1. Put the Listing on the Multiple Listing Service

I Put a lot of attention into making sure the description of the property does more them just describe features and such.  This comment section is the only area on the listing that the public can see where the Realtor can evoke the emotions of the buyer.  Rather than a simple description, I take great care in creating a picture of warmth, comfort and desire within the buyers mind.  I also makes sure that multiple photos go on the Multiple Listing Service immediately allowing potential buyers to see the best features of the home for themselves.  You may be surprised to know that nearly half the agents out there only put up one photo on the MLS.

2. Put a Sign Up on the Property

My For Sale signs are uniquely designed to attract the buyer's attention.  More importantly, the signs only have my toll free number shown. This causes potential buyers to only be able to call me with questions about the property. Who else would know more about the property and have a vested interest in selling it then me, the listing agent?  Certainly not the new agent doing desk duty and answering the phone.  Most new agents have never even been trained on how to retain and build buyer interest and worse they have no real incentive to sell your property. They are just so happy to get a call, they don't really care what property the call came in about.

Things I do that few other agent even thought about:

I place a virtual tour sign up with your address as the domain name.  This looks like  www.123MainSt.com making it very easy for the buyer to remember and to look at the virtual tour of your property from his computer.  When they enter your street address as a web address they are sent immediately to the virtual tour page of my web site featuring your property.

I also create an audio tour for the property where the buyer can call my toll free number and enter the tour number for the property and listen to a compelling description of the property.  What they believe is that they are doing this anonymously but in reality my cell phone is sent a message with the phone number of the caller and the tour ID enabling me to contact them within minutes to see if I can arrange to show them your home.  I have found that this is very effective in building interest in a property and less the 1% of all agents do this.

3. Create and Post a Flyer

I know how buyers think when they are looking at flyers.  First, if they are a serious buyer they look at the flyer to tell them if the home is going to work for their needs and is in their price range.  What they are really doing is trying to  eliminate homes that don't meet their needs.  If, for instance, they are looking for a 4 bedroom home and yours is only 3 bedrooms, the buyer would likely eliminate it from consideration. But what if they needed the 4th bedroom as an office and you had a basement that could easily be an office?  If you say too much on a flyer to a qualified buyer, you may eliminate your home from consideration.  On my flyers, I don't mention the bedroom count, the bathroom count or the size of the home.  Instead, I use multiple pictures and well chosen words to build an image in the buyer's mind of the perfect home. I then direct them to my toll free number where they can take the audio tour for more information.  Here I will tell them most everything they would like to know.  However, in exchange, I get their phone number sent to me immediately along with the property ID of the home they are interested in.  I can then follow up with a phone call to the buyer and build interest in your home as well as handle any objections such as not enough bedrooms. 

 Lastly, all my flyers are always double sided with full color and multiple photos on high quality paper.  After all, we are selling one of your biggest assets and a black and white flyer run through a copy machine is a poor way to present your home.

4. Internet Marketing

If you aren't using the internet to market homes for sale, you are hurting your chances for a successful sale!

I know that over 95% of buyers in this area use the internet as an integral tool when looking to buy a home.  The more exposure your home receives on the internet the better.  However, few agents understand internet marketing as well as I do.  There are several integrated approaches that are required to maximize your exposure on the web. First, I make sure your listing is available on all searchable MLS sites including the top three, Realtor.com, MLSListings.com, Homes.com.  Additionally, I cooperates with all other brokers and agents in the area to allow their website clients to find your home when doing searches on their sites.  Essentially I make sure that everyone looking for a home on the internet can find your listing.

I also maintains 5 real estate websites and receives around 5000 hits a month from potential clients looking for homes.  Your home will be featured prominently on all of these sites.  When it comes to marketing, I spend thousands of dollars a year promoting my web sites to buyers in order to attract buyers to my sites where they will see your home on the front page as one of my featured listings.

Craigslist.com is becoming a very popular place for sellers and buyers of most anything to come together and do business.  It started as a great place to sell your car or buy a used dining  room set but more and more, people are looking at this site to look at homes for sale.  I place your home on Craigslist and renews the ad weekly.  It's just another way I exposes your property to the most buyers possible.