So You Want to Sell Your Home – Part 4: Marketing Your Home

So You Want to Sell Your Home – Part 4.

Marketing Your Home

In Part 3 I talked about how you get the most exposure on your home for sale, entice agents, get it listed in the MLS. But how do you attract buyers? The simple answer is the same way a Realtor® or real estate agent does: you market, using one or more venues.

Signs – of course. You want people to see a sign in your yard--it lets all the passersby know your home is for sale. But, if you live at the end of a cul-de-sac, there are not a lot of passersby. But the sign is still a good thing. It lets your neighbors know, and they might tell someone who wants to buy a home. Believe it or not, there are some people who don’t want a sign, who don’t want the neighbors to know. Your for sale sign should show clearly how to contact you, or your Realtor®. Your (or your Realtor’s®) phone number should be large, prominently positioned and readable by people driving by. The sign should be about 24” wide and 30” tall, with colors to attract attention.

Information tubes or boxes. Yes to them, also. Make sure your Realtor®, or you if selling yourself, places a weather-tight information box or tube on or adjacent to the sign. It should be positioned so that someone passing by will see it and hopefully stop and pick up a flyer. Speaking of flyers, keep the box stocked, but not too full to get a single flyer out. Make sure your Realtor® supplies you with extras in case the box runs out before she (or he) can get back to refill it.

Newspaper ads – if you are having an open house, definitely. For any other occasion, if you want to spend the money, go ahead. You pay for the ad each week based upon the number of lines and column inches. A picture will also be extra and is usually in black and white. The ad may also be found on the newspapers web site. These ads sometimes attract buyers, but, the first place most buyers look today for information on homes is….

The Internet – absolutely a yes. Recent studies have indicated that over 90% of buyers first use the internet to search for a home. And what is the most effective internet tool? At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it is the MLS. Not just for Realtors® or agents but also for buyers. Many MLS systems today now have public search capability where all the real estate “civilians” can search by state, county, city, neighborhood, street, etc.

However, the bonus to this is that many Realtor® MLS listings are also fed to other internet sites, including the Realtor’s® own web site. You can search the local MLS at my site, as well as review my featured listings if you want. But, people can search and find your home on almost every local Realtor’s® web site.

There is another bonus. Many Realtor’s® MLS listings are also fed to large national real estate and home search sites, such as Realtor.com and Trulia.com. I, and many other Realtors®, also forward these listing to many other real estate home search sites with both local and national (even international) exposure.

Some of the help-to-sell-your-own-home companies will also include your home on their own web site listings. Before selecting any company, whether a full service realtor or a help to sell agency, ask how big of an exposure on the web they provide, whether just on MLS, on their specific site listings or to the major real estate search sites (ask which ones specifically) across the country.

You can also upload your homes information to many of the major national real estate sites. This will be on a one site by one site basis, contacting each site separately and uploading or entering data. Many are at no cost for a basic listing with fees for certain features like additional pictures, featuring (prominently positioning your home), etc.

There are many other alternate internet marketing practices you can take advantage of. Sites like Craigslist that offer free ads. On Craigslist you can list your home with up to 4 pictures at no charge. You need to refresh or even replace your ad at least weekly to keep it near the top of the list. Many people will only look at the most recent ads. You also need to be ready to get calls from people who might be interested in more than your home. Many may be trying to sell you something. Others might have different motives. Craigslist does have a comprehensive page of scams and warnings to look out for.

One final option I will mention is a “Single Address Web Site”. This is nothing more than a website you, or your Realtor®, or someone else you hire, can build that exclusively displays your home. All the information and pictures you want to include, all there at one site on the web with a URL in the form of www.yourhomeaddress.com. This is a relatively new service but does look very interesting.

So, there we have it, a myriad of ways to market your home. Each of these marketing tools requires work to initiate as well as constant tweaking and upkeep to keep fresh. You can do it your self, or you can use a full service Realtor®. Or, you can hire someone else to do all of the marketing work for you. The main thing to remember is to do what you can in order to get your information out in front of the broadest audience possible. Remember, the biggest audience is the population of local Realtors®, and, to some extent, every Realtor® in the country. Those Realtors® often know someone moving to your town or county and will help them become familiar with the properties available. Then there are the buyers. To be successful you need to reach both groups.

If you would like to find out what I can do for you, or, if you just have a question I might be able to help you with, email me or call me at 706-207-5290.