Selling house - Photos on myhome.ie & daft.ie

A friend of mine is looking to put his house on the market soon. However due to the condition of the market there are quiet a few houses in the area for sale at the minute. So to ensure that his house sticks out he wants to take his own photos and give them to the auctioneer to put on the websites (as there are some really terrible photos of houses/rooms on these sites). Would an aunctionner accept this? Or does the aunctionner insist on taking their own photos?

two years ago DNG insisted on using their own photos taken with a pocket sized digi camera even though my OH is a photographer and our snaps were way better......maybe other EA's are not as strict!

Hi,

Even with the best of photos - still may be hard to sell your home - all boils down to price and how much you are prepared to keep dropping. I took some of my own and used some of the auctioneers though - it is amazing how bad some of the photos are and it is also amazing how some people don't declutter and it shows up in the photos. Best of luck to your friend.

From personal experience, it depends on the Agent. I took my own photos for the last house I sold earlier this year as I felt that the photos taken by the EA were dark and didn't do the house justice. I felt that in todays market, it's vital to stand out in any way you can e.g price, photos etc - whatever it takes if you need to sell.

The EA had no problem using my own photos and the house sold in 3 weeks, though I'm sure that had more to do with the 20% price reduction rather than the photos!

We sold ourselves on daft so obviously we used our own photos. It's important after price I think.

I think that you are clutching at straws because the pictures will not make very much difference! The main thing that buyers will be looking at is the price! If your price is lower than the others that are for sale, it stands a better chance of selling.

I'm sure decent photos can't hurt.

pictures give you the first impression of the house and they usually stick, if you see a house that is disorganised and messy, it gives you an indication of how the owners looked after the house in general , for our last 2 house sales we made them use our pictures (his were poor) and also rewrote the brochure, don't forget that they are working for you and if they don't want to do ball move on, in this climate i don't think they'll be complaining

I would tell EA that a condition of you using them is that you get to take/choose your own photos. I can't see them wanting to lose business because of this! I think the photos can play a huge part in getting people to view. I went to see so many houses that looked great on the web but were completely different in reality (including the one I eventually bought). If the pics were really awful to start off with they wouldn't have grabbed my attention.

I shouldn't make a differnece to the EA who takes them, and if it keeps the cloent happy at least its something. Regarding the effectiveness of pictures, I have had people say that 'it looks alot better than the photo' but by and large I would imagine that poor photos result in less viewings. Most people want a house in pristine condition and everyone is busy so photographs are the first point of contact and its from there that they will base their decision to view or not.

OP, take the photos email them in and insist that they are used, don't accept anything else.

Good pictures will get you more viewings, but they won't sell a house. Price and location are more important.

Bronte said:

Good pictures will get you more viewings, but they won't sell a house. Price and location are more important.

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That's the point - no one through the door and you have no hope of selling. My EA, lisney, allowed me to use own photos which were taken with a decent digital SLR. Also, an ad in the Sunday Times was the one which got my buyer...so consider a newspaper ad also.

johnnyg said:

also rewrote the brochure

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Hear hear - when I sold my place, I gave the EA the text I wanted used. they amended it and in the end we had a decent description. The several attempts by previous agents that I had not intervened in were either completely OTT or monosyllabic, also containing a variety of non-sensical descriptions, important information missing, spelling mistakes, bad grammar and lack of punctuation.

I really feel it makes a difference and while the EA is supposed to be the expert here, a bit of assistance in this regard - if put constructively - will be well received.

Regarding the pictures, I went to view a house once where the (substantially unfurnished) rooms seemed a lot bigger in the pictures than they were in reality. It turned out that the photos had all been taken from the height of the door handles and it created the impression that the rooms were a lot bigger - I thought that was quite a neat visual trick.

We recently went sale agreed on our house and I took my own photos, edited them in photoshop to tart up the colours etc, and the estate agent had no problem putting them on myhome

If course you should take and be allowed to use photos- you can take your time at it, and take them at different times of the day - eg photos of back of the house when it is sunny and photos of front of the house when sunny- use a digital SLR if you can as the pictures are far superior. Take 50 photos and give the estate agent the 10 best

We're currently in the process of switching agents and I've just realised how awful the pictures being used up until now are. I do think they are important to generate interest and you probably know best what some of the better features of your house are.

I have dug out some old photos of my house I had taken before and our new agent is happy to look through these and add them to photos he has taken. It's in both your own and the agent's best interests to get the house sold as quickly as possible and for the best possible price so if good photos are the hook then why would they object to using your own ones? It may also save your agent a trip out to your house to take pictures so that would probably be a bonus to them as well.

From changing agents, one thing I have learned is to be firm with them from the start and not just go along with their suggestions if you're not fully comfortable. We were never happy with the main picture that our original agent used of the house. Anyone that knows our house always comments on the location and the site itself, but the picture being used was taken from the wrong side and instead of showing the setting just showed the side of the house where the bins etc are kept. When I took this up with the agent she just went out on the dullest, darkest day ever and took another bad photo from the other side. Have learnt from this and am able to tell the new agent what way I want the house to be represented.