What did we talk about? Below is the Edited Transcript
Can Fido be in the listing picture?
Hey there everybody I was just curious, I was reading some Realtor related things and there was an article about putting your pet in your listing pictures. I thought that’d be a good topic today. For those that don’t know me my name is John Schink and I am the founder and managing broker of Deerwood Realty here in Saint Louis, Missouri. We’re a small brokerage we work mostly Saint Louis County, St. Louis City, Jeffco, and Saint Charles County but yeah, that’s what I do in the afternoons and the weekends and during the mornings now I work on my podcast.
Anyway, So there was this article and let me bring it up to you. It’s titled, “Home sellers are putting pets in listing photos and the internet can’t resist buyers may be another story,” and I’d actually looked this up a while ago today.
Actually this morning.
I was curious to see if anybody had written about it before. I want to get the book how to have impossible conversations because it’s fascinating when you’re a broker and you go on listings listing calls. If someone said, “hey, can I have my dog in my my listing picture?” I would say, “no you don’t want your dog in your listing picture, and here’s the reasons why.” But I don’t know that person and so I’m just giving them my answer. It’s happened to me quite a few times where somebody will ask me a question and I’ll answer it the way it should be answered but they’re not looking for that answer. They’re looking for the answer that they want.
So, just to start off I don’t hate dogs, I don’t hate cats, don’t hate birds, don’t hate lizards, any pets, monkeys whatever you have. (I) don’t have a problem with any of them putting them in a listing picture is is a little bit different for me but let’s go through this article. It’s by Leslie Cook and it’s in Money.com I’ll put a link in the description below. It says,
“the internet is chock full of pet memes and photos because let’s face it people can’t resist a cute furry face so it’s no surprise that some home sellers and real estate agents have taken to including their pets and their listing photos.”
So you know people are putting their pets in there and their photos it says,
“But is having your pet in your listing a help or hindrance when it comes to selling your house when you put your home for sale? You want to make sure it’s presented in the best lights possible the more attractive is the greatest number of potential buyers the higher probability you’ll get your home sold quickly. Including pets in your listing photos has its pros and cons if you have any doubt your real estate agent can help guide you. They’ll know what does and doesn’t work in your market.”
Then you can see here a nice little cute picture of a dog and and it’s good stuff. Okay so here’s the ways it can help your listing which I don’t think it can at all but it says it does get the listing more attention more shares more social actions. When you share it. When people are sharing your listing on social media it’s helpful. Now who’s it helpful for? Is it helpful for you as the seller or helpful for the real estate agent, they got something that they post on social media that actually got some traction? That’d be a question.
So, “a California home that featured a small dog and every listing photo was featured on the popular Zillow Gone Wild Instagram and tic tok accounts. It went under contract in just two days despite a million dollar asking price and a listing copy that described the places at dated.”
So, When did this sell? Like last month? You could have a dead body on your carpet and a picture of it and somebody would buy your house in this market if you price it even close to right and we’re talking about California so 1.2 million in California I mean it’s not the Midwest.
So that’s that and so I don’t… you can read that quote and then it says, “while including your pets can bring an element of fun and whimsy to your listing it doesn’t mean you should put Rex in every single photo.” “For Baker, who puts photos of dogs in almost all her home listings the photos have to look natural, She’ll usually have the dog on the master bed on the couch or in the living room she’ll include just one or two photos with a pet. Having too many pictures she said is overkill.”
I don’t want to have a picture of a dog on a bed on a listing photo and then that’s what’s fascinating, and we’ll get to this later as it says, “you also want to be careful about what the pet what pet to include in the photo. Baker notes that small dogs seem to evoke the best reactions cats and large dogs on the other hand can give the impression of being smelly which in turn which is a turn off for some potential buyers.”
And that goes into how including a pet can hurt your listing so it says, “while the use of pets and marketing homes seems to be on the rise.” [Not quantifiable] “there are still plenty of real estate agents who recommend against putting Fluffy in your home’s listing you want to chill on the best possible light this means your home should be de-cluttered and depersonalized allowing the potential buyers to imagine themselves living in the space.” And that’s definitely key.
When you’re putting your house up for sale you might as well make the mental break that it’s not your house anymore. That will be helpful to you and as such, you want to paint it as when people walk in your home… When buyers walk in your home you want them to believe that they’re going to live there.
So photos in general are are manipulated by real estate agents I mean we can add Coke bottles now we can add anything we want to but under our in in Saint Louis SLAR you have to show a picture unedited first. That’s the requirement in the MLS but you can certainly add you know, they call it virtual staging, so tables chairs in rooms that don’t actually have them. I don’t typically do that right now market’s really really hot anyway I don’t know why you would need to.
