House sale photos being done today - torrential rain?

[HangerLaneGyratorySystem]

So we've waited weeks to get to this point, H and I divorcing, things are very tense. We've booked a dog sitter as well but its raining heavily. A lot of the stuff we wanted to store outside will get damaged so its all sat in here waiting and hoping we can shift it round. My main worry is that its black here, the gardens are black with rain all the paving slabs, fences etc and the windows look like someone has a hose on them - surely other people manage to get this done in the rain though?

Estate agents are good at photoshop.

They could always retake the external shots if needed on a better day?

Both good ideas thank you!

Spoke too soon. Photographer not happy to photoshop or come back. I’ll have to sort it out with the agent!

I'm coming back to this rather than start a new thread as the experience with the photographer wasn't great, he kept saying he's only allowed to take x y and z photos, e.g., wouldn't take a picture of our hall and entrance (said the package our estate agent got only includes a set number of photos). I felt we were being gaslighted but anyway, it was done and I was waiting to see when they'd be ready to view. I thought maybe we'd have to wait till Monday so I called this afternoon just to check and apparently the whole listing had already been published. So I've not seen any wording or photos, but my neighbours etc may have. Its already been up for a few hours. The agent then offered to send me what has been done, whilst at the same time removing the listing so I can't see it now, and I'm still waiting to see anything at all. Apparently I'm being difficult for objecting to not seeing it all before it went on line.

Am I going mad or would people normally not expect any say in what details the agent shows and uses?

YANBU. I would always expect sign-off.

I dont think we saw our photos before it went on rightmove. But we didnt have any concerns.

That's simply not acceptable. However do check what your contract says.

When I sold my dad's house, they sent me the listing for my approval first. I can't see why this wouldn't be usual. You're employing them after all.

WTF?
We had to give sign-off before the listing went live on rightmove or their website.
Is it too late to use a different agent?

We had all of ours to approve before it went up live on Rightmove - they also nipped out with the little mobile phone camera the day before to do some external shots as the weather forecast was a bit dicey for the planned day.

Wow! Very poor customer service OP. I hope the photos/listing are of decent quality though, which is the main thing.

We’ve had our house on the market twice recently. The first agents did check with us but our most recent haven’t. I didn’t have a problem with any of the images so feel ok about it. If you don’t like the images they can always swap them at a later date. It is a bit rubbish and it’s not you being difficult but try not to get too upset about it.

Radio silence from agents. Have checked online, nothing on there, if it ever was in the first place. Have to wait and see now but I will check the contract to see if there's something like "we can do whatever we want and not tell you" in it!

I wouldn’t worry, EAs will photo shop the photos before publishing! You’ll be surprised at what they do..

Our EAs have always sent us the photos to approve before they posted them, and we’ve moved quite a lot

You absolutely should have seen the listing before it went up - it forms part of the contract of the sale!

We once had an estate agent say we had real wood flooring when it was lino, which we caught at proof reading stage. What if they've listed appliances as included when they're not etc. You'd end up with pissed off buyers (rightly) reducing their offer.

That’s terrible that they didn’t give you approval.

As an aside, none of the agents round here bother to photoshop or filter. The house I’m looking to purchase has pictures that look like they were taken by a toddler with Vaseline on the lens. Not even in focus. I’m glad, because it means hardly anybody else has bothered viewing.

Definitely. As above, when I sold my dad's house, the agent advised to sell without appliances included, then in the draft listing had stated they were included, so I got it amended. The buyer then got told they were included anyway 🙄

Not all of them do, I know someone who,s trying to sell atm and their photos haven't been

You'd think they would as having photos up with snow in the garden is just unnecessary

That's really bad - we've sold seven times (in different parts of the UK with different EAs) and have always been given sight of the draft details and pics to approve before anything was finalised.

Otoh, when selling our last-but-one house, our EA employed a professional photographer to take the pics and he informed us that - despite this being a 2500 sq ft house with 14 rooms plus 0.3 acre garden - we were only able to have a maximum of 8 photos taken by him. He was also a bit weird about our cat who was sitting in the garden when the pics were being taken. He told us to move the cat as he might put some potential buyers off....wtaf?!?

When we spoke with our EA about the lack of pics, they said their policy was to have sufficient pics to attract interest but not so many that potential buyers would feel they'd seen everything without doing a viewing....in other words to spark their interest and leave them wanting more. Ultimately we argued for a few extra photos to be included but we had to supply these ourselves.

What an excuse, the real reason will be they don’t want to pay the photographer for more photos 🙄

We had our photos taken in horrible rainy weather. We had eighteen viewings the following week, and then agreed a sale the next weekend. I think the photos were photoshopped to make them seem brighter. I was really concerned that the photos made the house look much better than it atually is, and people would be disapointed when they looked round. The agent just put our listing up online. I do not think we checked it first.

Goodluck with your sale.

Sorry, make that actually and disappointed.

My parents gave their agent the sign off. Then me and my sister spotted a few mistakes. Which were corrected, after the listing was live. Their area is a good area. But describing it as 'charming' was stretching it a bit!