Talking San Diego Real Estate

It is amazing to see homes in the MLS, some asking for well over a million dollars, that have few or no photos. Many of the photos that do exist are small, dark or fuzzy and do not highlight the features of the property. People are very visual, especially in the internet age.

Whether the subject is on Craigslist, eBay, the MLS or a personals site, photos attract attention. There are almost 20,000 properties listed in San Diego county today. Many can be filtered out by location, number of beds and baths and the asking price. But once the buyer is down to a manageable number, they start looking at individual properties. Whether they look on Realtor sites like UltimateSanDiegoHomes.com, Realtor.com, CraigsList or others, much of the decision of which homes to see is based on a few seconds looking at a photo.

It makes sense that homes that have more and better photos are more likely to attract buyer attention and therefore attract a higher price, but is there any evidence that is true?

To answer that question, we compiled sales data for San Diego county. We compared the average sales price for homes based on the number of photos in MLS to the average sales price in the same zip code. The summary is shown in the chart below.

This chart shows that homes with the maximum of 12 photos in MLS sold on average for 6% more that other homes in the same zip code. Homes with 4 or fewer photos sold for 4-13% less than the average.

This research is far from scientific. It only compares homes to the average for the zip code and does not take into account the quality of the photos, other marketing efforts, property condition, etc.

It is very possible that having a dozen on-line photos is simply an indication of the marketing effort that the listing agent is putting forth. Someone that is doing a lot of open houses, advertising and on-line marketing is probably not going to skimp on photography.

It does seem clear though, to get top dollar, the more pictures the better.

For more details on the study, please email info@UltimateSanDiegoHomes.com.