Are property photos belonged to the real estate agent or homeowner? (sales, contract)
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If contract with seller agent expires, can the homeowner use the previous property photos? For example, change a new seller agent or "sell by owner" scenario? Or everything has to be re-taken for a new listing?
Typically photos belong to the photographer who took them.
If they were professionally taken usually they are only licensed to the agent for the purposes of the listing.
Either way - without permission - I don’t think you could use them.
I agree and would add that "photographer" in this case doesn't have to mean a professional...it means the person who took the photos. So, if an owner takes the photos, the owner owns them. In just about any other scenario, you have to have specific written permission to use them and that includes other agents. Lifting photos from the MLS to use again is a big no no.
I would recommend having all new photos taken for the simple fact that if your home was already listed and didn't sell, buyers looking at those listing photos are just going to pass on the house if they saw it previously. New photos (and a little re-staging of furniture and/or artwork in the home), however, may get them to take a second look.
I've done a little bit of photography for this kind of thing. Diana and bbronston are right.
Another bit of information: if the photos were taken by a "pro" (by which I mean a third party contracted by the agent or the owner to take the photos), the photographer would have formally licensed either some or all rights to the agent/agency that posted the listing. If the agent/agency bought the copyright or paid for exclusive rights, the photographer can't then license or sell the rights to anyone else. Specifics depend on the details in the contract between the photographer and the client.
If the homeowner took the photos, there might not be a contract between him/her and the agent. If there is no contract, the homeowner retains copyright to the photographs and may do with them as he or she pleases.
FLKitties makes a good point, too. You might want entirely new photos anyway.
In my case, the photos are awesome and did the work of pulling in views.
My agent is where things broken apart. After contract expires and no sale, I am thinking of switching to another one. The problem is all staging furnitures are gone at that point. I could ask and "buy" the photos from the agent. But I am just wondering if it belongs to me. So far, look like it does not belong to me so the only option is to buy them from the agent then.
For the most part, any new listing with photos is going to generate tons of views. It's when it's been sitting on the market for a while that the views are going to taper off. Not to say that your listing doesn't have fabulous photos as I haven't seen it, but it's more likely the new-ness of your listing that is driving the views, not necessarily the photos themselves. That being said, you could definitely try to ask the current agent for the rights to those photos for re-use and see if they will allow you to purchase them, essentially reimbursing them for their out-of-pocket costs.
After spending a lot of time on the internet looking at the pics of homes for sale and seeing how they were done, I decided that when we sold our houses, I would take the pics.
Plus, I had the say as to which one of our homes pics would be the first one to appear on our homes sales ad/photo gallery. I don't know how many times we clicked on houses for sale and the opening pic for the home, would be of a bathroom or a room in the finished basement, etc.
the opening pic for the home, would be of a bathroom
First place I go in the morning, is the bathroom.
There's some logic to that order, no?
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