You're showing a property to a prospective tenant on your mobile. You open the listing to show them photos of the kitchen. The page loads... and loads... and loads. Five seconds pass. The tenant is looking at their phone. You're looking at yours. Awkward silence.
Five seconds feels like an eternity when you're waiting for property photos to load. It's not just frustrating—it's unprofessional. You look disorganized. The tenant loses interest. What should be a quick "look at this lovely kitchen" moment becomes an uncomfortable wait.
This week, we fixed this problem in LetAdmin. Property pages with 12+ photos now load in under a second instead of 4-5 seconds. This article explains why property photos load slowly in most software, how we made them instant, and what this means for agencies managing hundreds of properties.
The Problem: Why Property Photos Load Slowly
Most property management software stores high-resolution photos (3-5MB each from modern smartphones). When you view a property page, the software needs to:
- Fetch the original photo from storage (usually Amazon S3 or similar)
- Resize it to fit your screen (you don't need a 4000×3000 pixel image to view a 600×600 thumbnail)
- Send it to your browser for display
This happens every single time you view the page. With 12 photos, that's 12 separate fetch-resize-send operations. Each one takes 900-1,300 milliseconds. That adds up to 10-15 seconds of waiting.
Why don't other systems fix this?
Most property management software was built 10+ years ago when properties had 3-4 photos maximum. As smartphone cameras improved and agents started uploading 15-20 photos per property, the software never adapted. The same old architecture that worked fine for 3 small photos now crawls with 15 high-resolution images.
How We Fixed It: Pre-Process Everything
Our solution is simple: do the work once, not every time.
When you upload a property photo to LetAdmin, we immediately create three optimized versions in the background:
- Thumbnail (600×600) for property listings
- Medium (400×400) for gallery views
- Small (400×300) for quick previews
These optimized versions are ready before you even view the page. When you load a property, the software just grabs the pre-made thumbnail—no resizing, no waiting, no delay.
The result?
- Property pages load in under 1 second (down from 4-5 seconds)
- Photos appear instantly, even on mobile connections
- Scrolling through properties feels snappy and responsive
What Your Team Will Notice
Nothing different—and that's exactly the point.
Uploading photos works exactly the same. Viewing properties works exactly the same. The only difference is everything happens faster. Property pages load instantly. Photo galleries scroll smoothly. The software feels responsive.
This is especially noticeable when you're:
- On mobile: Showing properties to tenants during viewings
- On calls: Quickly pulling up property details while talking to landlords
- Managing multiple properties: Clicking through dozens of listings daily
Fast-loading photos aren't a luxury feature—they're essential for efficient agency operations. When you're managing 200+ properties and dealing with constant landlord and tenant queries, every second saved adds up.
How We Ensured Reliability
We didn't just make photos load faster—we made sure the system never breaks, even if something goes wrong.
Graceful degradation: If the pre-optimized version isn't ready yet (rare), the system automatically falls back to generating it on-demand. You might wait an extra second, but you'll never see a broken image.
Background processing: Photo optimization happens in the background without slowing down your upload experience. Upload 20 photos, and they're all ready in seconds without you waiting.
Lazy loading: Photos below the fold (not visible on screen) don't load until you scroll to them. This makes pages with 20+ photos load just as fast as pages with 5 photos.
What This Means for Your Agency
Fast software enables faster operations. When photos load instantly:
- Viewings are smoother: No awkward delays when showing properties on mobile
- Landlord calls are more professional: Instant access to property details when needed
- Daily workflow is less frustrating: No waiting around for pages to load
This is the kind of infrastructure improvement that doesn't make for flashy marketing, but it's absolutely foundational to software you can rely on daily.
We'd Love to Hear from You
Are you frustrated with slow property management software? Specifically, do property photos take forever to load in your current system?
What would make your daily agency operations run smoother? We're building LetAdmin specifically for owner-operators and small agencies, and we'd love to hear what matters most to you.
Get in touch: paul@letadmin.com
LetAdmin is in active development. We're documenting the build journey publicly to share insights with other agencies and gather feedback from letting agents. If you're interested in seeing what we're building or want to share what your agency needs, we'd love to hear from you.