I was way ahead of the hotness curve on this one. Back in 2/11 we revealed studies that indicated that Good Looking Agents Sell More Homes and now the industry is playing catch up. I was moved by the article titled " I Wasn't Going To Buy This House Until I Saw The Realtor's Headshot On The Sign" and after reviewing that, I knew this was a topic that we had to comment upon. While in the current "PC" world we're expected to ignore physical attributes, fact is that it matters.

"Buying a house is one of the biggest decisions a person can make, so when I set out to purchase my first home, I didn't take the matter lightly. Sure, the place I ended up with isn't in the greatest shape, or even in the best part of town. And by any fair market estimate of its value, I certainly overpaid.

But as far as I was concerned, the deal was sealed the moment I saw real estate agent Mary T. Ellington looking back at me from that Re/Max sign, her face just barely visible over the rampant weeds growing in my new front lawn. For my money—$256,560 of it, to be exact—there's nothing like a poorly lit, oversaturated photograph to let me know that I'm working with a friend and not just someone out for an easy commission." - Recent Homebuyer

And now the rest of the pack finally gets wise to what we already know....as reported by Business Insider:

A recent study in Applied Financial Economics explores the relationship between how beautiful an agent is and how quickly he/she sells a property and for what price. Thankfully, the econ blog Big Think broke down the hellishly scholastic-sounding "Broker beauty and boon: a study of physical attractiveness and its effect on real estate brokers’ income and productivity” into comprehensible language, and turns out the research contains a few interesting quasi-facts. Of course, the points below are either believable or guffaw-able, depending on, say, personal experience, price point, and geographic market. Have an opinion of your own? Leave it in the comments. Here goes:

1.  Male agents (representing both buyer and seller) tend to rep houses with lower prices.

2.  Beautiful agents tend to yield higher closing prices.

3.  Good news for those trying to sell your home: "the effect on house prices of having an attractive listing agent is about twice as large as that of an attractive selling agent."

4.  Just because your selling agent is attractive doesn't mean that your property will sell faster; in fact, it's quite the opposite. You might learn to be patient and soak up all that extra time spent in the presence of hotness.

5.  In terms of commissions, pretty agents tend to sell at higher price points but sell fewer properties than their, ah, uglier colleagues. Racial bonus round: "The study also finds that non-white listing agents are associated with lower final prices and both non-white listing agents and selling agents are associated with longer times on the market."