$1,340 of media on a $118k rural house the buyer never opened the link for
I ended up with a house I didn't want. Seller-financed note I'd bought at a discount, borrower stopped paying, and after a long stretch we took title through a deed in lieu. How that gets papered and whether it wipes what sat behind it varies by state and I had a lawyer do it, which is the only way I'd touch it.
So now I'm holding a 1,240 square foot single story in a county where the median is around $118k, and I decide I'm going to market it properly, because I'd read this room and concluded that media is the cheap part.
$1,340: 42 stills, a twilight set, drone, a 90 second video, a Matterport scan, and virtual staging on the living room and the two bedrooms. The staging came back labeled, which the MLS there required, and disclosure rules on virtually staged images vary by state and by MLS, so I'd confirm before anyone assumes labeling is optional.
What happened. The MLS carried 25 photos, so 17 never got seen. The video link went in a field I later learned almost nobody clicks. Scan got 61 views over seven weeks, average dwell 38 seconds, which is people bouncing. Every offer came from someone local. The buyer was a neighbor's cousin who saw the sign, walked it once, and closed at $109k cash. When my agent asked, he said he'd never looked at the listing online.
Against that, the yard was rough and the back bedroom had a stained ceiling from an old leak I'd patched but not repainted.
What I'd do differently: $275 for a clean 25 photo set and a $95 floor plan, and the remaining $970 into landscaping, paint on that ceiling, and a bigger sign. In a market where the buyer pool drives past the house, I bought media for a buyer who wasn't there.