This Is How Important Images Are When Marketing A Rental Property
Written by The Landlord on 28 Jun 2010It still amazes how many landlords/agents advertise properties on websites like Gumtree without using images. That shit should be criminal. There really is no excuse. Even if you don’t have pictures of the property, it takes a minute to snap a few. And in this day and age, even tooth brushes come with cameras attached to them!
If only those landlords/agents weren’t too stupid to realise how much they’re damaging their success rate. It’s basically like playing football on wet soil with bare feet. Marketing a property without imagery is pointless, correct? Correct.
I don’t even scale the concept of using images with an advert as being “common sense”, it’s more like “human nature”, it’s that obvious. But I appreciate that genetics is complex, and nature can be cruel. Not to me, of course, I’m sexy and smart.
The “effectiveness of images” experiment
It’s not really a case of “proving” that a listing with images works better than one without, because that’s a no-brainer. It’s more of a case of identifying how imperative images are (because obviously some people still don’t get it). In order to get some kind of idea, I decided to do a quick experiment.
I marketed 3 different properties simultaneously on Gumtree. The properties were all similar in size, location, description and price. The only difference between the three campaigns was the use of images, and a slight shuffle of the descriptions so no one smells a rat.
The idea is to monitor which campaign gets the most enquiries and page views. The results should give us a good indication of which campaign is most effective. I gathered the data after the properties had been listed for a week.
Property 1 – used 3 clear pictures of the outside and inside of the property
Property 2 – only used 1 relatively clear, but small front view picture of the property
Property 3 – no pictures used
Properties in search results
This is what the search results looked like when I searched for properties available for rent in “Harlow”.
Gumtree search results are displayed in order of listing age (newest to oldest) by default, and because I added the properties all with in minutes of one another, they appear together in the search results. Which actually makes sense, because the chances of someone else posting an advert for a flat available to rent in Harlow with in the same 3 minutes as me would have extremely narrow.
Experiment Results
| Property | Page views (the amount of times the advert was looked at) | Enquiries (the amount of enquiries received) |
|---|---|---|
| Property 1 | 54 | 5 |
| Property 2 | 88 | 2 |
| Property 3 | 21 | 1 |
Conclusion
Ok, the data sample is small, and the experiment was entirely basic, but the results are clear. Property 1, the one with multiple images, received over 50% more enquiries than the other properties. However, what’s interesting is that Property 2 received the most page views. Can anyone guess why?
YES, well done, fools.
I think it’s safe to assume that happened because Property 2 is listed higher up the search results than Property 1. I didn’t intentionally plan that; it was completely random that I submitted property 2 after property 1 (as I mentioned, Gumtree, by default, shows results ordered by age – newest to oldest). I wasn’t actually anticipating that to highlight in the experiment results because I didn’t think one place would make much difference, but apparently it does. But positioning isn’t the most important factor here, because Property 3 is at the top of the pile and it still received the lowest about of page views…why? It had no images. It lacked incentive for users. The punters want to see a visual preview!!
So basically, based on this flimsy experiment, in order to receive the most enquiries, the optimum advert should have multiple, clear images, and should be listed as high up the results as possible.
For the record, there are certain ways to bump your listing back to the top on Gumtree, which can be found here Guide On How To Market Your Vacant BTL On Gumtree.
Bottom line, wherever or however you choose to list your property, always optimize your ad, it will make the world of difference, and could save you a pile of money! There’s no point putting together a lousy advert in 2mins, your time would be better spent investing an extra 20mins to get it right. This is your investment, your money is on the line.
Each classified website works differently, so try and familiarise yourself with their system and find out how you can take advantage of their algorithm.
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10 Comments - join the conversation...
Take for example dating websites. Boy you would need a charisma that would set the screen on fire if you were to get any dates without a profile picture!!
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Moral of the story: yeah, always use pictures.
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The person responsible for taking the pictures really neeeds to do a little bit of creative art direction.
I find a wide angle lens is absolutely essential! Remove any clutter away from the space you are going to photograph. What I can't stand are photo's displaying nothing but mess and pictures of overgrown gardens and so on! What's all that about? It would help also to invest in some imaging software like Photoshop. It does wonders to add a little contract and also brightness to the pictures taken under poorly lit conditions such as dark hallways and so on. It just helps to freshen everything up a little.
But I definitely agree, pictures and especially good pictures will increase your selling/renting power.
4
Most estate agents indicate that the first (default) picture should also be a front exterior shot. However, in my area most mid-terraced houses look almost identical to each other, so I'd be interested to conduct the same experiment again, but this time measuring the responses to adverts with differing default images (i.e. internal shot of kitchen Vs. internal shot of lounge Vs. external front shot)
Best regards, David
http://newportbuyer.co.uk
5
I've never actually thought about the importance of the "default" image, and you make a good point about terraced housing tending to look similar!
It's well worth experimenting with if it means generating more enquiries and/or page views!!
Regards
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similarly you can say the same thing with an image of a block of flats. Which one is it? The description then plays the part i.e. 1st floor, 2nd floor, so on and in your scenario 'mid terrace'. People generally get the idea. But if you don't illustrate this, then my prediction is that there is something really unsavoury or possible wrong about the exterior/area in general.
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You'd probably need to run a few experiments to find out what works best. For agents who compete on sites like Rightmove that are trying to shift multiple properties, it might be worth seeing what converts best.
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Yes tha above experiment may have been rudimentary, however it is on the mark.
We find that properties with photos recieve far more attention than those without, bith for the rental market and the sale site of the business.
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Basically the photo to No.1 has the building and it looks like there is a busy car park right in front of it. Photo No.2 has greenery, blue sky and shows the area in front of the building isn't some pokey car-park/backstreet.
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