Several times over the course of the year I will be approached by someone who has listed their home and is not happy with the way their home is being marketed. Now before I continue with them in conversation I always make it clear that by me engaging in conversation about their listing, I am in no way trying to solicit their business. As a Realtor there are very strict rules about soliciting business from people who already have their homes listed.
Once I have the CYA conversation out of the way, I will ask why they are not happy with their Realtor. The answer 99 times out of 100 is because their home isn’t sold. As I probe a little deeper, more times than not, I will hear comments like “they listed my house and then I never heard from them again”. Or another complaint I hear is “my house wasn’t advertised after the first two weeks of listing it.”
I usually will go on to ask a few questions as to why the home isn’t sold. There are two questions I generally ask. The main question I ask is; what has your Realtor done to market your home? The other question I ask is; how did you go about choosing your Realtor?
What has your Realtor done to market your home?
I generally hear the same answer to this question. They placed the home on MLS, placed a for sale sign on our front yard, placed an ad in the Winnipeg Real Estate News, made feature sheets, and did an open house. All of these are great tools to get a home sold! I call these tools the Elephants of my marketing arsenal. I call them this because they are the big things that we as Realtors do. Almost every single Realtor does these things. In fact, if this was still 2001, it would be practically the only tools we had at our disposal.
Chances are, that in this strong market these “elephants” will be sufficient in getting your home sold. Please don’t get me wrong; you won’t get as much money for your home only using the basic of marketing tools, but your home will eventually sell.
A complete marketing program should encompass so much more than just a for sale sign and placing it on The MLS. You need to remember the main reason you are hiring a Realtor is to drive traffic to see your home.
A complete marketing program is no longer the marketing program of 2001. With the advances in technology we have so many tools to give your home the proper kind of exposure. The kind of exposure your home needs to get the most amount of money in your pocket. The problem is that many Realtors are still marketing homes like its 2001.
When I sit down with clients to discuss listing their home I go through my marketing program. It can actually take up to two hours to go through my entire program. Yes, that may seem long, but considering your home may be your single largest asset, I would say its well worth the invested time.
Really hard to go through my entire marketing program on a blog post, however here are just a few of the many things I do to market a home I have for sale:
- Set up a website with the address as the domain name with tons of pictures and info about the house
- Use a professional photographer to take lots of great pictures
- Do a virtual tour of every room in the house and the outside. This virtual tour is online for everyone to see
- I do barbeques (weather permitting) at open houses that attract so many people
- I upload videos of the home to You Tube
- I send out just listed flyers
- I promote the heck out of each and every listing I get through Social Media
- Before the home hits the market, I usually spend several days working on the house I am about to list making it just right. Things like re-grouting tiles, fixing plumbing, replacing light fixtures, or working on their landscaping
- I promote the home nationally
- I consistently use Craigslist, Kijiji, The Winnipeg Free Press and The Winnipeg Real Estate News
- And many many more things!!
The above list is just a small sample of the many things I do to give a property exposure and get the home sold. This list above I call the mosquitoes of my marketing arsenal. All the little extra things are what will sell your home the quickest and for the most amount of money.
One of the things I always ask a client after I go through my marketing program is “which one of these things do you think will sell your home?” Their answer almost always is “I don’t know!” The truth is, after selling homes for 17 years, I don’t know either. But that’s why I do everything. Because you never know what part of my marketing will generate an offer. So why leave any stone unturned? Especially when it doesn’t cost you any more. And remember, Elephants don’t bite, but mosquitoes do!!
Quick story: Early in the summer I did an open house for another Realtor who wasn’t having any luck selling their listing. It had been for sale for several weeks. The week prior to the open house I took out a Facebook ad. It was advertising the open house, and that there would be a BBQ at the open house. At that open house I was inundated with people. Some, just for the free hot dogs and pop. Because it was so crowded, a neighbor came by for a hot dog. He went through the house and decided to call a friend about it. The friend showed up at the tail end of the open house and ended up purchasing the home 48 hours later. Could I have predicted that is what would have sold the house? No way!! But it did. Imagine that. That little Facebook Ad. That little Mosquito bit!!
I can’t emphasize this enough. You never know what marketing tool will bring a buyer to your home. Chances are pretty good that a for sale sign and The MLS will eventually sell your home. I do believe, however, that all the mosquito’s I have in my marketing program will likely generate an offer as well. So why not cover all the bases? In fact, to take that a step further, a complete marketing program will increase the likelihood of the seller receiving more than one offer on the home at the same time. I firmly believe that for each competing offer a home gets, the price increases more than $6,000. Can you imagine two, three, or four offers on your home at the same time?
So, if you are selling your home, why rely on just the elephants, when it’s the mosquito’s that will net you the most money?
That’s it for today. My next blog post will discuss the second question I ask; how did you choose the Realtor you are using? After that, I promise, I will tie everything in and make sense of this rambling. Stick with me, I am going somewhere!
Do you have any questions, comments or concerns? Please let me know.
Carl
Categories: Real Estate, Simple Winnipeg Real Estate Blog