Considering selling your home and need to know where to advertise it for maximum exposure and a quicker sale? If you haven't sold a home before or you haven't sold a home in the last seven years you are about on the same page because many changes have happened in real estate. Real estate advertising has changed greatly in the last seven years and is changing every day. You could say that real estate has changed and it has changed forever because the advertising aspect alone is radically different. Homeowners who are selling their home now have choices. Read here and understand point by point all the different marketing avenues that a seller has today to get a home sold.
Advertising is defined in the Webster dictionary as the act or practice of calling public attention to one's product, service, need, etc., especially by paid announcements in newspapers and magazines, over radio or television, on billboards to get more customers by advertising. So, lets break that down for how to advertise your home for sale to get it sold. This works for any type of home or condo that you have, anywhere in the U.S. that you are selling it.
Where to advertise your home compared to the definition of Advertising:
Let me continue with the agent part of the equation when you hire a company to put your home in the MLS. Agents are not all the same. Some agents are approaching your advertising as simply putting a sign in the yard and your home in the MLS so that other agents can find and sell the home thus receiving their co-op commission as a buyers agent and the listing agent gets paid their listing fee or commission as well. You will find that some of the agents that just place the home in the MLS and then put out a sign are the highest priced fee or commission in your marketplace. So, don't be fooled by the commission that they charge. More fees is not necessarily the best player in the real estate market. They rely on the system instead of making the system because they have not accepted the changes in market place and attempted to use these systems. Please be careful to compare this article to your agent's plan of marketing so that you can attract every buyer in the marketplace since we know that buyers search every source, not just the MLS or the MLS feed sites on the internet.
Newspapers are the next source of advertising and have continued to be a resource for open houses and price reductions. Although many buyers have discontinued their daily search in the newspaper due to lack of information and photos, many buyers today are searching the online portion of the newspapers where many newspapers are now allowing multiple photos to tell the story. Smaller county papers are also a good resource for advertising. For some reason they are read more consistently as the buyers embrace the community that they want to live in.
Magazines are referred to in the real estate field as the magazines that you would pick up at the grocery store and restaurants. If you can find a magazine in your area that sorts the homes by zip code and then by price, that is your best bet. The magazines are vague and have just a small picture of the home so honestly; most agents use this as a lead source to collect questions from potential buyers instead of a good source of getting homes sold.
Obviously radio would be an expensive place to advertise a house individually; however, many companies are now using radio as a way to announce company open houses wherein they have all of their houses open 3 to 5 on a Sunday. That is one of the means that we use in my own company and we successfully alert listeners to generate traffic for our open houses.
Television is a source of advertising for most homeowners as most metro cities at least have one real estate cable channel, some areas have more than one channel. We have experienced that a home will run at least 15 times per day on this channel. Whereas the exposure is minimal for an individual house due to the fact that you are not allowed to show many multiple photos, the audio of a person speaking the details while the visual of the television shows the photos does seem to appeal to some buyers.
So that leaves us to the last point of the definition of advertising which fortunately is not the last point of advertising a home. Billboards. Of course billboards are your yard sign and directionals. Your yard sign is a place where you can, if you elect, put the price of your property. I am not really sure why this isn't done more often, I think that would greatly help buyers understand neighborhoods that they are not familiar with and what the neighborhood sells for. And, directional signs are critical if you are in the back of a neighborhood. You can advertise open houses easily by adding directional signs and balloons.
Now, on to the good stuff of how to get your home sold. Advertising a home for sale is now easier because buyers have access to the entire inventory of every listed home via the internet. The MLSs are agent only sites where you must have a password to enter. However, the MLSs download to many sites that you will quickly recognize as you do your home searching on the internet. These sites pull visitors from all countries in the world. The key to any of these sites is that the company that you are listed with has paid to upgrade their listings so that you, the seller, can have multiple photos on these sites. This form of advertising is very exciting because before the internet happened, agents would need to call each other to see what they had listed. The books that were published by the MLS were weekly books in black and white with 1/8th page ads for each home. Only the exterior was shown with a little writing. Today the MLS is instantaneous and shows multiple photos if the agent chooses to add them.
For sale by owner sites are also important because it allows you to cover every buyer in the marketplace. Many for sale by owner sites allow even more photos than the MLS. Some of them are free and some charge a small fee. Sites like Craigslist have exploded on the internet with their real estate sections leading their whole site.
Now you may even find your dream home on Ebay. Yes, you read it correctly, Ebay. Sellers are successfully selling their homes there everyday by the auction method of marketing on the internet.
And, speaking of auctions, don't forget that auctions bring action. You could elect to do a live auction or a silent bid action that results in round robin bidding at the end of a weekend. You have several resources for both of these types of auctions.
Word of mouth is also still a big player in the real estate industry. Not so much agents speaking to other agents but you talking to your friends and family. Because of the automation of the MLS into the internet real estate sales meeting attendance is at all time record lows and is more for learning contracts and current violations of building practices. But if the owner can spread the word with their contacts that may have visited the home for a party, the word spreads quickly through the neighborhood and on to the friends and family of neighbors that will remain. This is a huge source of sales in any city and any area.
