According to the National Association of REALTORS (NAR) in their 2006 home buying study, over 80% of buyers begin their home search online. As a Barrington Real Estate Broker working with multiple buyers right now, I can certainly vouch for the importance of being technologically capable of being able to provide buyers the capability of searching the Chicago MLS online directly through our website.
In fact, if you are juggling multiple Barrington Area real estate buyers, being able to assist with buyers searching online is crucial and too often we've been coming across Barrington homes that are gorgeous in person... but not so gorgeous online due to poor quality photos or outdated photos that were taken in January or February.
While we don't particularly have to explain to relocation clients that there is no snow in Barrington in the first week of June or that there really are leaves on all of the beautiful trees right now, it leaves a very poor impression when a Barrington real estate buyer from out of the area is searching for homes online and they see photos of homes with bare trees and even worse... snow on the ground.(Besides that, how long does that tell you the home has been listed? We can tell you from our extensive experience of working with buyers, that the longer a home has been on the market for sale, the less appealing it looks to buyers.)
We can certainly tell you that the Barrington area homes being marked as Interested or that our buyers mark they would like to see have recent photos. Real Estate Brokers place such an emphasis on home staging (or at least we do anyways) that don't you think some emphasis should be placed on the Real Estate Broker to make the exterior photos of a Barrington area home look good online? 80% of home buyers begin their search online. What does that tell you?
It certainly is not very hard to swing by a clients home that you have listed for sale and to take an updated picture on a beautiful day and have it updated to the Multiple Listing Service. If it has not been done by June there are three reasons that I can come up with right off the top of my head:
Let's face it, Barrington is an absolutely beautiful area in the Spring, Summer and Fall when the trees have leaves and all of the flowers are blooming... which is one of the many factors that gives Barrington real estate such appeal to begin with.
We think Barrington home sellers are paying pretty good money and should have their home professionally marketed..not just listed. The days of no Barrington Homes available for sale are long over and instead of having a real estate agent making excuses of why your home is not selling, they should be taking the time to at least update those winter pictures and providing solutions to get the home sold. Our opinion anyways.
Date: 2007-06-13 19:12:18