Marketing Your Listings

[Lisa_REOGal]

Besides the goo dold MLS and realtor.com, does anyone have a market plan they'd like to share for their listings?

I've got listing but how to get them seen and sold is the problem I'm having here in MI.

Thanks!
Lisa

[JimOlenbush]

You know, the marketing plan I have for listings is really intended for the listing presentation. The MLS usually sells most houses. Make sure you have the best photos possible for the MLS listing, and make sure it is easy for other agents to show. Newspaper ads and open houses usually don't help much, but they show the seller that you are at least trying.

Every home will sell at the right price. Is it time for a price reduction? If the market is declining the seller needs to get ahead of the downward curve and price the home accordingly. Good luck!!

[jasoncrouch]

I agree with Jim. I don't bother with newspaper ads unless it is in conjunction with an open house in order to drive more buyers to the property. I guess I would consider it for a higher-end place ($1M or more).

I remember a statistic that over 75% of the homes sell via MLS, at least here in Austin. With that in mind, a lot of the marketing work is just getting the listing priced correctly and making sure you get it staged and take good photos.

[Malok]

It really depends on your market on what you need to do.


Where do your buyers come from? Don't be shy. Ask them.



For me, most of my horse farm buyers (and sellers for that matter) do NOT come from the MLS. I'd estimate 80% comes through social networking. My niche just rarely uses computers. Too busy spending time in the saddle I think.


Regular residential stuff is altogether different. Most of my buyers at least check the internet before doing a deal.

[jasoncrouch]

The most recent statistics I could find from NAR show that about 80% of home buyers begin their search on the internet (vs. 2% in 1995). Change came quickly!

[Homesurfer]

I've been offering to put up listings for years at no cost - even include the listing agent's name, phone number, address, or whatever. Agents always tend to think I have some nefarious purpose in mind -- so I don't do it.

I'm not a lender, so I'm not trying to get mortgage leads. I don't sell real estate leads. I do promote any agents in my directory, but that's normal and helps to sell the property. Basically, it's free advertising.

Maybe because it is a down market in many places, agents are beginning to get realistic.

[jasoncrouch]

Terry - Where would you post the listings?

[pj1020]

I agree that most selling takes place thru the MLS. Also, pricing the house realistically is the most important factor by far.

To get my listings sold and to entice sellers to list with me I offer FREE Home Staging and Free Professional Virtual Tour and Photos. The Free Photos is not uncommon but the Free Home Staging is. I have yet to run into another agent that offers that free. It costs me about $320 to $400 for a townhouse and a little more for a detached home.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this idea?

[lkeadle]

SEO does play into listings now too! You can use different keywords in your listing remarks to give your property a better chance of coming up on various idx websites. In Charleston, there are several sites that allow viewers to search for keywords in the remarks section of the MLS reports. If you use the proper keywords in several variations, you stand a much better chance of having your listing show up. I use this in my listing presentations for sellers and it seems to help show them that we are on top of technology.

I do agree that paper advertising is now just used to appease the seller!

Lee Keadle
Carolina One Real Estate
843.532-8615
Charleston SC Real Estate
Mount Pleasant Homes
Summerville Homes for Sale

[Mitch]

Hi Lisa! We sell about 50% of our listings through our own database of buyers. Of course our database is 22,000 and growing my office.

My favorite tool I use which lets you upload your listings to 19 different major website including Yahoo, Google, Tulia, etc. Each of our listings receives around 200 clicks per month. We don't get a ton of leads, but we do get a good amount. However, I can't think of another tool that gets your listings out in front of millions of people for only $29.95 for Agents and $79.95 per month for Brokers.

The site is www.postyourlistings.com if you want to check them out.