Marketing Your Home

I believe a good Real Estate Agent has two jobs: The First is to consult with prospective Sellers on current market trends and conditions. This will ultimately lead Sellers to a price range they can expect to get for their home. The Second job is to do the marketing on the home. I like to call that, “putting the most positive light or spin on a home.” If we cannot get people into the home to see it, it will never sell. So these two jobs are key to not only their own success as an Agent, but also the Seller’s goal of selling their home.

There are some critical components to successfully market a home, and ultimately getting it sold. No longer is it simply enough to post it in MLS and put a sign out front. Consumers are much more sophisticated today than 10 years ago, and they have less time. So if a home is not marketed properly, Byers will pass right over.

Here are Some Critical Components to Marketing a Home:

1. A Written Description of the Home Should Excite the Buyer – Using Adjectives like…Gorgeous, Spacious and Luxurious will Make a Buyer Want to See a Home. My pet peeve is, “if it has a Gorgeous Kitchen, with Breathtaking Granite…say it!” Features & Benefits work in much the same way…for example, if a house is in a sought after school district, then say “Quality Education in this Desirable School District!”
2. It’s Proven… Pictures Sell Houses – Pictures of a home need to be of the highest quality, clear, bright, pleasant, in-focus and Make a Buyer Want to See Your Home? The more pictures the better! MLS allows for 24 pictures and a good listing should have that many. The pictures should be meaningful too. There’s nothing worse than a picture of a toilet. Most Buyers are not going to decide to look at a home because of a toilet. The majority of pictures should be of the inside. When a listing has no inside pictures, most Buyers will skip right over it.
3. Stats on the Home Must be Complete and Accurate - There’s nothing more frustrating than fields in MLS like: Size (Square Feet), Color, Taxes, Year Built, Room Dimensions, etc. that are left blank! What is that telling a Buyer? If a buyer needs a home that’s over 2,000 Sq Ft, they will never find a home with that field left blank. If a Buyer can only afford a home with taxes that are less than $5,000 a year, Buyers will skip right over a listing where that is left blank. People are way too busy than to chase information they expect to be there.
4. Over 90% of Buyers Start Their Home Search on the Internet - Homes need be on every major real estate web site. This will ensure getting not just local exposure, but regional and national exposure too. With the majority of Buyers coming from out of State, it’s not good enough for just local or regional exposure, you also need national exposure. A real estate company with national reach is key in this global economy we live in today.
5. Price is the Most Critical Component of Marketing - People often ask me, “Why has that house down the street been on the market for 2 years?” The answer is simple, price! If there are two homes, within 100 yards of one another, with everything about them identical except the price, which would you buy? We do this every day with TV’s, Cars, Computers and much more. Without a competitive price, we are no more than the Reason they bought the other product. They got a better deal! So the Real Estate Agent’s job of helping the Seller determine the right price is very critical to getting a home sold. If a home is priced competitively, it will sell.