So that’s the article like I said I’ll leave a link to the description below.
And so you know I have questions. I have some thoughts. I just want to go over them with you and so here we go. So my first question is, Where’s the line? What else we’re going to put in the listing photos. And I know this, I know that seems weird but you know you’re trying to get the most number of buyers to see your listing, and people put all kinds of things. People in our in our area used to put a, like a bigfoot picture in each of their listings, and that was cute. But I don’t think it got them more listings and I don’t think it it sold the house for more. While you want to get your house listing in front of the most possible buyers, a gimmick to do it doesn’t necessarily work. There’s not someone sitting out there that’s not already looking at houses that says, “oh, because you have a dog in your in your picture I’m going to buy the house.” Now in the article that says there is somebody that said that. When people say things that doesn’t necessarily, I mean, they’re trying to be nice. I really bought this house because the dog in the picture that’s really why I bought a million dollar house, and if you believe that then good for you but it doesn’t work that way.
One of the things I didn’t realize in real estate when I first started is on the disclosure there’s an actual question. At least on our on our disclosures here in Missouri or at least for the Saint Louis Association that say, Is you know, how many pets have lived in the house and when? And I was always, I always thought that was kind of like, that’s awful intrusive like what’s your business that we had you know a dog or cat in the house? Turns out that people are highly allergic to cats and dogs there’s some people the pet dander just drives them absolutely crazy and they really don’t want to or really can’t live in a house that has had pets. So that’s that so now you’ve got a picture and cute little dog on the couch and the people that are, you know, looking at the pictures are just in horror. They don’t even have anything to do with the house now so I don’t see that I don’t see that as being much of a benefit.
So then I wanted to tell you my own experience about walking through listings hundreds of thousands of times at this point, It’s been a lot.
So this isn’t a criticism, but people live differently. We have all different thoughts of what we find acceptable and what’s not acceptable. But when you have buyers that don’t know anything about you and they’re going to your house and they walk in the in the house and there’s a terrible smell, it smells like wet dog, that screws up the listing. People will actually say, “I don’t want to live in this house… I don’t want to even be in this room… it smells like a wet dog.”
Throw in the fact that some people think it’s a great idea to keep their air conditioning at 80 on a hot day and it’s just terrible. It’s one of those things I like to call a “shower day”. So if I go to a listing and when I leave I immediately just want to take a shower, that’s not a good sign for the listing. Now that’s just me. But I’ve had numerous buyers tell me that they just want nothing to do with the house because of the dog smell and there may not even be a dog kennel or they may have taken the dog out for the showings, but it’s just disgusting and the smell is terrible.
In fact, this past weekend I was at a house, there were two houses, buyers chose between two. Both had dogs. One they put an offer on one they didn’t. The one they didn’t put an offer on, the people had a huge dog and they let it lay on the couch down in the basement and it was the only thing in the base[ment] you know it’s the only thing in the basement and it just stunk. It was just nasty and it just ruined the listing.
So as a real estate agent when you’re talking to people when they want to sell their house if they say, “what should I do about my dog?” I’d normally tell them you know, hey you know, make sure the dog’s clean. Once I had a listing, for cats at least you know cats do the furball the hairball cough up on the ground? I once had some cat do that in one of my listings before before a showing and it was just like wasn’t good.
So that’s my own experience no pets seem to make for a better showing.
Then the last thing I want to say is that the people are searching Zillow all the time and it’s not just for pet pictures. It’s actually a hobby to look at the home listings and many looky loos have no intention of moving and buying a new home. And so one thing you might be tricked by is somebody sitting there and they’re looking through Zillow and or they put it on you know Instagram or something and it’s gotten a lot of views. But those are views as novelty views and not views as somebody that’s actually a home buyer. So, I mean, I look at Zillow all the time. I don’t have, I mean, I don’t have a problem with Zillow. Some real estate agents think Zillow’s just the devil but I don’t, I don’t share in that. I think it’s great to be able to go listings in places I’ll never be able to buy. I’m not you know Palm Springs I like to see what’s going on Cape Cod love to see what’s going on there but I’m not moving there, so you kind of have to be careful when you equate there’s been a lot of use to a house or to listing and it’s because of a dog. People look at a lot of things and it doesn’t mean that it’s got anything to do with actually selling your house.
So in today’s market, you know you’re gonna have a dog, you can have whatever you want the house is gonna be gone in a week as long as you price it right. But down the road if things get tough and it turns into a buyer’s market, then I would definitely recommend against putting your dogs in your listing photos. Not because I hate dogs but because I want the house to sell at its best price possible. So, a little different one today we went over real estate stuff and we’ll do that from time to time if I see something interesting I have an opinion on and hope you enjoyed it and I’ll catch you on the next one.
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