rossmor
About half of my business is condos. I did not choose to sell condos they kind of chose me and over the years I have sold units in most of the buildings downtown.
One thing I have never understood is why agents will use a picture of the condo building as the lead picture in the MLS. When I look at a page of downtown condos I might find 20 pictures of the same building it doesn’t stand out at all. When I find a picture of a kitchen or some other part of a condo unit on the page it really stands out. The picture in this post is of the Rossmor on Robert street downtown and it is one of my most stolen photographs. I took a new one yesterday because I have never liked this one and am sick of seeing it on the internet. It will be interesting to see if the new one gets stolen as often.
If you have a downtown condo on the market use a picture of the kitchen or of a fireplace or balcony as the lead photo and let some other looser steal one of my exterior shots and use it as the lead photo.
You raise an excellent point, Teresa. The first photo should definitely NOT be a bog standard shot of the exterior of the building that people have seen 1,000 times before. What surprises me more than agents exhibiting a lack of creativity, however, is that agents would have the audacity to steal your photos! In my market photos are considered intellectual property and therefore theft is prohibited by our MLS. To discourage this practice there’s a stiff fine if you ignore the rules, do it anyway, and get caught. Does your MLS not have any deterrents against this distasteful, unprofessional practice??
Jolenta – yes is is against the rules and even the law to take someone else photos. I usually handle it myself by sending an email to the agent. The photo in this post is also popular among condo owners in the building looking for renters. I find it posted on ads right in the building. I mostly look the other way.