Estate agents ‘too busy’ to add images on property listings – claim

Hundreds of homes reaching portals for sale with no supporting photos, research suggests.

Estate agent media provider Giraffe360 analysed current sales stock consisting of thousands of online property listings on Rightmove, looking at what proportion were listed with no photos, where they were located and what price they were attempting to achieve. 

The research shows that across the nation, 1.7% of all homes listed for sale had no accompanying photos on their online property advert. 

On average, these homes were listed for £287,299, 24% less than those with photos.

The North East was home to the highest level of homes listed for sale with no photos, with 2.8% of all current for sale stock missing even just one photograph of the property itself. 

The East Midlands also ranked high, where 2.4% of homes were advertised without a single image, followed by Yorkshire and the Humber (1.8%), the East of England (1.6%) and the South East (1.5%). 

Yorkshire and the Humber was also home to the biggest gap in asking price, with homes listed without photos commanding 57% less, followed by the North West (53%) and the North East (51%). 

Mikus Opelts, chief executive of Giraffe360, said: “In this day and age, listing a property for sale without any photos simply isn’t acceptable and not only does it do a severe disservice to the seller, but it also reflects very badly on the listing agent. 

“The property portals are the modern-day shop window and there seems to be a real lack of consistency when it comes to estate agents and how they portray themselves and their stock via these platforms. 

“Of course, the reality isn’t that these agents don’t care, it’s the fact that they simply can’t keep up with the overwhelming demand for their services in the current climate. We’ve seen such a sustained period of boom since the start of the pandemic, estate agents have been working around the clock to keep up. 

“Many are listing homes as quickly as possible in order to keep their available stock levels refreshed and robust, but the ability to produce the accompanying media for these property adverts has either created a backlog, or in some cases, seen homes reach the market without any accompanying media at all. 

“This is partly down to seller expectation as well, as they expect their home to be listed in an instant, which puts further pressure on resources on the agent's side. This has led to an increased reliance on third party media providers who can also be unreliable when tested to capacity, not to mention costly.”