Home with Dark Room

My Mom likes to tell the story of one of the times she and Dad were looking for a house to buy (there were many times, since my Dad was in the Air Force, and moved frequently). Their agent had set up an appointment for them to view a home that was occupied. For some reason, the agent could not make it, but the tenant (I assume--I hope the owner/seller would not actually do this) would be there to let them in and show them around. 

When my parents showed up, they were let into the house by a woman who promptly returned to watching TV with her adult son, in the living room, with lights off and blinds drawn. I think my parents glanced at the bedrooms, but were too shocked to even ask to turn on a light to see the living room. They soon left and still have no idea what that home looked like.

Here's a dark room for you:

Shots like this always make me wonder if maybe the photographer knows that it would be even worse with the lights on!

And the new name of my TV Listings is...

Ugh. Totally flubbed that one. It's TV Listings. Think about it; they're listings, they have TV's. I'm done trying to name the movie, show or sailboat on them (much less soccer teams--oh, yes). It's generic enough to cover them all, and I feel pretty clever for thinking of it. Win win.

First up...

Casablanca?!?! Isn't this what I was trying to get away from?!

It's the last one I've seen in a while. And to be honest, I don't hate its use in this instance. It's a classy home, a classy movie, the colors don't stand out too harshly from the rest of the image. And in fact, it kind of makes the TV just disappear.

Wait a minute... the TV has disappeared! Let's take a closer look...

If you are going to fill a rectangular space in a photo with a super-imposed image, make sure it's the right rectangular space. Use the TV, not the shelves. I take back what I said earlier about not hating this one.

My apologies...

Sorry, everyone, that it's been so long since a post here. Of course, I'm just flattering myself pretending that anyone noticed. Or reads this blog at all..

I do, however, have a folder full of images, hence, lots to post about. Things should get rolling again pretty soon. In the meantime, I leave you with these two beautiful images. They are of the same listing (duh) and pretty much sum up the look of the entire home. Entire. Seriously.

 It strikes me as odd that the only thing not swathed in wood is the floor!

 Cabinet doors blend right in. I wonder what the tub is made of?

Electricity? Check. Old windows? Double-check. Photography skills? Ummm...

I found these photos all in the same listing (surprise, surprise).

 Apparently they're pretty proud of that electrical outlet. If they were trying to feature the [laminate?] flooring, the least they could do is pull that rug out of the picture. 

I know that Real Estate Professionals try to be respectful of the owners' belongings while photographing the home, but I really believe that to do the best possible job marketing the home to broad audiences, you need to be willing to move some things around (and, of course, put them back).

 This photo was labelled "View." Seriously. That's not a view. Not a good one, anyway.

This one was labelled "Bedroom." I doubt it.

Notice again that none of these follow my "2 corners" rule. Everyday it seems I become more certain that I made up an incredible rule for real estate photography!

Of all the listings...

I couldn't believe it when I ran across this photo today. I thought they had completely switched over to at least different movies, if not a whole new theme altogether.

The funniest part is that just today I thought of a new title for the series, so that it wasn't so dependent on photos like this one, which are becoming harder to find. What's more, this listing had not just one room watching Casablanca, but three!

So anyway, this was a good last hurrah for "Of all the listings..." Stay tuned for the new series title!

Something Unique

I'm often quite snarky about the things that I run across in the listings I see. But this feature, I actually really do like: Kitchen cupboards that are also kitchen windows!

I actually first noticed these when I was working on this house at the ol' audio business. I love these, and it seems like they would be easy to make.

If you could have anything in your home, what would it be?

What Not to Share...

In trying to stick with the real estate theme, I'll call this new series "Needs Work." As in, these photos should not have been posted, because they need work.

Most of these were taken from the same Listing. They're meant to be detail shots, but really, if you're trying to sell the home based on the Front Door Handle, you may need to re-think your strategy. The first photo was labelled "Hand Rail Detail." More like, "Fake Plant Detail." (Also note that none of these meet my "Two Corners" rule from an earlier post. I know I made an exception for "Details," but maybe I'm retracting that.)

Double Rainbow!

I can't believe this was actually included in the Photos of a listing.

(It is unknown whether or not it goes All the Way Across the Sky)

Of all the listings...

[Yeah, really need a new title for this series of critiquing super-imposed images]

The one time it's acceptable to use the same fake "screen shot' in the same listing...

...is when you photograph the same room from two different angles, 6 feet apart...

...but really? Don't do that, either.

The Good Life is...

...sitting 8 feet away from your Dining Room table...?

Frankly, my dear [readers]...

...I was surprised to find another Gone With the Wind photo.

Of all the listings...

