While previous market swings (such as around the .com bust) have not made a huge impact on wealthy Marin County and the Marin real estate market, this one definitely has.  Marin has a large number of residents who work in financial services and they are losing their jobs.  The wealthy have lost huge percentages of their wealth in their portfolios.  While many of the wealthy may not lose their homes, they are definitely holding tight to what they do have.  The charts below show the dramatic difference in the lower end Marin real estate market vs. the upper end. The number of Marin homes sold under one million dollars is actually up.  The over a million stats?  Down 63.3%! 

Marin Real Estate Sales Stats for homes under $1,000,0000

Marin Real Estate Sales Stats for homes over $1,000,0000

Clearly the luxury real estate market in Marin County is hurting, and I anticipate this trend to continue in 2009.

Teresa Boardman, a St. Paul real estate expert and a talented photographer, had this advice for her fellow agents on a recent blog titled “Give It Your Best Shot”

You are a Realtor dammit, Not a Photographer…. I Hang my Head in Shame
As an industry we have a lot of work to do when it comes to how we present our listings on line

What is Teresa talking about? Around the country and even here in our luxury Marin real estate market, real estate agents are taking photographs of their own listings. I have seen two and three million dollar homes with photos taken by the real estate agent (who doesn’t happen to have Teresa Boardman’s photographic talent). Even worse, I have seen six million dollar listings without any photographs, but that is a whole other story.

I recently took this picture of a dining room. NOTE- I did not use it anywhere. The lighting stinks, the angle is wrong. Fortunately, I am a much better real estate agent than a photographer.

I then hired a photographer to shoot this same room. Doesn’t this look a lot better? Which one is more compelling?

In Marin County, the quality of a picture can easily equal a million dollars or much more. Why? Home buyers start their home search online. ALL of the buyers I work with look at photos online. If a home is not immediately compelling, it often gets discarded. There are times when I have to drag a buyer kicking and screaming to a home because I have seen it in person and think it might be a good match (but they didn’t like the pictures online). If these particular home buyers don’t happen to have an agent willing to drag their buyers into a home by their hair, the would most likely NEVER SEE YOUR HOME.

What does this mean? Home buyers are looking on the internet.

High quality pictures are worth far more than almost any other piece of a real estate agent’s marketing.

When interviewing your next agent, ask them for samples of the photographs used for their last listing. Are the photos compelling? Is the lighting decent? Is the toilet shut in the bathroom picture? If not, you should think twice about hiring that agent. It could cost you a buyer, and a lot of money.