Just like many real estate professionals don't consider themselves appraisers, inspectors or interior designers, many don't want to be the ones to pick up a camera and snap photos of a home.

Some prefer to market a home for days or weeks without a photo, conveniently placing the blame for lack of visuals on busy photographers, as if they are too good to get in front of the house with a camera. Well, that excuse doesn't fly anymore, when plenty of other real estate professionals are not only able to take and retake multiple digital photos and get them uploaded to the MLS and their Websites, and others are taking their own virtual tours.

As Realty Times has pointed out before, the presentation of listings online is sorry, in light of the fact that the Internet and its technologies allows for the near-free display of all kinds of listing data to enhance the marketing of a home.

Unlike a newspaper which sells space by the inch, the Internet is a rich advertising medium in which visual and sound technologies not only allow agents to market homes with spectacular effects, the housing ads can also answer key questions about location, neighborhood information and much more, so that when a consumer contacts the agent, he or she will be a likelier buyer for the home.

But consumers expectations when they go online are that they will be able to see the details of the product they are interested in, including media player movies and voice-activated tours of homes, which require broadband to load and play efficiently. At the least, they want photos to upload quickly so they can use the Internet for elimination as well as selection.

Pictures pique interest.

Yet many real estate professionals market homes online with no more imagination or flair than they did in the single-photo printed MLS books of yesteryear, and it's just a matter of time before consumers notice, and choose their Realtors based on how they present their other listings online.

A new study presented by the Pew Internet and American Life Project shows some startling statistics that real estate professionals should notice:

• About 48 million adults have broadband access or one-quarter of the adult American population
• Two in five Internet users in the U.S. have broadband access at home
• Among college-educated consumers 35 and under, broadband is used by 52 percent
• About 36 percent of home broadband users switched because their dial-up was too slow or frustrating
• About 21 percent want to download files faster
• About 39 percent of U.S. Internet users have broadband at home, up from 27 percent a year ago
• About 55 percent of Internet users have broadband either at home or at work
• Lower broadband fees are attracting subscribers away from dial-up

Real estate professionals will be expected to satisfy consumers with broadband with more photos and other broadband-friendly media on listings.

Published: April 30, 2004

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