You want a "SOLD" sign in your yard, not a "For Sale" sign...don't you?

Dave's keys for successfully marketing your home in today's market

1. Identify your most likely buyer and focus your efforts on them

Looking at the characteristics of your home can give us some insights into who your buyer will most likely be. For example, a 2 story home with 5 bedrooms might sell to a retiring couple, but it is MORE LIKELY to sell to a growing family. A single story home with an RV pad has broad appeal, but you'd be making a mistake to NOT ensure your marketing reaches those retired and retiring couples.

Consider the following characteristics:

Number of bedrooms
An RV pad, or area/room for one
Neighborhood
Lot size
Location
Price range (first time home buyer? Move up buyer? Vacation home buyer? Luxury home buyer?)

2. Integrated marketing that ties in your home's Unique Selling Proposition(s) with all elements of the advertising campaign

The Unique Selling Proposition is that "thing" that makes your home stand out. For many people, it's easiest to identify by thinking back to when you purchased the home yourself. What made you pick THIS one over all the other homes you looked at? Chances are your buyer is going to be a lot like you (at least a lot like you WERE at the time you purchased the home).

Once you've identified that feature or characteristic, it should be the focal point of all your advertising. The narratives, the pictures, the headlines...it should all tie back to those key elements of your home.

3. Exposure in multiple media outlets

This goes back to "who your buyer is." Where will they be looking for a home? Focus your dollars and your efforts in the right media outlets for your buyer. Most of today's consumers are pretty tech-saavy...so you MUST be on the Internet. Additionally, the National Association of Realtors tells us that over 80% of buyers are working with REALTORS...so we need to focus much of our marketing to the real estate community itself (and not always the consumer direclty).

Newsprint media is much less effective today than it was 10 years ago, but it is still "expected" that you use this outlet. Today, we tend to think of it in terms of being where everybody else is, and it does NOT really offer the opportunity to stand out in the crowded marketplace. If your buyer is a Baby Boomer...you will need to get exposure in the paper, that may be the only place they are looking.

Open Houses are another real estate standard that is of only questionable effectiveness. It is a great way for your agent to meet new buyer clients, but it doesn't necessarily translate into the sale of YOUR home. If you think your buyer already lives in the neighborhood, Open Houses could be just the ticket, otherwise you'll need to make sure to ADVERTISE them to get the foot traffic in the door.

REALTOR tour or Caravan's are a popular tool in many markets and can get exposure to the real estate community; and thereby to at least 80% of the buyers. We use this to get an upclose and personal look at homes and very often are thinking of specific clients when we we walk in the door.

I use radio, something that very few other agents are doing in my area. With my radio show, and the connections I have at the local radio station, I can get my listings this additional exposure quite readily. It's possible to target certain times of day, types of programming, and defined demographics.

4. and the most important element...CORRECTLY POSITION YOUR HOME IN THE MARKET

I can't emphasize enough that the NUMBER one reason that some houses never sell is because they were ineffectively positioned in the marketplace, in other words, they were NOT CORRECTLY PRICED!

Think of the housing market as a grocery store with every house out there in competition for YOUR buyer.

How many homes have been selling every month?
How were THEY positioned in the market?
How many homes are waiting in line to sell?
How many months would it take to sell ALL of them if no OTHER homes came to market? (this is how long YOUR line at the checkout is).
How are you positioned in relation to THEM?

Getting this right requires research, understanding of the market and most importantly you, as a seller to hitching your price to the realities of the market and not your own emotional factors. I apologize if that sounds harsh, but in my experience seller's who place an arbitrary value on their home often end up owning it for much longer than they want to. There are 2 ways to define the true value of a home: (1) that highest price that a qualified buyer is willing to pay or (2) the lowest price that you, as a seller are willing to forego your plans to KEEP OWNING THE HOUSE.

Get the correct starting position and you'll generate interest, increase the number of showings, and be able to take advantage of the higher level of interest in negotiations. Get it wrong and you'll waste marketing dollars, fall off the radar of the real estate community, languish on the market without getting sold, and eventually end up dropping your price or removing your home from the market altogether.