real estate marketing tools
Preparation:
- Know what your house is worth to the bank
- Market research on all the houses nearby
- Understanding the buyer’s brain and who she is
- Setting the right price and why that’s so important
- Maximising your home on the Internet
- Plan your Marketing
- Plan your Advertising
- Choosing the method for selling your home
Know what your home is worth
Get your own valuation done so you know what your house is close to worth. Why waste my money on this I see you thinking?
Three very good reasons!
- You know what your home is genuinely worth.
- You know what a buyer can borrow up to when buying your home.
- When a real estate agent tells you it’s worth $50,000 more you’ll know they are trying to buy the listing and can show them the door fast.
- Following the 3-step system this means this is the lowest price we will now accept on your home.
Market research on local homes:
Spend several weeks snooping through other people’s houses and research on the Internet any homes that have enough photos to get a good idea of. Get a local agent or two in to give you an idea of possible price.
Make notes on any good ideas they have for presentation and steal any good ideas for you. Make notes on bad presentation as what not to do. This comes in handy later on when you do your own buyer inspection on your home.
Understanding the buyer’s brain and who she is
Your buyer is a woman. She found your home on the Internet. She’s smart and knows what she wants for her and her family. Statistics show that in over 91% of property purchases the final decision is made by a woman.
Please explain?
As a husband my job is to help my wife get a house that makes her happy. No matter how much husbands delude themselves that they are in charge there is no way they are going to buy a house their wife hates. That would add up to a lifetime of pain and suffering.
More sensibly research is revealing that women are the biggest investor market currently and that women find property far more interesting and attractive than other investment options like shares.
This is important because it means you must present your home to be female friendly. Understand what women want to know and what the key issues are regarding a home for women.
Women want lots of information and want to feel like they are making the right decision.
Setting the right price and why that’s important
There are quite a few reasons for not over pricing your home but the most important is that by being greedy you usually end up getting less.
Buyers are inquisitive creatures. They are constantly looking at homes and know through their research what is a fair price for your home in their chosen area.
When a new home hits the market the buyers will pounce on it as fresh meat. Sellers often wonder why the best offer comes in the first couple of days or weeks. This is because buyers have been researching for week’s maybe months and then decide to put a fair offer in on your home.
People often turn down good offers only to find that the offers they get later on are lower. People get wary of a stale property because they assume there is something wrong with it.
If your property becomes stale the best thing to do is take it off the market for several months then start again with a fresh campaign when those buyers have purchased and are no longer in the marketplace.
The other very critical reason is you price yourself out of the market. Most buyers come from the Internet. If I am searching on realestate.com.au or domain.com.au (these two websites carry virtually the whole web search market) then I am going to put in my price range.
Let’s work through an example.
Our Home. Valuer says it’s worth $480,000. To allow for negotiation we decide to advertise it at $525,000.
Mary is searching for a home. Her budget maximum is $500,000. She hops on realestate.com.au and says show me all homes between $450k and $500k. Mary was going to buy our home and now she will never know it exists.
Sally is searching for a home too. Her budget maximum is $550,000. She hops on realestate.com.au and says show me all homes between $500k and $550k. Sally is not silly; she has been doing her research. She sees our beautifully presented home and realises it doesn’t have the features of other homes in the same price bracket therefore she is not interested either.
The price we want to get or need to get for our home is irrelevant. The home is only worth what someone will pay. Presenting the home will help us get the maximum but most people will need finance and the bank won’t care what you want just what the home is valued at.
By the time you lower your price and it gets Mary’s attention the home may well be stale or Mary may have already bought. The result will be your price sinks lower as less people want a property that’s been on the market too long.
Maximising your home on the Internet
Market research on over 100,000 Internet homebuyers in the US has determined the number one thing web users want is lots of quality photographs.
Number two is a lot of detailed information and a close third is floor plans. Virtual tours also rate very highly and interactive floorplans although new are very powerful with web users.
First impressions are everything. Therefore you must have professional photos and the main photo on the Internet should be the best part of your home. Never use the front of your home as the main shot. Use the part of your home that will connect with people the most on an emotional level. More on this in the presentation section.
Next make sure your agent does a detailed and well-written description of your home. When you read the description you can tell if it’s right because it should draw you in. This is vital for any price home not just the mansions.
This description should also mention local items such as transport and shopping as well as schools. Anything you like about the area should be mentioned. There is no such thing as too much information.
Get a nice clear Floorplan drawn up of your home and have that available on the Internet with your home and details.
In order to get top dollar the ultimate system is to have an interactive floor plan put together on your home. You have already gone through how that can draw buyers like flies to honey.
Here is the one essential thing you must know before putting your home on realestate.com.au. Their system works on the date the listing was added. This means once your home has been on for more than a couple of weeks it is slipping further and further back on the list of homes for sale in your suburb.
Once it gets past 200 it won’t display! Ever! Don’t panic, they are just scamming you for money. For an additional $60 - $80 per month you can get a feature listing which means your property comes before all the peasants with their standard listings in your suburb. This is an absolute essential and if your agent doesn’t suggest this slap them and tell them to make it happen. Then ask yourself why your agent isn’t web savvy to begin with.
