Marketing Your Home
My marketing plan is designed to get your home the maximum amount of exposure in the shortest period of time. Each step involves techniques that showcase your home to people that can either buy your home or help us find the right audience, whether it be home buyers, local real estate agents, or investors. I will:
- 1.Price your home strategically to be competitive with the current market and current price trends.
- Stage your home to showcase features that buyers are most interested in, such as uncluttered rooms and closets, fresh paint and pleasing curb appeal. In certain instances, I may insist upon a consultation (at my expense) with a professional stager that has years of interior design and staging experience.
- 3.Place For Sale signage (as allowed), complete with a rider that directs prospects to a custom domain for more information.
- Create a comprehensive web presence, with your home listed in the MLS, a custom website, and dozens of other sites including all major brokerage sites (even competitors!), Realtor.com, Trulia.com, Zillow.com, CraigsList, Yahoo! real estate, and others. Eighty-seven percent of home buyers use the internet in their home search, and when asked where they ultimately found the home they were going to purchase, 32% said they found it on the internet (NAR 2008 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers). I create a dedicated website with a custom domain to showcase multiple photos, a detailed description, and neighborhood information. This custom domain is advertised on CraigsList, brochures, and postcards. Does anyone see these sites? My listing www.22ndStreetNorth.com had 184 visits in the first week on market, heavy open house traffic, and two offers in the first week.
- Utilize professional, full-color postcards and brochures, and distribute "Just Listed" marketing to neighbors, encouraging them to tell their family and friends about your home. We need your home to stand out amongst the dozens of other homes that buyers are previewing. For that reason, I create professional quality, full-color brochures for buyers to take home and review. No Xerox copies here!
- Maximize the number of buyer views by adding multiple (30) photographs--taken with professional equipment including a wide-angle lens, so that buyers will see the rooms, not the "stuff." Buyers today will NOT look at a home without first seeing photographs on the web. Buyers will assume something is wrong with a home that doesn't offer photographs on the internet!
- 7.Ensure a complete and accurate MLS entry, timed to optimize views. The entry must immediately have all photos entered or we miss the critical "first-alert" opportunity for buyers who are set up with auto-searches. Directions must be clear, addresses and subdivisions entered correctly, and all “optional” fields (e.g., distance to metro) must be entered.
- Target my marketing to active real estate agents that specialize in selling homes in your neighborhood, as well as buyers who are likely to be interested in your property. I have a database of more than 2,000 past clients and prospective buyers who regularly read my monthly newsletter.
- Create an Open House schedule to promote your home to prospective buyers. Many of today’s buyers start their search online WITHOUT AN AGENT, and therefore have no way of seeing your home unless we hold open houses. Houses do sell from open houses, especially in urban, walkable neighborhoods--I’ve seen it! We will also discuss whether it makes sense to schedule a “Broker’s Open” to introduce area agents to your property so that they can be on the lookout for buyers that are a good match!
- Provide you with weekly updates detailing my marketing efforts, including comments from prospective buyers and agents that have visited your home. With these updates we will adjust our strategy.