First, let me say that preparing your home for sale is different from marketing or promoting it, although the two go hand-in-hand. Don't skimp on preparing your home for sale, about 81% of buyers want a home they can just move into. That's a huge percentage and you want your home to fall into that category unless you want to sell at a fire sale price. Staging your home has become a critical part of preparing your home for sale in this market.
Second, pricing your home isn't the same as marketing it, either. If your home isn't priced correctly, no amount of marketing will get it sold. Pricing is based on location, size, amenities and condition compared to comparable properties. Unfortunately, price is not based on how much you paid fixing it up or your mortgage balance. A home is ultimately worth what someone is willing to pay and how much someone is willing to sell it for at that point in time.
Let's assume your home is staged-ready and you have priced your home correctly. You are now ready to market your home. The purpose of marketing it is to get it sold, so let's start by at looking at where buyers found the home they purchased.
87% of all buyers and 94% of buyers aged 25-44 used the Internet to search for homes in 2008, and only 3% of buyers found their home through print ads…it looks like marketing should focus on the Internet!
People who searched for homes on the Internet overwhelmingly said the top three things they look for in their search are…
A good example of marketing utilizing these features is a new listing of mine linked in the examples above. By developing a custom web site with the property address as the website address, www.2653Bryant.com, it can be used to effectively market the home through other avenues as well…on yard signs, to friends and family, even in print ads.
In Minneapolis-St. Paul the realty website that seems most popular with buyers is Edina Realty. I am not an Edina Realty agent, but that doesn't matter because in the Twin Cities real estate agencies share their listings with each other so all major sites include all MLS listings from all real estate companies.
What does matter is that listings have a good online presence so buyers contact their agent to request a showing regardless of where they saw the listing. Here is a link to 2653 Bryant at EdinaRealty.com …check for the 'three most important things'! (scroll down for the virtual tour)
Lastly, don't overlook an Internet presence that goes beyond your local market. In our global society where people are regularly relocating to other parts of the country and the world an International presence such as that provided by REMAX.com is also important. I recently sold a listing to a relocation couple…they found it online while they were nearly 2,000 miles away…and wrote a purchase agreement before they had both personally visited the property!
Sharlene Hensrud, RE/MAX Results REALTOR - Email – HomesMSP.com
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