Agents may try to tell you there are costs involved in advertising your property on the Internet but this is simply rubbish.
Agencies pay a monthly fee that allows them to upload as many properties as they like. They have to be on realestate.com.au or they have no business. I am speaking for Queensland here as in other states different portals have more traffic.
In New South Wales you must be on domain.com.au as it beats realestate.com.au in that state. I would suggest making sure your property is on both portals as between them they control most of the traffic.
Many large franchise groups will tell you how well their corporate website does but between all the major franchises combined they get less than 2% of all property related visitors.
Why would anyone looking for a property to buy visit a website which doesn’t have all the available homes on it? That’s why buyers don’t use franchise websites. They go to the people who have the listings and you need to make sure your home is on both of them and can be easily found.
When your agent tells you it is online go check for yourself and make sure your property seems more appealing than all the other properties around it in the list.
This is the absolute minimum you need on the Internet to get you top dollar. Think seriously about spending on a copywriter if you can afford it. Get one whose text you read and just want that home without going inside it. A list of copywriters is available online atfor your help.
Plan your Marketing
This isn’t overly complex. Just make a list of all the items you will do to help you get top dollar for your home. Then list out all the costs associated with each different part. This lets you work on your budget and shows you how much each area will cost.
Here is a very simple marketing plan:
Item Description |
Cost |
Advertising budget |
740 |
Professional photography |
200 |
Interactive Floorplan |
200 |
Valuation |
400 |
Garden Tidy up |
150 |
Large Photo Sign |
250 |
Fix up list – lights etc |
250 |
Storage Shed for 2 months |
300 |
Total Plan Cost |
2490 |
From this plan we break down each separate item into it’s own list. Possibly some items you may just get your agent to organize. There are a couple of items you should think about doing yourself.
If you organize your own photography and Floorplan then you have the right to use them until your home is sold.
Many times if the agent does this for you then they have an agreement with the photographer that if you take your images to another agent they can no longer be used. Mind you if the agent is paying for this service then that’s only fair. If you are paying make sure you can use them with any agent you choose.
The sign is something you should just leave to the agent but make sure the same main photo is used as on the Internet. Not the front of your home because we need to get emotional hooks into people.
To help you in this process I have added a set of checklists for all these different lists on the website. Go toand download the checklists for each different section. There are also some blank marketing plans you can work on with your agent.
Your agent will also have advertising in mind for your property. If the focus of that advertising is newspaper advertising then make sure they can justify how it’s going to work for your home.
Most newspaper advertising just builds the agents profile in the area. It’s estimated that less than 6% of newspaper ads sell the advertised home. Given the huge expense that this runs to I would expect the agent to pay for any newspaper ads themselves.
With a good agent 90% of their enquiry comes from the Internet these days so it’s very hard to justify spending money in the paper. Possibly the only exception is if you have a local paper that everyone reads.
It may be worth running small ads in that paper for several weeks when your property first hits the market. Just make sure that the ad mentions where they can find more information on your home. It’s vital the ad doesn’t link just to the agents website or how do they find your home?
You need an agent that has a tech savvy website. For example the ad might suggest for more information go to the following website address.This would then take them directly to your home. Too often newspaper ads only give the agents website which means your ad and dollars are simply promoting the agent.
Plan your advertising
Simply work out what advertising you think will sell your home and budget for it accordingly. This is something that should really be done with your agent, as they know the area. Just don’t get suckered into a big newspaper spend to help them grow their business.
Here is a cut down simplified example:
Item Description for first month |
Cost |
Feature property on realestate.com.au |
80 |
Advertise in local paper week 1 |
120 |
Advertise in local paper week 2 |
120 |
Advertise in local paper week 3 |
120 |
Drop flyer around local streets |
50 |
Large Photo Sign |
250 |
Total Plan Cost |
740 |
From here work out what you pay for and what your agent pays for.
One of the best agents I have ever met is working in Oxenford a suburb on the Gold Coast. Her name is Pauline O’Brien and not only is she a very honest and lovely person she is also a very shrewd marketer.
Pauline is fanatical about presentation and she pays for a full marketing package for all her listings. The package includes professional photography, virtual tours, interactive Floorplan, some local advertising and an email campaign via realestate.com.au to all current buyers in their local database.
Pauline also makes all properties a feature property on realestate.com.au automatically to make sure all listings remain visible. Exceptional!
If you live in or near Oxenford there is no better agent in the area. Meet Pauline at www.wisechoicerealty.com.au
Choose your method of sale
This is something you really want advice from your agent on. If your agent has loads of experience and their own techniques that they can show you work well for them.
Then go for it!
Just make sure all the other areas are well covered. This means pull your finger out as my Dad says and have all the basics covered.
Get spectacular photos. Not just ok ones. How do I tell? When you look at them you turn around and think why am I selling? That’s how good they should be.