I might need a new name for this series, because I'm pretty sure my "favorite" photography company has switched from silver screen classics to landscape shots (but don't you fret, dear reader, as I am sure to still run across Bogart every now and then). I don't mind if they do it, as long as they do it well.

They tried to be good by including the superimposed image in the mirror's reflection, but they're not fooling me: they didn't flip the image in the mirror!

The Good Life is...

...a Closet that most people would mistake for a Store.

Of all the listings...

(The smallest flatscreen Casablanca has ever been viewed on)

2 abbreviate, or not 2 abbreviate?

Recently, I read the following partial description of a home listed locally:

Annoying, huh? My first impression is that this listing agent is either really lazy, or completely incompetent. Not a good impression. But here's my thought: Realtors need to abbreviate a lot of things, because often, the information in listings is limited to a certain number of characters. But this agent seems to pick and choose what to abbreviate, and I would add, she has chosen... poorly.

Everyone gets the whole "3BR/2BA" thing, because it's common and accepted (even though "BR" could just as easily stand for "BathRoom"). Even 3/2 in the context of a listing is easily understandable. But "vu"? And then she did not abbreviate words that easily could have been! Just by making better choices, her description could have been 1 character shorter and much more understandable. Get 8 more characters back by leaving out the redundant "botanic".

Here's how I'd write it, for 8 characters less and without sounding like a 12 year old with an iPhone:

Magical ocean views from this Medit gem on 1 ac of exquisite grounds. Large 4BR estate, ocean view terraces, large Media Rm, gourmet ktchn & wine cellar. Spectacular retreat & entertainer’s dream. Gorgeous caban w/ gourmet summer ktchn, pizza oven & saltwater pool nestled in romantic gardens. Irresistible ***** ******* retreat that you may never want to leave!

On an unrelated note, as I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I used to install high-end home theater systems in this town, and the listing that this excerpt came from is for one of those homes. I remember it because I lost my favorite ever flashlight into the walls of the master bedroom, while I was poking around in the attic. So, if you happen to purchase this home and do any demolition, I'd like to provide you with a helpful guide so that you can locate and return my flashlight:

The Good Life is...

...a Pantry that most people would mistake for a Kitchen.

The Good Life is...

...a pool table in your Pool House!

The Good Life is...

...a skylight in your Laundry Room. And in case you're wondering,

yes, it is the only skylight in the 5,000+ square foot home!

Classic movie alternatives...

Though I may poke fun at the classic movies superimposed on TV screens, like I said in the first post, I'm actually a fan of not having blank TVs in listing pictures. What I failed to mention, but would now like to remedy, is that worse than either the same frame from a movie, or no image at all is pretty much any image that is actually on the TV when the photographer comes. For example, this image of sweaty tennis star, Rafael Nadal...

Also... this is just a horrible photo to include in a listing. It's mostly of blank wall and empty floor. I think that black thing in the corner is a fireplace, but can hardly tell. It looks like there's a cool stairway to the right, but I can't see it. There might be French doors to the patio, but a tree is in the way. Here's a tip (I just made this up, but it seems like a good one): pictures of interior rooms for listings, should always include two corners of the room, so the viewer can accurately gauge the size of at least one wall. The exception to the rule is when the photo is of a particular feature of the room, like the tub in a bathroom, or built-in china hutch, or something.

There, now this blog is educational, as well as entertaining.

Frankly my dear...

...I don't give a darn what classic movie it is...

I will post it!

Like me, Share me, Plus One me, uh... Stumble Upon me...?

Please don't actually stumble onto me...

Working for a Real Estate professional, we are always trying to think of new ways to use advertising and social media to our advantage. One of the problems I run into is that you don't exactly have free reign to do whatever will get you noticed. But today, I may have found the solution...

You see, as a Real Estate professional, you want to seem, well... professional. So all the crazy tricks that companies like clothing lines or cola companies use are pretty much off limits, as they most likely would tarnish your reputation as an intelligent, business-savvy individual.

Today, while watching a video for a product completely unrelated to Real Estate, I believe I learned an important lesson about how to get people to not only remember your video, but want to pass it along... while your reputation remains spot free! Watch until the end to get the full effect...

Of all the listings, in all the towns, in all the world...

Okay, here's my first piece of corroborating evidence. These are from the same listing. Apparently the sellers were watching the same movie in two different rooms!

New Series!

Of all the listings in all the towns, in all the world...

