Looking at real estate on the Internet

willtel · 03-28-2013, 06:22 AM

I'm hoping to sell my house soon and leave the city of Atlanta behind so I have been doing some "window shopping" on the Internet at available homes in the area.

One thing that is driving me mad is the fact that garages, unfinished basements, and storage sheds are never represented in the listings with photos. Sure you can tell that a house has a two car garage by looking at frontage photos but there is never a picture with the doors open. Is that nice detached two car garage full of obtrusive columns? Does the slab need to be replaced? Did the previous owner leave a lift and a stand up compressor? Who knows?

Is this an issue with listings in your area?

VincentVega · 03-28-2013, 06:58 AM

I moved recently and found the same thing. Most just dont care about garages and take away from the kitchen and bathroom photo's in the listing. Have to get the scoop from the realtor or just do a lot of tours.

911 Rod · 911 Rod's Garage

I like the wide angle camera lenses they use to make every room look huge.
When they took pictures of my house I didn't want to move anymore!

dan wooley · 03-28-2013, 07:19 AM

Wives make the home buying decisions that why you see lots of kitchen / bath pictures. Most garages do NOT photograph well. You're best bet is to find a "Carguy" realtor

recycled sixtie · recycled sixtie's Garage

This brings to my mind staging of property and putting a positive spin on the internet. Why would they put a pic of a garage full of clutter or a basement that is unfinished? Watch out for what they don't tell you such as mould, a recently flooded basement which is immaculate and the rest of the house not renovated.

aigel · aigel's Garage

Those rooms are where all the crap goes when they clean up the house to sell. Rarely will you look at a house for sale that isn't vacant that has a clean garage / storage area. It is just the nature of moving / selling the home. I am a clean guy, but when I'd sell my house, I would take some furniture and items out, just to make it look bigger / more open and allow potential buyers to look past my furniture.

G

onewhippedpuppy · 03-28-2013, 08:26 AM

One of many reasons that I often think I could make a killing as a realtor. I frequently take more than 100 high-resolution photos when selling a car, even a cheap one. Then I look at a home listing that has a grand total of 15 low quality thumbnails. Seriously? Most realtors don't take advantage of even a fraction of the advertising capability of the internet. Tons of photos, 360 views, walk-through videos, etc. In a competitive market it could be the difference between a showing and ignoring the listing.

Paul K · Paul K's Garage

Well said Matt.

Just went through this when we bought a 2nd home last year. Many of the properties were mis-represented simply by the way they were photographed. (Example: House was staged & photographed 2 years previously, and those shots were used in the ad. house looked like s**t when we looked at it).

When we sell our current home (probably FSBO) I will take lots of high res photos and include a floor plan. This should be standard procedure!

CarreraDan · 03-28-2013, 08:36 AM

We currently have our house on the market and have a large 2 car garage and separate storage building. Our garage is the cleanest it has ever been and has zero clutter in it (you should see the storage unit we rented). Our realtor laughed out loud when I asked her why no pictures of the garage or storage building are in the listing. She said hardly anyone cares about the garage and we should focus on what people really want.

Looking at homes in Roanoke VA where we are moving has been frustrating with very limited garages. I have a lot of tools and am looking forward to another 911 to wrench on in the very near future and need a place to work. Most homes that we have looked at have the garages so full of crap you can't even get in them to measure. As of now we are planning on just building a detached 2 car garage with shop area.

Chocaholic · 08:56 AM

Unfortunately, she's right. Anything considered "guy-stuff" is secondary in terms of marketing. I'm sure there's supporting data to say that women decide which houses will be viewed and which will be bought...more than men do. The goal of the ad is to get the viewer to add it to their viewing list. That's it.

Matt...I'd respectfully disagree with your "more is better" approach to photos. Remember, on-line pictures are a tool most often used to "disqualify" houses, rather than "qualify" them. So, providing any more than is minimally necessary to gain a showing is not a good idea. Marketing 101. A few carefully selected teasers is more effective at getting showings than a detailed analysis of every nook and cranny...unfortunately.

R K T · 03-28-2013, 08:45 AM

We've just sold our house and in the process of buying the next one. I crack up at some of the pics of houses for sale.....they shoot a close up of a bed or table?!?! The bed and table are not included in the sale of the house.

Most people simply don't care about garages, because it's just a place to park the car and store junk. Us folks here have a slightly different focus on garages.

Here's a link to our house that we sold a while back....including garage pics!! We were on HGTV.

