Many thanks to Bill Gassett of Maximum Exposure Real Estate for providing this guest post.
For many people, your home sale is probably one of the largest financial transactions you will make in your life. Given that there will be competition, you will need to maximize your home’s exposure to buyers.
Utilize the following marketing ideas to help you reach a wider audience, and ensure that your home sells quickly and for a great price. Keep reading for some of the best real estate marketing tips for the sale of a home.
Take Great Care in Choosing Your Real Estate Agent
Before you ever consider putting your house up for sale, be sure to take your time choosing the right real estate agent for your needs. You want someone that will do more than put a sign on the ground and add a listing to the MLS.
All the creative marketing in the world cannot make up for experience and expertise of a great real estate agent in your local market. I have not met too many creative Realtors who aren’t also competent marketers as well.
There are a number of ways you can help ensure you get the best Realtor for you, including:
Interview multiple Real Estate Agents.
Taking the time to talk to different Realtor’s properly is by far one of the best marketing tips when selling a home. You can’t get a good idea of what’s out there without talking to at least three to four real estate agents in your area. Don’t think putting in the effort to choose a real estate agent is a waste of your time.
Selecting the right real estate agent could put a significant amount of money in your pocket that you may miss out on with a less experienced agent. Above all else look out for the agent who will buy your listing by telling you your home is worth way more than it is. Remember market data doesn’t lie but people do. Plenty of real estate agents will mislead an owner on their homes value just to beat other agents for the business.
Check to be sure the Realtor has a website.
A good Realtor in today’s market will have an exceptional website, along with a strong web presence in real estate social media. There are many online marketing opportunities that should be used. Over 90% of all buyers find their next home by doing some form of online search.
The agent you hire should showcase their listings on the home page, so it is the first thing a buyer sees. If the agent hasn’t invested in their website and is simply relying on the company site, what does that say about them? Quite a bit and none of it is good! Look for an agent who is investing back into their business. The first place is a top of the line website of their own.
With the advent of the smartphone, real buyers are also on social media daily. If they are in the market for a home, it is possible they could decide to use an agent who is well connected locally online.
Ask about his/her track record.
Look for a real estate agent that has a steady history of home sales, including sales in the last year. To be sure your agent is good at pricing homes, take a look at the original listing price of his or her listings vs. the actual sale price. There should not a be a big gap between the two. The price you set for your property is more than 75% of the marketing.
Don’t make the mistake that some owners do by avoiding an agent that seems busy. You want someone who is successful. Successful people are busy! Choose an agent with a track record of success. Selecting an outstanding agent is one of the most critical marketing tips for selling a home.
Get references.
A good Realtor should have recent references that can tell you how great he or she is. References will tell you whether what the agent says about himself/herself is true. Ask for at least two to three recent clients that you can talk to.
An even better approach is to look up a couple of listings the agent has and call the owners out of the blue. You will get a far better handle on how an agent is performing than getting a hand selected list from the Realtor.
Pick someone you can get along with.
Selling a home can be stressful and may take longer than expected. The agent’s track record and abilities are critical, but so is being able to get along with him or her. You may be spending an extended amount of time together, and you will almost certainly be dealing with some stressful situations.
Selling a home isn’t just about procuring the buyer but managing the transaction after the contract has been signed. Your listing agent will likely need to represent you during the home inspection, meeting the appraiser and communicating weekly as any issues arise.
Be sure you have a problem solver in your corner. Remember this is a business transaction. If you are going to choose between liking someone and business skills, always opt for business acumen first!
Ask how they market properties.
The marketing tips that are coming up are good indicators of how serious an agent is about selling homes. When you interview your Realtors, consider taking this list with you and ask the interviewee if he or she uses these different marketing ideas.
Better yet go out and check for yourself. Jump online and do your research. Checking for yourself can be a fun exercise when trying to figure out the agent who will do the best job marketing your home.
Get Creative! – Ideas For Marketing Your Home
OK, now on to the best marketing ideas for selling a home. No matter the real estate agent you choose, all of these ideas come in handy when you get serious about selling.
Use Bold listing descriptions.
Make sure your listing speaks about all the best things about your property. Your agent should be writing property descriptions that sell and appeal to the masses. For example, there is no point is saying the home has four bedrooms and 2.5 baths in the listing description when a buyer already can see that in the features. With the limited copy to write something memorable, the focus should be on standout features. And that it includes great images to back these descriptions up.
Make sure the photography is exceptional.
Buyers are finding homes online, where pictures can make all the difference. You want your photos to stand out well, and to demonstrate the best qualities of your home. Your Realtor may be great at taking pictures, but if he or she isn’t, consider bringing in a professional photographer. Getting your photos to look sensational is one of the most important parts of real estate marketing. SLR Lounge offers some great real estate photography tips. One of the best marketing tips for selling a home is having photos that blow people away!
