The two most important elements of selling a home have always been 1.) Price and 2.) Condition but maybe today there is a third factor.

MARKETING can be equally -and sometimes more- important when selling a home as price and condition. Professional marketing is the secret sauce that sells homes! There are more options to market a home than ever before. The way a home is marketed online determines how much attention it gets as in cases where homes that were priced too high end up in multiple offer situations due to impressive marketing presentations online. On the opposite side there are homes that sell for less than they are worth due to poor marketing efforts.  When people start to sell their home most of the time they haven't thought much about the type of marketing that they would like for their home. They are usually focused on what their home is worth and getting their house ready for the market.

If you were to receive two presents to choose from, one was beautifully wrapped with a big satin bow while the other was wrapped in newspaper and duct tape, which present would you choose? The nice pretty one, right? This is the same concept with online marketing. When a property is presented well, buyers assume that the property is better than those that are not listed with the same effort. Consumers that have worked with skilled agents have much different experiences than the average home seller. They may have experienced a buying rush on their listing, while their neighbors house sits on the market for 40 days with no offers. When a house is presented well online, buyers sense the excitement and passion about the property. It creates an awareness that the property is special. That causes buyers to submit higher offers out of a fear of loosing out. The opposite is true when a listing is bland and boring.

Technology has changed real estate from a 100% salesperson business, to a sales/marketing business. Consumers know it’s true, salespeople used to be a resource to get information about products and services. Now consumers can get almost all of the information online before they ever meet a salesperson, so they don’t need to be sold. Consumers will go out of their way to avoid salespeople if they have the option. However, these consumers still needs to be advised and informed by a professional on many aspects of the real estate process. They do not need to be "sold to" anymore. We can access endless amounts of neighborhood forums, agent reviews, property listings, and market statistics online. For this reason, utilizing new technology to creatively market the best assets of a property online have never been more important. Properties that are marketed to their highest potential typically sell for higher prices.

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If you were asked to be interviewed on TV, would you ask someone to help you pick out your clothes, do your make-up and get your hair ready, or would you just show up and see what happens? Well, luckily most TV shows have a make up and clothing design crew who would do that for you. Their job is to make you look as good as possible before you are presented to the world on television. That is essentially what the role of a listing agent is, except they are doing it with your real estate. They take your most expensive possession and work their magic to make it look amazing. There are agents who choose to just post a listing online and see what happens. Don’t hire them! Hire the agent who is passionate about making your home look amazing when it is presented to the online world.

One Caveat I Must Mention
It should go without saying, but all the creative marketing in the world will not help your property if it isn’t ready to be listed. Before we begin the process to market a property, we need to make sure it’s going to show well. Your listing agent should be able to give you advice on staging, staging does not have to be expensive!!

What kind of Real Estate Marketing sells homes for the most money?

Professional Photography

Photos are the most important form of marketing because they are the consumers first visual point of contact with your listing. First impressions are everything in marketing. If the photos are bad, home buyers will never pay attention to the other forms of marketing used to list your home. 

Professionally Designed Website

90% of buyers start their search for homes online. Having a professionally designed website with great search engine rankings gets your property in front of buyers quicker. Having access to lots of FREE information and advice coupled with useful articles on everything from how to improve your credit to advice for home inspections gives you a one stop resource for getting up to date information.

Social Media Ads

Social media is a powerful way to get the word out about your home being listed online. When I list a home, I post it in a Facebook Ad that is targeted to potential homebuyers in my local areas. These ads get thousands of views and get shared all over. Social media is a technology that is constantly evolving and will always be used for marketing.

Once your listing is in a Facebook Ad campaign, it stands alone in a consumers news feed. Everyone knows someone who needs to buy a home, and Facebook Ads are a great way to get your listing in front of your local community within hours. Other social media sites do not offer the same exposure as Facebook, but can help drive traffic to your listing as well, such as Pinterest, twitter and Instagram.

Professionally Designed Materials

As long as there is marketing, there will always be graphic design. Graphics can be used on individual property pages, blogs, Facebook ads, marketing print materials, and on and on. Before hiring a listing agent, ask to see some of their print and/or design materials. It will let you know if their design sense is current, or stuck in another decade. Their website will usually reveal this as well. It’s important to have a Realtor who has good design sense and knows how to make every piece of marketing material look amazing.

How to Choose the Best Agent for Your Listing

With all this information about marketing technology, why would you choose to use an agent simply because you’re related to them, or they are connected to you socially. Would you choose a surgeon that way? In my experience, that is the worst way to choose an agent. Yet, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), this is still the most common way that people find and hire their listing agent. Instead of using the first Realtor that you know to list your house, you should first check out their marketing materials. Ask to view the last few listings that they sold, check out their testimonials. Compare their work with other agents. If it doesn’t compare, then don’t hire them! Hiring an agent who does not utilize technology to list your house is like going to a car lot and paying 2015 prices for a 2010 model car. It just doesn’t make sense. You are hiring the listing agent to market your home online.

Find an agent that knows how to utilize technology and market your home to it’s top potential online. It’s the most important element of listing a home to sell for top dollar!

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