Estate Agent’s photographs.

One very experienced estate agent told me - only 8 to 12 photos sells best.
Pick enough to be tempting but not enough to "rule things out".

luluaugust

Apparently during the present rush to buy people have bought online, I did wonder what they thought when they got to their new home. The bargains are the ones where nobody has rearranged or cleared out and the rooms look really cramped.

Two of my children have bought with someone else viewing.
My daughter kept "missing out" on rentals near me by living and working in London.

In the end she decided (pretty much on a whim) to buy something small. Her sister went to view the first property that she liked from the online advert and on her say-so she put in an offer and had it accepted.

My son and daughter-in-law were living in Arizona and bought their Californian property with an estate-agent live-videoing on WhatsApp. They said things like "can you zoom in on... what does it look like to the left... can you stand next to the staircase and look up.

After their offer was accepted my son went to view it.

What put me off more than anything when I was looking at properties was a photo of any kitchen with cluttered worksurfaces. Immediately screamed not enough cupboard space to me and I would scroll past them.

And while you can look past mess and clutter it does make me wonder how well the property is maintained if they can't even bother to tidy for the photos.

REPORTED

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Our Suffolk house was a smallish 18thC cottage but it had 1.5 acres which was unusual for the size of the house. We sold it ourselves on one of those DIY estate agent's site. One prospect came from Enfield to see it - I think he thought that the house would be larger because of the amount of land and that he would be getting a bargain. His wife accused my OH of making the house look bigger, which he hadn't.

I sometimes look at the French websites and a lot of them don't bother with making the house look reasonable. Unmade beds, ironing board up with piles of clothes; all sorts of things. The agents haven't taught the sellers about house dressing.

We offered on our present house from overseas and didn't physically view the house until just before exchange. We made a lot of plans from the photos and were thinking we could probably put a turning circle on the large frontage.

When we actually saw the house 'the large frontage' was only large enough for 2 cars parked side by side. So photos can be very deceptive.

It seems to me that the photographer must squeeze themselves into a corner - and use strong lights - to take the pictures.

If a room/garden/garage is missing from the photos, alarm bells ring - it's bound to be a mess.

It's vital to note the room sizes, and the orientation of the house, before bothering to view it.

I really dislike the seemingly monochrome pics - where everything is painted white or grey!

JaneJudge - I think we beat a hasty retreat! We didn’t buy that house, but drove past it often and spoke about the man in the bath!

aren't the lights on to avoid using the flash on the camera
i don't use the flash indoors because it looks too bright and artificial
it bounces off shiny surfaces
with the lights on indoors the photo is often softer and gives an overall colour

Me too, grannysyb

If the photos show that the lights are on, I would assume that rooms don't get much natural light.

As a frequent visitor to Rightmove, my pet hate is toilet lids left up. Surely the photographer could fix that even if is not really her/his job? Or perhaps not in these Covid times.

I always look at the location followed by the floor plan.
Photographs are generally misleading as agents use a fish eye lens..

A house next to us has just been sold, the photos made it look much bigger than it is and the back garden looks enormous which it isn't, the description said it was newly renovated we know for a fact it hasn't been , oh but yes she did have a new bathroom window put in recently maybe that was the renovation but, it did sell quite quickly.

They now use lens that stretch rooms out in order to make them look bigger and to show more of it.

Indeed they do. Our hallway was not huge but the photo made the dimensions look quite impressive.

They now use lens that stretch rooms out in order to make them look bigger and to show more of it.

I think the photos are like the warning on tinned food beside the photograph of the product 'serving suggestion only'

The nitty gritty of a house is what size the rooms are in metres and/or feet and inches. A photograph can make a kitchen look huge. Look to the measurements that say 10ft 2in by 8ft 11. Envisage it - possibly the same size as a bedroom in your current home, or a toom in the house of a daughter or son.

Photos give a flavour of the house as it is now. But the only thing that really matters is the measurements.

I am looking at it from the opposite side, having just sold a bungalow. The photos the estate agent took were hopeless - I did some myself and sent them to them and insisted that mine were used.

But I did work as a photographer for 10 years or so!

We viewed a house that had a man asleep in the bed! Poor chap was on night duty and needed his sleep.

Georgesgran

We looked at a house with a chap having a bath!!

omg!! what on earth did you do?

We looked at a house with a chap having a bath!!

Sorry I was going on to say that one bedroom has just a mattress on the floor and another contains a piano, the layout looks most odd but hey if someone has the money!

A friend nearby sold her very nice but ordinary bungalow 30 years ago. She moved to a farmhouse practically next door. The bungalow was extended and sold again a few years ago, the buyers extended again making a kitchen the size of a village hall and a sitting room where walkie-talkies would be needed to communicate from sofa to sofa. They glassed both west facing gable ends and put it on the market before they roasted to death. It went on at 1.7 million, unheard of on this side of Anglesey, but has apparently attracted a bidding war and sold for 1.9 million.
Wow.

And the layout, Oopsadaisy

Some layouts are very odd, especially in bungalows which have been extended.

Always look at the floor plan and room sizes on the details, many Photographers use a fish eye lens, it always makes the rooms look larger.
Some people move in smaller furniture to make the rooms look bigger, so always check that the bed is the size you think it is, some are only 4 ft wide.