Minor Real Estate Rant

Why are some agents so lazy? A new listing just popped up in my neighborhood. It's a short sale so (of course) it's listed way below what it should reasonably sell for but that's not the thing that bothers me. No, the thing that bothers me is the picture. Yes, I said picture. Singular. There's one photo and I'm fairly certain that's only because it's now required to have at least one photo. That's bad enough, but it gets worse. Not only was the agent too lazy to upload more than one photo, but the one they did upload, they didn't even take. Now how on earth could I possibly know that? Because it's the exact same picture that was used to list the house previously. In 2001. Seriously.

Not only is this the epitome of laziness, it also shows a complete lack of understanding of fiduciary duty and an absolute disrespect for their client. The sad thing is that this is not the first time I've seen this happen. As a seller, I would be furious. I went off the deep end when an agent took crappy pictures of my last home and actually posted them on the MLS for all the world to see. I went so far off the deep end that when he refused to replace them with fantastic pictures taken by a friend of mine (who's a photographer) we fired him. There were other issues as well (breaking a doorknob during an open house, lying about breaking a doorknob, telling potential buyers about a non-existent roof problem thereby forcing us to get 3 different roofing contractors out to disprove, it goes on) but the pictures were the beginning and end of it for me. My personal opinion is that if you don't want to go the extra mile, then maybe you should be in a different line of work where half-assed effort is acceptable. Like customer service for a cell phone provider.