

Do photos online help sell homes faster? - mooreds
http://8z.com/blog/do-photos-help-sell-homes/

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lutusp
A possible confusion of correlation and causation. A house with more
picturesque traits tends to be photographed more, and it's also more likely to
sell more quickly than a house with fewer picturesque traits.

Somehow I think this scientific critique won't sway those who believe more
photos = faster sales, regardless of other factors.

~~~
mooreds
You are correct, it is a correlation, not a causation. I think I mentioned
that in the disclaimers.

It is really hard to control for all the variables (price, motivation of
seller, location, who the listing agent knows, what style of home is hot), but
all other things being equal, it's better to have more photos for a listing.
In fact, since it is one of the easiest things to control (it's a lot easier
to snap 25 photos than change the price point of a house) I'd argue it is one
of the things home sellers should expect.

Would love to hear your suggestions on making this more rigorous. Off the top
of my head, it'd be interesting to list a set of same homes twice, once with
few photos and once with many photos, and see what the difference in response
was. Unfortunately, that is a bit beyond my scope for the time being.

~~~
lutusp
> Would love to hear your suggestions on making this more rigorous.

That's easy:

1\. A scientific study differs from an unscientific one in a number of ways,
one of which is the presence of a control group.

2\. To create a control for this hypothesis, create one MLS listing with
photos, and another MLS listing without (if that's possible). See which one
produces the desired result.

3\. In lieu of (2) above, if that's not practical, do a classic Web A/B test
-- create two versions of a web-based advertisement for a property, one with
photos, one without (or one with more and one with fewer photos), each with a
click-through. Then simply count clicks. This way, you don't have to track the
outcomes, only logged clicks, which means you get results faster.

Item (3) above can also test varying advertising content, not just the photo
issue. It's quite common to use A/B testing in Web design, so some of the
infrastructure may already be present in the server. The key to the method is
to randomly choose between two or three page designs when an URL request
arrives at the server, and track the outcomes keyed to the designs.

This approach would give you a more scientific result, because it's based on a
comparison in which _the only thing changed is the thing being measured_ \--
same property, different number of photos. Same property, different
description.

Before closing, I have to tell my favorite real estate joke (which I
invented). An agent visits a "distressed" property and is almost overwhelmed
by the smell of the interior -- it literally smells as though there are
mushrooms growing in the walls.

But our hero always thinks positively. He returns to the office and begins
writing the listing. A long pause as he tries to think of a way to put a
positive spin on the property. Finally a light bulb appears over his head, and
he begins typing. The first word: "Breathtaking!"

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mooreds
Thanks for the joke!

I appreciate your comments. I like the idea of option number two, because it
still gets to the end goal--a sale. It'd be a bigger project than I want to
take on, though.

Option number three gauges interest in a scientific manner, but assumes that
interest is a valid proxy for the end goal of a sale. I'm not sure how true
that assumption is.

I've window shopped homes that I had no intention (nor capability) of buying.
My employer one had a record day because one of the homes on the site was a
football player's and had gotten mentioned in an ESPN blog. In both cases,
interest was only vaguely related to purchase capability.

Testing all the way to the end of the funnel (home sale) is key, and
difficult.

~~~
lutusp
> It'd be a bigger project than I want to take on, though.

In that case, use the above outline as a litmus test for those who claim real
evidence for a particular strategy -- just ask, "Have you done any A/B
testing?" It has the advantage of putting the conversation on a quasi-
scientific footing, and it impresses people too. :)

> Option number three gauges interest in a scientific manner, but assumes that
> interest is a valid proxy for the end goal of a sale. I'm not sure how true
> that assumption is.

Yes, fair enough. But remember that online advertising pays by the click, so
someone, somewhere believes it's a valid measure of future sales, even if the
click is all there is.

Maybe 500 people click, and only one buys. The outcome is still related to the
click-through rate, and the pay-per-click scheme still works. If there was any
serious doubt about the value of paying for clicks, people would refuse to pay
-- they would try some other approach to online advertising and metrics.

> Testing all the way to the end of the funnel (home sale) is key, and
> difficult.

Absolutely. You would have to interrogate the buyers, and I venture to guess
no one will want to push that idea.

