http://www.househacker.com/ househacker/tags/estate Making Every Pixel Count", which is about the importance of properly photographing your home for online real estate sites.

From the article:

When selling properties online, agents and Web designers say that the pictures buyers see of houses and apartments for sale are often the first ? and sometimes the only ? chance for a seller to make a good impression. Less-than-flattering pictures can turn buyers off and lead to lonely open houses.

So why is this so important? Well, some stats, from the piece:

Eighty percent of people across the country who bought a new home last year used the Internet while house hunting, and they rated photographs as the most useful tool in their search, according to a survey of buyers and sellers by the National Association of Realtors. The survey also found that 24 percent of home buyers got their first glimpses of their new homes on the Web, up from a mere 2 percent in 1997.

And let's face it, this number is probably going to continue to tend upward. If you've ever searched for a house or apartment online, you've probably been surprised and/or frustrated at the lack of pictures some listers provide. As many people will tell you, all the details in the world are still taken with a grain of salt when pictures aren't provided. Unless listers are trying to hide something, why not give web searchers what they want?

And although the mere act of posting pictures is crucial to attracting web-savvy prospects nowadays, the variance in the quality of the pictures can change the buyer's impression drastically. Be sure to see the audio slideshow that accompanies the article for examples of this.

Via 37Signals]]> http://www.househacker.com/permanent/Taking-Better-Real-Estate-Photos