Be careful when you are looking online solely as your way of eliminating homes. Unfortunately, most agents have not figured out that most buyers today shop online, thus they have not taken the photo quality and angles seriously of the homes that they are marketing.

So, what I would recommend doing it is using a different rating system while you are shopping online. Rate the houses from 1 to 5 and see everything in-person that you give a 3 or above. While you are rating these homes, be lenient and give high scores to anything that has at least 2 pictures that you like. So out of 6 photos, if you like 2 photos, give it a score and go and see it. You will be surprised at how many homes look better than they do online, or not.

Of course if you are going to rate the homes as I suggest above, this means that you look at all interior photos of every listing.  As dangerous as it is to look at homes by the interior photos and eliminate them from your search, the same thing happens with the exterior photo.  Many times the exterior looks much worse in a photo than the scene looks from the street or at a different angle. 

To see how serious this implication is, llook here at how many buyers are shopping online according to Realtor.com. and when you see the statement about how many showcase listings are chosen versus the ones that don’t have a showcase listing which is an upgrade on Realtor.com for agent’s to pay for, you will see that many houses are eliminated by the exterior photo.