Do you take new pictures?

[Fili Aguirre]

When you're working with a homeowner that already has the property listed on Zillow to either wholesale, rent the property, or sell, do you always take new pictures of the property to re-list? Or do you sometimes use the existing pictures that the seller already took? (I've noticed some sellers have good quality pictures)

[Brenden Mitchum]

Hey @Fili Aguirre, great question!

If you're an agent looking to re-list a FSBO, expired listing, etc., you absolutely want to take new photos. In fact, you should not even be the one taking the photos unless you're a professional photographer. You should be hiring someone else to do this. Those photos are the very first thing folks see after they search an area on Zillow. Most don't even look at the other property info or description before the photos, so this is your first filter for potential buyer lead capture. The better the photos, the wider the filter. It's worth the investment. 

Please, feel free to reach out anytime if you have other questions or just want to chat!

[Jared Hottle]

My rule of thumb would be to take new professional pictures. Even if just the optics of it make it show that you are willing to invest into getting their house sold. 

[Jonathan Greene]

Always. If the house was listed before, you can't use those photos as the copyright is not with the homeowner, but the photographer who then sells those rights to the brokerage where the agent works in most cases. Nothing says I am not even trying more than using old photos to try to sell something that just did not sell with those same photos.