Problem #4: Limiting the Access and Exposure Your Home Has

(BETHESDA REAL ESTATE) Some of the traditional advertising tools agents have used are print ads and open houses.  In truth, print ads bring little to no activity to the home and less than 1% of houses ever sell at an open house. Agents use open houses to attract buying prospects, not to sell your home, although the more buyer prospects I have as an agent the better I am able to market directly to them.  Knowing that 3-4 buyers are looking right in one area for a certain home means I can match them up when listings come up that meet their criteria.

Successful marketing of your home - getting the best price, at the right terms, and with the fewest problems - requires much more. In fact, over 80% of all buyers start on the Internet so that’s why the most competent agents will have a broad range of marketing activities, emphasizing the specific campaigns that will work best for your particular property or area. I refer to this as a multi-pronged approach.  It’s all about getting eyeballs on the property!

The power of the MLS with great visuals and an interesting description will serve to bring in buyers. Ever wider exposure through the many portals available via the Internet and through listing exchange sites will bring viewers from literally everywhere looking for property in a targeted area. No newspaper or postcard has the same reach!

If you are not choosing someone who has this knowledge to market your home then you are limiting your exposure.  We have no idea of where the buyers will come from so omitting any of these strategies may mean losing those necessary eyeballs!

Marketing without easy access is just a slow death.  To go to all the effort to get buyers there and then say "no, you can’t see it today" is foolish beyond compare.  And yet it happens all the time.  And once spurned that buyer won’t come back.  The home needs to be accessible to the agents and buyers who want and need to see it on their time frame not yours.  This is now a product for sale!  A lockbox is intrusive but solves the problem of access easily and provides an electronic record of everyone who’s been in your home.

When showing instructions are clear and easy in the MLS remarks it means that agents can come on short notice.  I’ve been with buyers often enough who see a sign when we are in a neighborhood and decide they want to see the home.  If we have to call and get 24 hour advance notice the moment is kinda gone!  The goal is to the house sold as quickly as possible so that you don’t have to go through showings for very long…

Next:  Problem #5: Not Considering All the Factors

For more information about real estate sales in Bethesda, MD 20816 please email me at josette.skilling@longandfoster.com