Marketing your Home to Sell in a Slow Market
In a slow market, there are often times less buyers and more sellers. Even though it is more difficult to sell a home during a slow market, home still sell! Setting yourself out from the rest even further by having a good marketing campaign by your side is going to further your strategy to get you the multiple offers you want.
MLS Listing / Online Photographs
Most home buyers are looking for their future homes online. Your online photos are going to be your first impression. In a break down, a potential buyer will plug in their search criteria and will receive a list of homes for sale that meet their criteria. They scroll down the listings looking for a home that will catch their eye. A picture says everything to a buyer!
Badly shot photographs can consist of: Photos made dark by drapes or bad lighting, photos turned sideways, photos of cluttered rooms, photos with un-necessary elements, photos of pets in the room, lack of photos to an online listing, high or low resolution photos not proper for internet viewing.
Avoid these mistakes at all costs.
Good Marketing Practices
Description: Put your best foot forward. When it comes to writing a description for your home, make sure to point out what makes your home unique. Give a little insight on why you purchased your home in the first place, and place a positive spin on any negative factors your home may have.
Open Houses: During your open house, go beyond the ordinary bottled water and sandwiches, and serve food that is creative! Mock up a drawing for free gift certificates (ie. Home depot gift card, Lowe’s gift card, Grocery store gift card) and add other buyer incentives.
Availability: Be as available and flexible as possible for both your agent and your potential home buyers. Using a lockbox instead of having an appointment base notice restriction will allow your agent to show more potential buyers your home.
Commission: Appropriate commission will motivate the agent to sell your home faster. It’s not that agents are greedy, but in a slow market, agents tend to view lower commissioned listings as being attached to an un-motivated seller. If the seller isn’t motivated, often times they are not likely going to negotiate. In a slow market, negotiation is necessary.
Buyer Incentives: Adding a buyer incentive with your home sell is only going to help it sell that much faster. Buyer incentives can range from a brand new luxury vehicle to a flat screen LCD/plasma television. Further so, you can use no closing costs, home protection plans, pre paid homeowners fees, buy down mortgage rates, or a weekend get-a-way as buyer incentives.
Print Advertising: Not only is advertising great on the internet, its also great in print. Being in the Sunday classifieds and/or daily paper can get you further exposure. Picture advertisements will cost slightly more, but are more likely to convert to leads. So no matter whether you as the home owner or your Realtor pays for print advertising, it’s worth the costs.
Virtual Tours: If available through your real estate agent, virtual tours make it easier than ever before for a potential home buyer to view the home throughout. Having high resolution printable photos, and an email option, will also help attract buyers.
If this is not an option, multiple photos of your property listing are a definite must.
Now that you have a clear understanding of how to market your home to a slow real estate market, you must make sure you are aware of ways you can push a home buyer away without even realizing it.
Let Pam Treece guide you through 