stupid things in your description. There are a limited number of characters allowed by the listing services. Using that valuable space describing the property and why we should consider buying it would be a 'highest and best use'. Using it to say...
- "As is, where is" (Gee, I thought they would move and renovate the house for that money)
- "Show and Sell" (Generally, as an agent, those are two of my job duties)
- "Mrs. Clean lives here" (Will I have to evict her?)
- "Won't last long" (please note the winter grass in the picture... it has already 'lasted long')
- "Location, Location, Location" (Yes, the house has a location... does it have three?)
- "EZ Show, 24 Hour Notice" (That would be a pair of mutually exclusive terms)
- "Check out the seller's beautiful Golden Shower" (ok, that one is just WAY too much info for me)
I can think of a LOT of information that would be more relevent than the wasters of space listed above. Maybe mentioning some of the highlights about the house or neighborhood would be a good use of the space...
I'm not going to get into the repeated pictures of the same space, and missing pictures of the things I want to know about... like the garage. We have 20 slots for pics... why use 3 of them for almost the same angle of the front of the house and three more for almost the same angle of the master bedroom? Unless there is a way for me to meld those into a 3D image, I don't get it. So, maybe using the four wasted pictures to show me the garage, tiled backsplash in the kitchen, the sunroom and the landscaped backyard would be better... after all, you mentioned them in the description.
The first step is to start looking at your listings as if you were going to buy them...
Thanks,
Unless otherwise noted, all content of this blog is the property of Lane Bailey, ©2012 Lane Bailey.
I'd love to hear from you...
You see different when you look at listings thru buyers eyes!
Kind of funny to see what your clients see, isn't it.
The few times I have bought & sold homes for myself since being a real estate agent, I have thought it should probably be mandatory every so often - it sure makes it clear that the sheer intensity of emotion involved makes normally sane people come a little unhinged. I was surprised to find myself totally forgetting my nice calm real estate agent persona & becoming that crazily stressed buyer person!! I'll be watching for your Part 3 :)
Hey, if you evict "Mrs. Clean" she can move in with me! :)
Good Advice Lane! Thanks for sharing this!
Hi Lane, Enjoyed the post. I loved the list of redundancies. Too funny but true.
Lane, I enjoyed that, thanks, I think that I may need to reword some of my listings! I agree about the photos!
Your post was a riot Lane! It is rather humorous when the proverbial "shoe is on the other foot".
I love the MLS it provides such a great opportunity for agents to show their true colors. Shoot I still chuckle over the description "hardwood floors throughout the whore house" I ran across in our MLS one day. There are just to many ways to go with it.
Interesting perspective, Lane. I'll enjoy reading the rest of your series.
Too funny, I am going to have to go back and look through some of my listings now just to check. So the one line, have you actually seen this in the MLS description or were you just checking to see if your posts are being read all the way through?
Lane: I hate this abbreviations but LOL!!! I love the Mrs. Clean comment...and I have to say that I've seen all of these at one time or another and I'm a lender, not a Realtor. You have a great sense of humor and I love reading your posts! Best wishes...
Thank you all for your comments.
Cari - I get annoyed by the abbreviations, too... and ran across a real treat last week. There was not a complete word in the description. The sad part was that the agent only used about 1/3 of the available characters... She could have written words.
Steve - Yes, that was in the MLs... Either someone isn't aware of the reference, or they didn't notice... or didn't care...
Lane,
We work two MLS (Cincinnati and Dayton) for our area. Cincinnati doesn't give much power to the agents, 249 characters for the main entry (which only the admins can enter and change), up to 1000 characters to the pictures (which we can add). Dayton is much more liberal, 1000 for main entry and all photos, and all editable by the agents. One of my personal favorites is offering a selling bonus with a contract by date that is about three months ago! Once it's over, get it out of there!
Lane,
I love it! Hilarious. I just marvel most of the time especially about the hurry, wont last long when the Christmas lights and snow is in the pictures.
Great meeting you at REBCCLT, will you be at RDU?
Lisa
I do have some of the annoying abbreviations in my main description in the MLS, but like Liz above said there is only so much room to try to get everything in so fireplace becomes fp, and walk in closets becomes WIC. On my website I do write everything out so it is easy to understand.
The bonus that ended 3 months ago is bad, the worst one we have seen is the push button lock box combo right in the public remarks section, we made a call right away about that one. The sad thing about that one is while doing another search that property came up again, and roughly a week or so later, it still had not been changed.
Lane, I loved this post and your humor! What I liked best of all was you mentioned the importance of Real Estate Photography! As a Home Stager that is a service I offer...and can't stress the importance of how the photos of a listing appear. Look for a blog from me on that topic soon!
Chris
Hi Lane! Great post and oh, so true! I see this all the time and it really does frustrate the hell out of me when I'm working with a buyer--however, it makes me shine when their home is competing with mine!! I agonize over my write-up and use every single of the 400 available spaces. I prioritize--why did MY clients buy this house? What stood out about for them? That is #1...and I go from there.
And, don't you love the listings that have been on the market for 365 days and say, 'better hurry, won't last long!'
Or the ones that say "Loaded with options--too many to list"--followed by lots of blank space.
The many options we have by which we might choose to repeat ourselves are so ever handy, you need not keep a list to choose from.
Just saw a new one to take the cake...
The listing agent lifted the only photos in the listing from Google Street View. Complete withthe little line and arrow... and a dude walking up the sidewalk.
The HEIGHT of laziness.
And thank you for each of the comments.