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What the Sellers Need to Know
Step One: Understand Buyer Psychology
Homebuyers, as a rule, are a fickle bunch ... and who can blame them? When people are preparing to part with hundreds of thousands (or millions!) of dollars, they want to make sure that everything is just so before they sign on the dotted line.
Since each home is unique, it is rare that a homebuyer will find a home and simply fall in love with it. Regardless of their price range, most buyers feel that the home they buy requires compromises on their part. Put another way: buyers see a number of possible properties, and then start the process of elimination. As a seller, once your home is eliminated from their consideration, you've pretty much lost their interest.
Capturing and holding buyer interest is the first ingredient in selling your home.
My strategy for generating interested buyers can be summarized by three steps:
First, tantalize the buyer. Use attractive photography and a sufficient number of photos to get them thinking about your home.
Second, don't give them a reason to eliminate you. If you put too much information on the Web or in a flyer, many people will feel that they don't need to see your home in order to make a decision about it.
Third, get in front of the buyer. If you never see the 'whites of their eyes,' it's highly unlikely that they'll buy your home.
Step Two: Understand What You're Offering
Although homes share many similarities, every home is unique. That means you have to be honest about what your home has (and what it doesn't have) when you sit down to price it.
The single biggest variable in a successful home sale is the price of the home. A home priced too high can sit on the market for months or years. A home priced too low may cause buyers to wonder what's wrong with it. Finding the right balance is critical.
My formula for helping you price your home is based on the following criteria:
First, you have to know what comparable homes (or "comps") in your area have sold for recently. If homes like yours have sold for an average of $350,000 over the last six months, you're unlikely to get $500,000 for yours. A comp will give us a range of prices. Since this information is part of the public record, buyers will be using it to influence their decisions.
Second, I'll help you price based on the specific features of your home and my knowledge of the market. I see dozens of homes each week, and can tell you what's going on in the market right now.
Finally, we may adjust your asking price based on intangibles. While hardly scientific, intangibles affect the value of a home. Topping the list is the appearance that the home is clean and has been well maintained. Buyers also respond positively to homes, which "show" well, or are staged by a professional. Whether it's "charm," "character," or the simple beauty of sun streaming through freshly cleaned windows, there's potentially more value to the home.
Once we know what we've got, we can then offer it to the market.
Step Three: The Internet
My web site, www.brodniak.com, is the first place to look for information about homes I'm selling.
Every home I list gets a virtual tour. In addition, a professional photographer takes photographs of the properties I list.
Your home will be given its own page on the Web. This page will always have the must current information about your home. During a transaction, it's common that prices will change, descriptions will be tweaked, and new photographs will be added. Your "home
page" will be updated with this information first.
Once your listing is on my Web site, I then add it to the Windermere Web site. Windermere is the market leader in the Pacific Northwest, and their Web site is visited by thousands of buyers every day. Putting your home in the Windermere database immediately exposes it to a broad audience.
Finally, I post your home information to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (MLS), ensuring that every agent in Western Washington has access to your listing. Many agents scan the database day and night for homes that meet specified criteria for their clients; in some cases, simply adding a home to the MLS will trigger an inquiry.
After the Internet has been handled, we move on to the "real world."
Step Four: On-Premise Marketing
As people become aware that your home is on the market, they will stop by your home to scout it. These visits are almost always spontaneous, and they're usually anonymous, too.
We'll put a "for sale" sign in your front yard. This may seem obvious, but it's actually very important (think about how a neon "open" sign attracts your eye to the window of the local deli or grocery store and you'll know what I mean). A "for sale" yard sign lets your neighbors know that you're selling, and also helps interested buyers know which property is actually on the market (a very important consideration if you live in a development of similar homes).
In addition to the yard sign, I'll produce high-quality black and white flyers that can be given out to people that do stop by. My yard signs have a weather-resistant box on the front that will keep 8.5" x 11" flyers handy, and let people take information with them. The flyers will have much the same information that your "home page" has, but it will also direct people to my Web site to schedule a showing or to get more information.
Finally, you can do a lot to help encourage buyers if you remember that your home is for sale. Keep your yard and driveway clean. Encourage your children to bring their toys and bicycles inside once they're finished playing with them. Buyers like to see that a home is useful (and being used); they're turned off by signs that current owners are careless or messy. A little extra effort from everyone in your household will shorten the time your home
Step Five: Advertising
Many people hear the word "marketing" and they think it means "advertising." In fact, advertising is just one possible vehicle for marketing your home.