Provide beautiful professional video tours.
One of my favorite marketing tips for selling a home is having a spectacular video presentation. The use of video is the latest development in smart real estate marketing. People love videos, and for good reason. They can give a much better feel for what the home is really like before buyers ever walk through the door. With more and more internet users choosing videos over plain text and photos, it is quickly becoming a necessity to include video in real estate marketing.
Use slide shows presentations.
Making a slide show presentation of your beautiful photographs can make it easier for buyers to view them, and it gives you control over how they perceive your home. You get to pick which pictures come first, and you can mostly tell a story in a series of photographs.
These are great for less expensive homes where you might not have the same budget as you would for a luxury property. The site I use for my presentations is The Real Estate Shows. They are extremely affordable. In fact, this is one of the best real estate marketing deals I know of!
The best thing about The Real Estate Shows is you can syndicate your presentations to Youtube. When someone does a Google search for the address of one of my listings, they will almost always find my presentation on the first page along with my website.
The display works well with music playing the background. Buyers can get a good idea what the home has to offer.
Use a blog post to create a fantastic listing presentation.
If your Realtor has a popular blog, you can create a more detailed and compelling presentation for your property than you can on MLS. An excellent blog post can cover all the important parts of the home that people want to know about, including your pictures and video, as well as more detailed information about the neighborhood and contact information for showings.
Use a drone for showing off your lot.
Currently, one of the most popular marketing tactics in the real estate industry is using drone photography. With a drone you can do a nice aerial view of a property. This can give home buyers a nice perspective of the land surround the property and is especially useful if there are outstanding views.
Leverage social media.
Social media can be a very useful tool in marketing your property. Ideally your Realtor will already have a presence on social media outlets like Facebook, Pinterest, Linkedin and Google Plus. Even if you Realtor does not, you can create your own social media connections to let everyone know about your home sale.
A good real estate agent however understands that using social media can be a valuable tool for not only branding themselves as an agent but spreading the word on properties they may be marketing.
You can put up all your beautiful photographs on Pinterest, while sharing your listing information on Google Plus and Facebook. Instagram, also centered around photos, can help you spread images of your home far and wide.
The options for social media marketing are always expanding, so you may need to learn a little to take full advantage of it. However, the increased outreach this channel provides can make the effort more than worth it.
Make a standout, full-color marketing brochure.
As easy as online marketing can be, there is a certain appeal to things you can hold in your hand. Making a high quality, full-color marketing brochure that buyers can take when viewing your home is just easy but smart marketing. A glossy, beautiful brochure is ideal for reaching an expanded audience, especially those that are not so internet savvy.
A memorable brochure is great for a buyer to look at once they are home and the five homes they viewed are starting to blend together in their mind. There are actually lots of things you can include in your marketing brochure. You can find some great outside the box marketing ideas in this article. Include some of these with your marketing material for added OOMPH!
Use “just listed” professional looking post card mailers.
Along the same lines as the brochure, post card mailers can provide a tangible representation of your listing to people all around a given area. A “just listed” post card lets everyone know that your home has gone up for sale. While just listed post cards will not have the same impact from the audience you will capture online, every thing you do to get the word out helps.
Over the years I have gotten a number of sales from my postcard mailings. Print media can still be a powerful form of real estate marketing when done right. Think memorable when putting together your real estate marketing.
If you don’t have a blog, create a single property website.
If you don’t have a blog, you can still create a single property website dedicated to your listing. You can use targeted keywords to drive traffic to your site. You can build the site so that the most important information is on the home page, with more detailed info deeper into the site. You can also add forms to capture leads to each page, so visitors have the opportunity to seek more information at any time.
A website can also let you put all of your great marketing material in one place, including your pictures, videos and PDFs of your brochure and other paper materials. While a real estate blog is best, a single property site gets the consolation prize.
What about open houses?
You are bound to hear a lot of sales pitches from real estate agents about doing an open house as a marketing activity. Lets get one thing straight – we are in the digital age, and an open house is not necessary to sell your home. This is one of the least effective real estate marketing methods to sell a property. Home owners don’t need them.
“Serious buyers are always going to call and schedule an appointment for homes they are interested in viewing.”
Lots of Realtors however are going to push them because they are great for agents to meet potential buyer prospects for other properties. Will an open house sell your home? The chances are slim and you will avoid the unnecessary security risks of letting anyone with a pulse in the door. If you decide you really want to have one make sure you put all your valuables away. Also plan on your nosy neighbors stopping by.
Final Re-cap
There are lots of great marketing activities to help sell a home. Keep in mind however, that a successful home sale starts with picking an exceptional agent who will price your home appropriately for the local market. This will be based on comparable sales data and not pipe dreams. When you have checked off these two boxes you are guaranteed to have a pleasant home selling experience.
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