If you’ve grown up with computers, move on to another article. I doubt any of this is news to you.
But if you didn’t, and even though you think you know how the Internet works for house sales, you have questions…(See what I did there? I let you know I know you’re smart, but I’m also letting you know that maybe there are some things that are a little confusing, even for smart people.) Anyway, if you have questions, maybe some of the following answers will help. (Or maybe not, but let’s give it a go, shall we?)
If my house listing expires and I start it up again, will everyone know it’s been for sale for awhile already?
Yes. Yes, they will. And there’s nothing you can do about that. Sites like Zillow, Trulia, etc etc, get their information from the local MLS unless you put your house on the market as a FSBO (For Sale By Owner, but you knew that, didn’t you?"). If you put your house on their site as a FSBO, they now know about you that way, too.
And they’re like a friend who just can’t keep a secret. They even have a line on the page that tells you how many days a house has been on the market.
“Hey! Look at this! The house hasn’t sold after being listed for six months!”
So pulling your house off the market and putting it back on isn’t fooling anyone.
Then why is my agent telling me to re-list with a new listing instead of extending the old one?
Ah, you have a clever agent. What re-listing does is put you back up in front of the local agents’ eyeballs in a fresh way. Your house/property/whatever will pop up on the “hot sheet” or whatever the local MLS calls it. The hot sheet is a constantly updated list of listings and their statuses, and it includes listings that are newly active. You WILL show up even if you switch from “Temporarily Off the Market” (cause that happens in winter) to “Active,” but being a brand new listing gives your property a fresh start and a new identity. It costs nothing. But it’s like detailing your car after a long winter — it gets the dust off a listing and makes it shine again.
Should new pictures feature the house in the winter?
Nope. Not in my opinion. Even if your house looks like Kate Winslet’s impossibly cute cottage in “Holiday” in the snow, make the main picture a view of the surrounding gardens and trees in full bloom. You can feature a holiday pic if you want, but mostly you want buyers to see the landscaping, the warm summer light, and imagine themselves there.
I used to update pictures for every season and soon realized that most houses just don’t look as good without leaves on the surrounding trees and bare sticks instead of plants. And a foot of snow surrounding a house just makes a buyer wonder if they’re up to all that shoveling. Don’t remind them that’s a part of owning a home. Lure them in with the remembered joy of a cold drink and a warm breeze.
Is it true that all real estate pictures lie?
In my experience, not intentionally. Wide angle lenses are terrific for giving a full picture of a space, but it does create some distortion. Photo editing certainly can brighten up a dark space but if it’s not done well, you’re going to know by the blast of light coming through each opaque window.
Some photographs are just good. And that’s not an attempt to deceive. Don’t hate the photographer because they’re good at what they do. And by the same token, some photographs of good spaces are just horrific. It was the photographer that was bad, not the room.
The best photographs show a property at its best, but not unrealistically so. A picture that is too good leads to disappointment in person. And a bad picture discourages anyone from looking. Video tours often help you decide where on the spectrum the pictures you saw fall, if you can’t get there in person right away.
The house is mine now. But the old listing is still online, with interior pictures, too. Can I change that?
You can. You can track down your listing on the main sites, claim it, and remove as many pictures as you want. MLS locks the listings once they’re sold, so it would take some extra effort to get pictures removed on the local MLS. But it’s super easy to get rid of them on the sites that gobble up all their content from the MLS.
The Internet says my house is worth $30K less than I paid for it last week. Or $30K more. Or a lot less, or a lot more. What does that mean?
It means the Internet doesn’t have a clue what houses are worth in your area. Its algorithm works pretty well in urban and suburban areas with a lot of house sales in a relatively short time. Neighborhoods with developments are pretty easy for it to calculate.
But if you’re in a less populated area, or if the housing stock is more individual, either historic or handmade or some other style that doesn’t fit the cookie cutter mold, Zillow’s going to be off. Sometimes, way off.
You’ll want to ask a local Realtor what your house is worth, if you really want to know.
But honestly, if you just bought your house, it doesn’t matter. Live there a few years. Enjoy it. Chances are, you’re going to be pleasantly surprised at how your home appreciates. And if you’ve bought the right house, you’re not going to want to sell, anyway.