Buying or selling a home is often one of the largest financial decisions you’ll ever make. That’s why you should work with a skilled real estate agent.
While you can sell your home on your own, enlisting the help of a Realtor offers benefits like setting an accurate asking price and maximizing visibility.
- High-Quality Photos
As any real estate agent knows, homes with high-quality photos spend less time on the market. They also sell for more money than homes for sale with poor-quality or mediocre photos. The reason has to do with perceived value: homes with professional-quality photographs are seen as being more valuable than those with amateur photos or no photos at all.
Stunning photos capture the attention of house hunters and make them want to see more. When you list a property, be sure to include photos of all rooms and any notable features, such as stadium seating in a home theater, a wood-burning fireplace or the exquisite landscaping in the backyard.
A professional photographer can take high-quality, eye-catching images of a property and use photo-editing software to brighten or enhance them. However, extreme retouching should be avoided, as it can give buyers the impression that sellers are trying to hide something. The best photos are taken in the early morning or late afternoon to avoid harsh shadows and reflections on windows. Use a tripod to minimize blurriness and to keep the camera steady.
- Detailed Descriptions
In real estate, property descriptions are a crucial tool for generating leads and selling homes. They should communicate a home’s most desirable features, as well as describe the lifestyle it could offer prospective buyers. This helps them distinguish it from similar properties in the area and price range.
However, it’s important to avoid overstating features or using overly emotive language in your descriptions. Clients want to see concrete data like square footage and number of bedrooms, but they also care about how a home will make their life better. For example, describing a pool as “refreshing” and highlighting the fact that it’s perfect for entertaining friends makes it more appealing than simply listing the home’s square footage.
Similarly, describing a kitchen as being “oversized” and mentioning it has potential gives buyers an idea of what they can do with the space instead of just listing its features. Additionally, avoiding excessive punctuation and capital letters is beneficial, as many readers skip over words that seem shouty.
- Social Media
Social media is one of the most effective ways to promote homes for sale. It’s important to create engaging, targeted content that resonates with your audience. This may include hosting a Q&A session on Facebook Live, or using hashtags in your listing photo captions to reach a broader audience on Instagram.
Most people love to admire beautiful, swoon-worthy homes online, even if they can’t afford them. Posting photos of luxurious homes for sale will capture the attention of potential buyers and generate leads. To increase the impact of your posts, you can use virtual staging software to add furniture to photos of vacant properties.
It’s also a good idea to educate your audience about home renovations that will maximize resale value. This will help them make better decisions about their home purchases in the future. This educational content could take the form of a blog post or video, or you can simply share a tip with your audience once a week. By doing so, you’ll be building trust and establishing yourself as a knowledgeable resource in the real estate industry.
- Open Houses
As a real estate marketing strategy, open houses provide interested buyers an opportunity to walk through a property without arranging a one-on-one appointment with the listing agent. This can be helpful for homebuyers who may not be able to attend scheduled showings, or those who need more time to visualize living in the home than a short tour with an agent might provide.
To attract buyers to an open house, some brokers will put up signs, feature the event on their website and social media accounts and advertise in real estate publications. If the home is located in a desirable neighborhood, they may offer refreshments like coffee or cocktails as an incentive to visitors.
Preparing for an open house is important and can include things like adding fresh flowers, painting over scuff marks or removing family photographs. It’s also important to give attendees a show sheet with key information about the property. As buyers walk through the home, they may be able to provide valuable feedback about the space, which can help with securing an offer.
- Marketing Strategy
With the internet, it has become easier for home buyers to email property photos and details to friends, but real estate agents can also make themselves available to their clients by hosting local home buying seminars. This is a great way to establish trust and provide a valuable service to the community.
Marketing high-end properties can be a challenge because it takes more than just listing in the MLS and placing a sign in the yard. Think about what makes the home unique and target that demographic with your marketing strategy.
A great option for high-end homes is ongoing newspaper display ads, which are relatively inexpensive and guarantee a local audience of homeowners. Similarly, Facebook and Instagram offer targeted ads that can be very effective for specific demographics. For example, if the property is near the beach, you can target surfers in your area with an ad that showcases the home’s unique features and the nearby surf spots. You can even create a short video of you walking through the listing and explaining its features to potential buyers.
