Estate agents why don't you show photos of ...

[Alwaysbeyou]

The outside of the property first ?
Then when I flick through rightmove I can swipe the ugly places.
Stairs and common areas if it is a flat ?
I dont want a grotty entrance way.
Put the names of the rooms on the photos ?
Especially on the photos of 10 views of the same room.

You've answered two of your questions already.
The names.on photos would be great though x

Estate agents don't care about wasting your time. If they show you those things you won't consider the property and won't ask for a viewing. They also don't care about wasting the vendor's time making them spend time cleaning and tidying for a viewing that will come to nothing. They just want you to book the viewing so that it helps their stats.

Agree they don't care about wasting your time, but I often wonder why they don't care about wasting their own time

For the same reason they don't have a search option for not really detached houses. Or detached bungalows.

You can find a detached house but not a detached bungalow, instead you have to wade through bungalows to find the non-semi ones.

Link detached houses are not bloody detached, they are joined together. SHould be a category of their own, or listed with the semi detached ones which what they are.

I have probably missed out on the perfect property because of this idiocy.

I always worry when they don't include a photo of the bathroom.

Link detached are where no living areas are joined. For example the garages are attached. They are a “thing”. And some people will not look at a house they think is ugly but love it when they see inside. And they DO buy based on the inside.

I know they are a 'thing'. However they are not actually detached and should be described as 'link attached' because that is what they are.

Detached means standing by itself : SEPARATE, UNCONNECTED especially : not sharing any wall with another building.

A link, garage or whatever joins them together or one of those older properties with a covered passage though the middle of a pair, so not detached. If they were correctly listed on Rightmove or whatever they could sell to someone who wants a semi.

I agree re naming the rooms. It's much better than photo002 or something like that, and you can match the rooms with the floor plan.

I never trust the properties that don't have the outside as the main picture. Makes me think they're trying to hide something

EA like to look good with “number of viewings” if they dont sell a property. They don’t care about wasting your time. Their logic is… one of these suckers will make an offer. Their aim is to increase their chance by bringing in as many viewings as possible

Named rooms would be so much better and all should have a floor plan. They seem to be missing most when it’s a non conventional home and a floor plan would really help visualise the layout.

Or the kitchen.

Close up shots of ornaments... Or taps.

And obligatory open door shots on expensive houses. They should do them on cheap houses too.

You get all excited when you see a lovely flat, and then you get to the final picture, which shows the outside of the building, and realise the flat is over a chip shop and you have to go up an alley at the back to gain access.

Why can't they put the garden on the floor plan too to get an idea of scale, or Google maps screen shot with boundaries highlighted

I've seen a few with the rooms named.

They also stretch photos or leave out aspects. You're going to find out it's tiny, why pretend it isn't.

Link detached houses are not bloody detached, they are joined together. SHould be a category of their own, or listed with the semi detached ones which what they are.

Well, not really.

I am looking for a detached property. I would consider link detached because not of the living rooms are attached, which is the important bit to me. Next door's garage touching my house would not be an issue for me where planning permission isn't going to be allowed for conversion.

I have to agree with pp who questioned close ups of ornaments or taps or vases of flowers. That is not going to sell a house to me.

I questioned this once. The estate agent said that research showed people clicked off the property when they got to the bathroom photo (generally the last photo when you’re looking at one bed flats), so they didn’t put them on any more. I pointed out that when I get to the last photo, I too would go back to the listings. Because I’d finished looking 🙄 and there was nothing more to see. She changed the subject 🤷‍♀️

God that annoys me too. Period features I can just about see, but I still don’t really want an arty close up. But no, it’s always a close up of a vase of flowers, or a Le Creuset pan, or something else the vendor is hopefully taking with them.

Because it’s their job to sell the property and not advertising it in its best possible light would be stupid.

Oh some do do that around here. I agree it’s really important information! It makes a big difference to me if it’s a 10m garden or a 35m garden.

I also stalk the Whitstable and Broadstairs rightmove pages (waiting for my lottery win), and I’ve noticed that some estate agents around there don’t even put measurements of the rooms in the floorplan! Batshit, must waste so much time with people walking in and then straight back out again when they realise how much of the photo was down to fisheye lenses.

@Sdhell I saw one today, garden shot, the chair in it looked like a sun lounger. It was actually one of the chairs from the dining set.

madness

The stretched photos are indeed ridiculous - and there's usually a giveaway when you can see e.g. that the bed is significantly wider than it is long.

Making them name the rooms would just lead to dramatic descriptions, making a tiny box room into a 'spacious study', a potting shed into an 'orangery' and a manky, grim, dark garage into a 'character man cave'.

I also hate when they over-egg and massively big up the amenities in the area as well - sometimes with photos - as though they're an exclusive feature of that particular property and not of the whole town.

I agree that 'link attached' would be more accurate and honest. I also don't see why Rightmove couldn't add it as an additional option, so that you can easily add it to or remove it from your filter, depending on whether it matters to you or not.

Nobody is expecting the EAs not to put the most positive perspective on the properties that they're selling, but there is optimism and there is plain old lying.

Why does it help anybody to get people out to view properties without knowing the full facts and with significant hidden negatives? It's just wasting everybody's time. In these days, with the internet and all the details and photos that can be given in advance, actually going to view the house should be the last stage of verifying if it's right for you; not the first stage.

If the price is right, somebody will buy it. As an EA, it's your basic job to find that person, and not to waste everybody's time with the people who certainly won't be buying it, however good it artificially makes your stats look.

I photograph properties, and I was usually asked to photograph 20 images of the whole house including garden, bathrooms and detail shots. Measuring the garden isn't always easy - I only have 2 hour per property and have to do a floor plan plus photos. We use a laser measure which doesn't always work for gardens, but taking good photos helps. It's likely that ones you've seen that don't have finer details are taken by the estate agent themselves on a point and shoot, and they don't have lenses that allow you to properly document the space.