The 2008 Point2 Agent Photo Effectiveness Study set out to measure the impact of photos on business for real estate brokers and agents, through online marketing exposure and efforts.Point2 Agent
 
Findings reconfirm that adding more photos generates better response to real estate listings. Detailed findings can be found on Page 5.
 
The ability for a real estate listing online to generate i) Detailed Views, ii) Interest in the form of interaction with the listing on a website and, iii) Leads was measured. All increased significantly, as the number of still photos related to the listings increased.
 
Listings that did not include any photos performed very poorly in the Study, generating little consumer response and business.
 
For perspective, the Study shows that listings with zero photos attract, on average, a mere 0.02% of the detailed listing views that listings with 21 to 36 photos enjoy.
 
Listings that feature a single photo fared significantly better.
 
Significant increase in Detailed Views and Interest associated with increased photo count confirms that more photos on a real estate professional’s website is engaging and directly impacts stickiness on the site. In turn, increased stickiness directly correlated to increased conversion – first from the stage of browsing (Detailed Views), to interaction with the listing (Interest, such as viewing room details or video tours), and second, from interaction/Interest to contacting the agent (Leads).
 
The 2008 Study confirms trends observed in a 2007 study by Point2.
 
The Question
 
Do real estate listings with more photos generate better results?
 
 
The Study
 
Point2 has six figures of active listings in its system at any given time, and millions of historical listings in its database. 
 
Because all of these listings are original compilations (that is, all listings are entered directly into the Point2 Agent system, not pulled from a broker or MLS® feed), they are all subject to the same allowances (for example, not subject to disparate photo limitations, virtual tour restrictions, or other varying enhancements).
 
Therefore the sample is likely to be truer than one compiled from virtually any database in existence.
 
 
The Sample
 
No listings were filtered in order to obtain the most statistically significant study possible. The only Point2 accounts that were not included were:
 
-         Internal and external TEST accounts
-         Internal and external DEMONSTRATION accounts
-         DELETED accounts
 
All listings entered into the Point2 system over the first quarter of 2008 were included, for a sample size well into six figures.
 
-         listings spanned a wide variety of economic regions, including listings from every U.S. state, every Canadian province, and several other countries around the world;
-         listings from every conceivable price range were represented;
-         listings from all Point2 member types were included – Brokers, Agents, Builders and Property Managers;
-         listings were displayed in a wide variety of iterations and across many portals, from websites with hundreds of thousands of page views, to websites with very few, and from members taking full advantage of Agent Handshake™ exposure, and the sprawling Point2 Agent syndication network, to those with limited sharing preferences; and,
-         listings were entered by a wide variety of Point2 Agent members, from part time agents with few listings utilizing Point2 Agent’s free Standard product, to power brokers using Point2’s $120/month Premium product.
 
Every effort was made to ensure that a fair and blind sample was studied.
 
 
The Method
 
The sample of listings was analyzed based on the number of photos that each listing included.
 
The number of photos added was then plotted against three key variables:
 
  1. How many times the listing was viewed;
  2. How many leads were generated; and,
  3. How much “interest” the listing generated.
 
NOTE: “Interest” was determined based on how many unique visitors interacted with a particular listing across the entire Point2 exposure network.
 
There are many different ways consumers may interact with a Point2 Agent listing, including viewing its virtual tour, viewing the listing on a Handshake partner site, completing a mortgage calculation for that listing, etc.
 
 Fig. 1.0 2008 Point2 Agent Photo Effectiveness Study


The Result 

  • Compared to listings with only one photo, those with 21 or more photos generated more than triple the number of Detailed Views, more than double the amount of interest, and double the number of Leads. 
  • Compared to listings with no photos, those with 21 or more photos generated more than fifty-five times the number of Detailed Views, nearly twenty-seven times the amount of Interest, and eight hundred and ninety-eight times the number of Leads. 
  • Comparable results were obtained when plotting these three key variables against varying numbers of photographs per listing. 
  • Views, Interest and Leads jumped 20 percent or more as the number of photos increased from 15 to 16. 
  • Performance in terms of Detailed Views, Interest and Leads generated trended up almost identically during the test period.  

For More Information

To obtain more information, or for any other questions related to this survey or other media inquiries, please contact:
 
Roger Noujeim
VP, Public Relations for Point2 Technologies Inc.
(604) 675-9393 EXT 224