San Antonio Real Estate Needs Your Help.

By rerockstar • April 11th, 2010

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You can help change San Antonio.

I have a bit of a headache. I’m tired. I’m a little more than frustrated. San Antonio real estate is in serious danger. If you’ve been reading this blog regularly, you may have noticed recently that there have been quite a few articles about listings and the San Antonio MLS. They have been written after a few hours researching homes for my clients and seeing some poorly presented listings.

The problem?

You’ve heard me go on and on about it before – listings that lack descriptions or photos, wrong information, sideways photos, poorly mapped properties (sometimes on the other side of town), foreclosures with one picture with someone’s thumb covering half the camera lens, builders’ listings without anything more than a floor plan of the house (even though it’s an inventory home and the home is fully built)…all these details that are being forgotten, or worse, ignored.

These little details are what help sell real estate. With a large percentage of buyers looking online and just about every real estate agent in San Antonio using the MLS, we can’t afford to watch these details be overlooked. Heck, they’re not even details – these are the basic building blocks of any real estate listing – San Antonio or elsewhere.

Help save San Antonio real estate from itself.

You’re probably thinking, “but, I’m not a real estate agent. Aren’t they the ones who should be fixing this?” Well, you’re right – our industry does need to work harder on things like this. I hate to say it, but it’s true. Yet you can help San Antonio sellers and make the real estate industry a better place. How? It’s not as hard as you might think.

Think of everyone you know. How many of them have a house for sale or are thinking about selling their home? Most people know at least one person who’s selling their home. Would you want your friend to have a house on the market that isn’t selling because someone thought that taking photos from their car window (so that you can see them in the side mirrors) is easier than getting out of the car? Homes with poor listing photos and descriptions can still sell, but San Antonio buyers are more likely to pass by that house without ever stepping foot inside it. With all the technology in real estate available today, there’s no good reason to not make every listing look the best it can.

So what do I need to do?

Simple. Call your friend and have them request a copy of the MLS sheet from their listing agent. Don’t just go online and google the property or look it up at Realtor.com – many of the online sites will look different and most of them don’t carry all of the information on a given property. The MLS is the best source for the most detailed information available. Have them look at the MLS listing, their real estate agent can set them up in the San Antonio MLS so that they can view what a buyer would see (have them request the “Agent Custom” view as it provides the most detail). It’s that easy. Tell everyone you know. You can even email this post to your friends so they know why you’re doing this (there’s a new handy-dandy “Email This Post” button down below). Just get them to look it, please, for the good of the real estate industry here in San Antonio and beyond.

A bit of disclosure.

Some might think that I’m writing this in attempt to get you to tell your friends to work with me. You wouldn’t be 100% wrong. Of course, I’d love their business. However, if they have a listing agreement with another agent, I can’t do anything for them. This isn’t really about me, this is about them. I’m tired of seeing consumers paying commissions and getting less than stellar service. We all conduct our real estate business differently in San Antonio, but these are basic things that shouldn’t be falling by the wayside. I have an interest in my industry growing and improving and little things like these can make huge steps towards those goals.

There are plenty of amazing Realtors® in San Antonio, but I am seeing too much of this and it’s not a couple of isolated incidents. It’s too common of an occurrence. A simple email and some investigation on the part of your friends who are selling and we could help stop a good portion of it. It’s a small step, but it’s definitely in the right direction, so go ahead and email, call, and tell your friends! As Dee Snider once famously said, “We’re not gonna take it anymore.”

photo courtesy of D3 San Francisco