So, as a homeowner who has something for sale, you have a lot of opportunities to advertise. Stay consistent with your advertising and know that you don't know where your buyer is coming from, when you will hook them, when they will enter the marketplace or who they will be. That is the mystery of real estate.
Advertising is defined in the Webster dictionary as the act or practice of calling public attention to one's product, service, need, etc., especially by paid announcements in newspapers and magazines, over radio or television, on billboards to get more customers by advertising. So, lets break that down for how to advertise your home for sale to get it sold. This works for any type of home or condo that you have, anywhere in the U.S. that you are selling it.
Where to advertise your home compared to the definition of Advertising:
- Multiple Listing Service
- Newspaper
- Magazines
- TV
- Radio
- Billboards
- Other Internet Sites
Let me continue with the agent part of the equation when you hire a company to put your home in the MLS. Agents are not all the same. Some agents are approaching your advertising as simply putting a sign in the yard and your home in the MLS so that other agents can find and sell the home thus receiving their co-op commission as a buyers agent and the listing agent gets paid their listing fee or commission as well. You will find that some of the agents that just place the home in the MLS and then put out a sign are the highest priced fee or commission in your marketplace. So, don't be fooled by the commission that they charge. More fees is not necessarily the best player in the real estate market. They rely on the system instead of making the system because they have not accepted the changes in market place and attempted to use these systems. Please be careful to compare this article to your agent's plan of marketing so that you can attract every buyer in the marketplace since we know that buyers search every source, not just the MLS or the MLS feed sites on the internet.
Newspapers are the next source of advertising and have continued to be a resource for open houses and price reductions. Although many buyers have discontinued their daily search in the newspaper due to lack of information and photos, many buyers today are searching the online portion of the newspapers where many newspapers are now allowing multiple photos to tell the story. Smaller county papers are also a good resource for advertising. For some reason they are read more consistently as the buyers embrace the community that they want to live in.
Magazines are referred to in the real estate field as the magazines that you would pick up at the grocery store and restaurants. If you can find a magazine in your area that sorts the homes by zip code and then by price, that is your best bet. The magazines are vague and have just a small picture of the home so honestly; most agents use this as a lead source to collect questions from potential buyers instead of a good source of getting homes sold.
Obviously radio would be an expensive place to advertise a house individually; however, many companies are now using radio as a way to announce company open houses wherein they have all of their houses open 3 to 5 on a Sunday. That is one of the means that we use in my own company and we successfully alert listeners to generate traffic for our open houses.
Television is a source of advertising for most homeowners as most metro cities at least have one real estate cable channel, some areas have more than one channel. We have experienced that a home will run at least 15 times per day on this channel. Whereas the exposure is minimal for an individual house due to the fact that you are not allowed to show many multiple photos, the audio of a person speaking the details while the visual of the television shows the photos does seem to appeal to some buyers.
So that leaves us to the last point of the definition of advertising which fortunately is not the last point of advertising a home. Billboards. Of course billboards are your yard sign and directionals. Your yard sign is a place where you can, if you elect, put the price of your property. I am not really sure why this isn't done more often, I think that would greatly help buyers understand neighborhoods that they are not familiar with and what the neighborhood sells for. And, directional signs are critical if you are in the back of a neighborhood. You can advertise open houses easily by adding directional signs and balloons.
Now, on to the good stuff of how to get your home sold. Advertising a home for sale is now easier because buyers have access to the entire inventory of every listed home via the internet. The MLSs are agent only sites where you must have a password to enter. However, the MLSs download to many sites that you will quickly recognize as you do your home searching on the internet. These sites pull visitors from all countries in the world. The key to any of these sites is that the company that you are listed with has paid to upgrade their listings so that you, the seller, can have multiple photos on these sites. This form of advertising is very exciting because before the internet happened, agents would need to call each other to see what they had listed. The books that were published by the MLS were weekly books in black and white with 1/8th page ads for each home. Only the exterior was shown with a little writing. Today the MLS is instantaneous and shows multiple photos if the agent chooses to add them.
For sale by owner sites are also important because it allows you to cover every buyer in the marketplace. Many for sale by owner sites allow even more photos than the MLS. Some of them are free and some charge a small fee. Sites like Craigslist have exploded on the internet with their real estate sections leading their whole site.
Now you may even find your dream home on Ebay. Yes, you read it correctly, Ebay. Sellers are successfully selling their homes there everyday by the auction method of marketing on the internet.
And, speaking of auctions, don't forget that auctions bring action. You could elect to do a live auction or a silent bid action that results in round robin bidding at the end of a weekend. You have several resources for both of these types of auctions.
Word of mouth is also still a big player in the real estate industry. Not so much agents speaking to other agents but you talking to your friends and family. Because of the automation of the MLS into the internet real estate sales meeting attendance is at all time record lows and is more for learning contracts and current violations of building practices. But if the owner can spread the word with their contacts that may have visited the home for a party, the word spreads quickly through the neighborhood and on to the friends and family of neighbors that will remain. This is a huge source of sales in any city and any area.
So, as a homeowner who has something for sale, you have a lot of opportunities to advertise. Stay consistent with your advertising and know that you don't know where your buyer is coming from, when you will hook them, when they will enter the marketplace or who they will be. That is the mystery of real estate.
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