How to find a cheaper home

Every time someone tells me about a trick that helps get more money for a home seller, I can’t help but flip the idea on it’s head: logically it means homes that aren’t employing that trick are a better deal for buyers.

Deal of the day: Homes with good photos sell for more and sell sooner because they get seen by more people (I have no statistics to back this one up – anyone?). Here’s Athol, a real estate blogger with a good sense of humor who sometimes goes by “sock puppet,” on the subject:

My own home had godawful photos. But we saw it last, around the 50th home we saw. If it had had good photos, we would have seen it a lot earlier in the picture.

Also if it had good photos there would have been far more interest in it, and we’d likely have had to pay $10-20,000 more to get it.

Bad and no photo homes DO sell, just not as easily or for as much.

Bad photos mean a bad deal for the seller and a good deal for the buyer, but only if the buyer can see past them and actually visits the home.

In case you want to see how bad it can get (MLS rules prevent us from blogging about North West MLS properties), Athol runs bad photo of the day: Here’s a recent bad photo and here’s another.