Okay, I wasn't going to start this series for a while (until I had more material to back up my claims), but I just can't resist. There is a Real Estate Photographer (or maybe company, I don't actually know) around me that takes pictures of many fine homes that end up in the MLS. Often in these homes there are televisions in several rooms. So what this photographer does to "disguise" them is digitally edit a clip from a movie onto the screen. Now, I'm not a photographer or a designer, but even I wouldn't allow those screens to show up in my professionally staged photographs as large black rectangles in this day of easy computer editing. So my beef with this photographer comes not from what they are doing, but how they are doing it. You see, the image that appears on every single screen in every single photo of every single listing that this photographer um... photographs, is the same clip from the same movie. Is the heading above starting to make some sense? See below...

Why did the photographer interrupt the homeowners movie? And a classic, at that!

Ironically, since I'm using this photo as the beginning of my series, and as such, the launching pad of my rant against it, the image doesn't really bother me in this instance. More distracting to me, in this photo, are the couches that the occupants seem to have stolen from a hotel in Hawaii when they were there... in 1974! Also, I think that my ambivalence about the use of the aforementioned image in the photo above is tempered by the fact that in the 20 or so photos of this particular home, this is the only usage of it. In this case, I actually think that the image does a pretty good job of blending in, without allowing there to be a blank screen on the wall, which might otherwise look like a second access to the fireplace. In fact, I also found today a photo that is at the same time better and worse than my first example:

First, the bad: The reason I consider this edited photo worse than the first is that the colors of the superimposed image are so different from anything else in the photo that it becomes the immediate focal point. Click on the image above to see the larger size, and notice what path your eye immediately takes. Go ahead, I'll wait. Here's mine: first, I see the bright blue of the ocean on the TV. Then I notice the little thingy on top of the TV, presumably for a video game system. My eye continues upward to the center speaker of the audio system (horrible placement, by the way, from a home-theater perspective. Not that the TV is in a great place... DIGRESSING!), which leads my eye to the other speaker to the left, then down to that hideous birdhouse (?) thingamajig. Then I hit the button for Next Picture. So what do I remember about that room? Blue ocean (yeah, I'm going to be disappointed when I view the property and don't have that ocean view I remember) and a hideous birdcage.

The good: The superimposed image is calming, slightly thematic, since the home is near the ocean and is not also seen on the TV screen pictured in another room of this home, or, for that matter, any of the other 12 listings I've seen this morning.

Wow, that was a long introduction to this series. Most will probably just be posts of the pictures themselves. Because there are a lot! Tons, I promise. I just can't seem to find any more this morning...

The Good Life is...

His and Hers bathrooms:

 

 

Now, I've been in enough large homes to know that the Master Suite often includes His and Hers bathrooms. It's the Millionaire's version of the Jack and Jill bathroom, which itself is the Rich Person's version of Double Sinks. I've even seen a home where His bathroom was across the hall from the Master Bedroom. But I think not even that compares to the discrepancy between these two bathrooms. I mean, Hers includes a Sun Room (complete with Daybed) and a Screened Sleeping Porch!! I'm amazed... flabbergasted, even! I guess I just can't imagine a woman (or a man, for that matter), needing provisions for places to sleep--be it daytime or night time--so close to her bedroom, but not in it. Unexplainable!

Of course, all the focus on Her bathroom is ignoring the fact that His bathroom is so ambiguously labelled that it may well be that His is inside that 3' x 3' box with no doors. In which case, the area with closet, toilet and shower are all probably parts of--you guessed it--Her bath. Ah... the Good Life!

I've made a huge mistake...

If the Bluth Company made a high-end model home...

I'm not entirely sure why, but this picture of a local home for sale reminds me of the Bluth model home. I hope it's built better...

The Good Life is...

having to differentiate between your Foyers.

(This is the first post in a series I have planned wherein I make snarky comments based on photos or other info found in local-ish MLS listings)

Days on Market: 0

Go easy on me, I'm new...

I'm new to my job, I'm new to blogging, and sometimes--even at the ripe old age of 27--I still feel new to life. I'll warn you right now that I don't have much to say here. That said, I can get pretty long winded, often saying quite a bit without saying really anything at all. I once told my parents that I was an excellent writer when I don't have to stick to the facts. And what is the internet if not a place where people disregard facts?

What's it all about?

You might now be asking yourself, "What topics will he be writing about?"  To which I ask you--Do you really think I've planned that far ahead? In other words: do you know me? But honestly, the answer is that there will probably be a wide variety of so-called "content" in this blog. In the few months I've been at my job, there have been probably several instances a week that made me think to myself, "I wish I had a blog so that I could share this." Luckily for you, I won't share them all, because that would probably make you stop reading very quickly. Mostly, it will be possibly funny or interesting thoughts with a vague real estate theme.

What about the name?

Is it my idea of the most overused terms currently in real estate? Or is it more self-descriptive than that? Hmmm....