The Details of Home Marketing
Posted by Elsa Rake on Sunday, September 13th, 2009 at 7:48pm.
What’s the best way to market a home? While making sure your visuals (pictures, virtual tours/videos) are exhaustive and don’t leave anything to the imagination, the details of the listing are just as important in attracting prospective buyers.
PROPERTY DETAILS
Properly listing a home requires much more than good visuals. While they are important, providing the specifics of the home is a valuable aspect of marketing as well. How many times has a client wondered about room sizes, while sorting through the homes they actually want to drop by to see, only to find that data is missing from the listing? Is it in the best interest of the seller to include those room sizes in the listing? Yes, it is. What about a description that highlights the home’s best features?
PAINTING A PICTURE
Providing a brief “highlight reel” of what the property has to offer is what the “REMARKS” narrative section of the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is all about. But, how well is it being used? Is the agent painting a picture of the property’s best features? Given the limited amount of available characters the MLS allows to describe the property, is the narrative accurate as well as compelling in describing the home? Or, is the listing agent’s property description more fiction than fact? When searching for prospective properties, since buyer’s agents do their best to match what their clients are looking for in a home with what’s indicated on the MLS, providing an accurate and complete depiction of the property, benefits the seller as well as the buyer.
Yard Signs & Lockboxes
Yard signs and lock boxes are tools of the trade that have long been staples of listing hardware. While yard signs “mark the spot” of the home for sale, they also provide a visual alert to those who drive or walk by that the property is on the market. Traditional signage emphasizes the name and number of the listing agency, and, oftentimes, the listing agent.
But, some have taken advantage of the sign to provide more information of what the house has to offer through pictures. This simple yet effective method of providing a glimpse inside the home may be the beginning of a more effective use of an old marketing method. Jim Duncan, an agent from Charlottsville’s Nest Realty, uses signs to provide the property’s address, price, a website address for more property information, as well as the listing company’s contact information. Oh, and there are property pictures as well. A more effective way of making the most of the yard sign, don’t you agree?
A lock box is a lockbox is a lock box, right? Well, not in Northern Virginia, right now. Our ongoing controversy over which lock box is the best one is to use is currently very heated, often with more misinformation involved in the discussion, than accuracy. The bottom line for a property listing is this; make sure, whatever lock box is being used on a property, that fact is accurately included in the listing. There are few things as frustrating for a Realtor, or a prospective buyer, than arriving at a property only to find it secured by a different lock box than that indicated on the MLS.
Getting the most out of the marketing avenues available when listing a home depends on knowing what tools are available, but more importantly, using those resources properly. Every seller wants the widest exposure for their product. As the Realtor’s Code of Ethics instructs them, it is a listing agent’s duty to act in the best interests of a client in fulfilling their marketing responsibilities. Is your agent using the marketing tools available to properly showcase your home? Let’s hope so.
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Share2 Responses to "The Details of Home Marketing"
Robert - Unfortunately, each Association using the MLS chooses its lockbox. Last year, the largest Association changed to a Sentrilock box which was endorsed by the National Association of Realtors. Out Assocation's current agreement with the Supra lockbox runs through 2010. In addition, many foreclosed listings opt for a Combo lockbox. While the various lock box types can be a bit more work, it is the omission of which type that's securing the house that's the problem.
Having said that, I believe the "dueling" lack box issue should be sorted out when our current contract expires next year.
Posted on Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 at 10:01 PM.
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I'm surprised your mls doesn't have the same lock-boxes.
Posted on Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 at 9:40 PM.