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We’re all guilty of letting those leafless winter listing photos stretch into summer sometimes, especially if you get a new listing in late winter. Let’s face it, it can make your listing look pretty dated when it’s 90 degrees outside and there’s frost on the windows in the photos. That this area is so lush also makes it stand out, though for land, it’s a lot easier to see what you’re getting when trees are bare.

However, it’s very time-consuming, especially in this neck-of-the-woods. I currently have only 6 listings, and it takes a full day just to visit them all via these Blue Highways (great book) and gravel mountain roads. I honestly don’t see how some agents juggle 100 listings in this area and handle their buyers too, hat’s off girls, seriously.

The other limiting factors are weather and time of day. We only hit the road for pictures on mostly sunny days, and late afternoon/evening is of course the best time. Mornings can be good, middle of the day is horrible for interior cabin shots from my experience.

Then the graphics/editing work starts when you get home. Nonetheless, Kip and I will be updating the listings that have older winter pictures in the coming weeks. Now that I say this, it will rain for 2 weeks! That’s OK too, we need the rain.

As listings grow old on the vine in this flush-with-inventory market and frustrated sellers reach for the slightest edge, the findings of several academics might offer guidance.

For example, a Canadian professor, as part of a broader study on real-estate sales patterns, found that homes where the seller was “motivated” took 15 percent longer to sell, while houses listed as “handyman specials” flew off the market in half the average time.

from The Seattle Times - New study shows which words sell, and which don’t

And we all thought “motivated” was a huge seller—not anymore. 15% longer to sell? That could be a pretty costly word in some instances. Buyers must be making one of two assumptions here:

• the price is currently too high as obviously the “motivated” seller will take less, and they’re waiting-it-out for a price drop
• the seller/agent initially overpriced the property in the first place, dropped it, and aren’t yet motivated enough to price it where it should be: what’s wrong here?

Either way, it must denote a lack of buyer trust for the “motivated” seller. Not necessarily “buyer-beware” but more like “buyer-look-elsewhere-first”.

Most importantly, it also means that buyers are paying a great deal of attention to the listing agent’s written remarks and most certainly applying their own definitions and actually acting on the perceived trustworthiness of the agent’s wording. I’m amazed that some sellers still let their listing agent get away with writing a few bad words, snapping fewer photos, grabbing an MLS number, kicking a sign in the ground and calling it a year.