Click on "garage"
Selected for HGTV's National Open House (277529)

Jim Bremner · 03-28-2013, 08:55 AM

Yes, bought and sold a house last year and garages are not shown and the realtor said the same thing.

Now, one of the best things about home shopping on the nternet is google earth! You can see if there's a junk collector next door to the house that you're looking at! I dodged a bullet on a "perfect" home the backdoor neighbor was a guy that was a hoarder. You can also see if the place has a decent sized yard prior to buying

Chocaholic · 03-28-2013, 08:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim Bremner

Yes, bought and sold a house last year and garages are not shown and the realtor said the same thing.

Now, one of the best things about home shopping on the nternet is google earth! You can see if there's a junk collector next door to the house that you're looking at! I dodged a bullet on a "perfect" home the backdoor neighbor was a guy that was a hoarder. You can also see if the place has a decent sized yard prior to buying

...or if it backs up to a highway, department store, etc.

willtel · 09:18 AM

Great insight. A good number of the houses I'm seeing in my area are vacant so unless the garage is used to store equipment to maintain the house in it's current state (unlikely) I don't see a good reason not to include a picture of the space. If the house is being lived in and staged I can understand it being cluttered. It just seems that a garage can account for a significant amount of the square footage total and they are ignored.

Good to see I'm not alone being dissatisfied with the listings.

Someone posted a link to it here before but there is a real estate site that focuses on properties that would appeal to auto enthusiasts. I can't find it now and most of the homes listed with them are rural or well out of my price range but they are out there.

EDIT: I found the site, http://www.carproperty.com/. This is awesome, it is like a garage with a house attached to it.
http://carproperty.com/rented-for-2-895-month-huge-6-500-sq-ft-15-car-garage-home-w-car-lift-ad47462524.htm

jwasbury · 03-28-2013, 09:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim Bremner

Yes, bought and sold a house last year and garages are not shown and the realtor said the same thing.

Now, one of the best things about home shopping on the nternet is google earth! You can see if there's a junk collector next door to the house that you're looking at! I dodged a bullet on a "perfect" home the backdoor neighbor was a guy that was a hoarder. You can also see if the place has a decent sized yard prior to buying

^this

my wife and i recently purchased a 2nd home and for each property we identified online, we google mapped it to check out the satellite view. This is the only way you get a sense of how the property "sits" in relation to neighbors, businesses, etc. We were able to weed out a lot of candidates that looked good on paper specs or in photos this way.

I really like the REALTOR.com ipad app for home shopping. Free and worth checking our if you're an ipad user.

theFONZ · 03-28-2013, 09:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willtel

EDIT: I found the site, CarProperty.com. This is awesome, it is like a garage with a house attached to it.
CarProperty.com / RENTED FOR $2,895/MONTH, HUGE 6,500 SQ. FT. 15 CAR GARAGE HOME W/ CAR LIFT!

Geez, that website is terrible. I can barely tell how to navigate it, and what's an ad and what's not. And they are trying to sell million dollar houses, HA!

A930Rocket · 03-28-2013, 10:04 AM

Last house we sold had a three car attached garage and a three car detached garage with HVAC. Realtor only added an exterior shot of the detached garage at my insistence.

I miss my old house

asphaltgambler · 03-28-2013, 10:41 AM

I like Zillow for this. Very easy to navigate, has multiple 'sky-views' (Google Erf) where you can see what the approximate value is house-by-house in your neighborhood. Not exact science but the comps are usually pretty close. Plus you can check what the assesed tax value is and the property taxes paid as well as sale/price history. Very important stuff.

fireant911 · 03-28-2013, 11:19 AM

Here is an example from the 'other' side. When we were selling our house, the realtor listed amenities that our home DID NOT have. We called him immediately when we saw these errors and said not to worry because whatever is said in the listing is not legally binding. In my opinion, this is an extremely poor way to do business but I have not witnessed much in regards ethics in that area of business. Imagine someone viewing a potential home based on the listing description only to discover there was somewhat of a smoke screen...

We had two firm offers on on house quickly (both on day number six) but the realtor never did change/amend/correct the listing. Yes, we did save our correspondence to the realtor in the event that finger-pointing started.

Deschodt · 03-28-2013, 11:32 AM

That's interesting. The garage is about as important as the house for me... And my current house (soon to be for sale) is probably the only one in my area at that price point with a 3 car garage that actually can fit 5 (stacker etc..). I *will* insist on it being on the pictures, as it would definitely attract another car-nut buyer.... (or someone with a lot of stuff to store).