Advertising does play an important role in exposing your home to a wide audience. While most active buyers will search the Internet, the Windermere Web site, or the MLS, there are some passive buyers who peruse the newspaper or a popular real estate magazine
I advertise all my listings in Homes and Land magazine. This free publication is exclusively devoted to what's currently on the market. You can get it most everywhere in the Puget Sound area, and you'll commonly see people reading it on Metro or at Starbucks. Homes and Land is a great way to get your home in front of an audience that's looking for it.
I also advertise in The Seattle Times and, if appropriate, the King County Journal. These papers help ensure that casual home shoppers are given an opportunity to find out that your property is on the market.
Step Six: Brokers
The real estate business is composed of professionals in one of two roles. The first group, agents are people like myself. We work with clients to buy or sell a home, and build our businesses based on our reputation and expertise.
The second group, brokers, work with agents to help them get exposure in the marketplace. In my case, my broker is Windermere. My association with Windermere helps my clients by letting me tap in to a large, established network of other agents and corporate services.
Agents must stay abreast of the latest properties on the market. Every week, a "broker's open" occurs. It's much like an open house, but it's only for real estate professionals. Broker's opens are a terrific way for your home to get exposure to a large group of people who are likely to have demand for it. Brokers from Windermere, along with brokers from other real estate firms, will tour your home and learn about its features and price. Armed with that information, they can recommend the property to agents in their various offices.
It's a terrific way to build awareness of your home in a short amount of time.
In addition to the broker's open, I distribute copies of your home flyer (the same one people can get from your yard sign) to the top 50 or 100 agents in the area, from Renton to Everett. Agents welcome these flyers because they're an efficient, proven way to quickly communicate what's on the market.
I do get questions from clients about open houses for the public. I rarely do them. In my experience, open houses don't return enough qualified buyers to warrant the effort and inconvenience. Traditionally, my clients have found them to be time-consuming; since they can't be there during the open house, that means they have to be elsewhere (a movie? dinner?) for four hours or more. Finally, too many people from the general public enjoy 'touring' homes as sport ... and with certain kinds of people in the community, it can even be dangerous.
I am always happy to show homes on appointment to any interested buyers.
Step Seven: Postcards
The next-to-last step of my marketing plan involves postcards, CDs, DVDs and television.
Postcards
I produce a professional, attractive, full-color postcard of your home and mail it out to the top 100 employers in the area. By exposing human resources directors and relocation specialists to what's in the market, they can help steer new hires and people who are fresh to the area toward your home.
I also like to get my postcards in the hands of your neighbors. People are always curious about what homes in the neighborhood are selling for, and almost everyone knows someone who would like to move to the area. By notifying your neighbors and other locals that your home is on the market, we can stimulate interest and generate qualified leads.
Postcards are also mailed to 100 - 150 of the top real estate agents in the area. While many of them get my flyers and can look up the information through the MLS, a high-quality postcard mailing helps reassure these agents that your property is being presented accurately and professionally, and that their clients won't be wasting their time to consider it.
One of the most effective marketing techniques I've used when listing homes is the development of a secondary postcard campaign. These campaigns are targeted to nearby neighborhoods that are considered "move-up" communities for your home. My experiences have shown that reaching out to this group of potential buyers can be extremely effective.
Step Eight: Feedback
So your home is on the market. We've printed the flyers, mailed the CDs, placed the advertising and are now showing to other agents and their buyers. It's just a matter of time before the home sells, right?
Not exactly.
Selling your home is like dancing the tango: graceful when done correctly, but impossible without knowing what your partner is up to. If we don't know how people are responding to your home, it may sit on the market much longer than it needs to.
To help you understand how your home is being perceived, I collect structured feedback from agents and buyers and then provide that feedback to you. The people who tour your home are given questionnaires that ask important, basic questions such as "What did you like?" "What didn't you like?", "Is the price fair?" and "What could be better?"
I provide the results of these questionnaires to you. Together, we can ensure that we're not overlooking (or over-emphasizing) anything about your home that may be seen as a negative to a buyer. We can resolve an issue before it becomes a problem, and can also make sure that we're getting valuable market and perception information from each showing.
Where To Go Next
The decision to sell your home is not easy. Maybe you've outgrown your current home, or perhaps you need to relocate for work or health reasons. If you're older, you might be selling your home to cash out and retire. Whatever your reason for selling, I know that it's never done lightly, and that a lot of your future plans rest on getting a good price for your home.
As you can see, my marketing plan has been developed to provide complete coverage of interested citizens, independent buyers, real estate agents and brokers.
Remember, the goal is to:
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Sell the home quickly, and
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Get the best possible price.
I welcome questions about my process, my business, and the successes my clients have enjoyed. One of the reasons I stand by my marketing program is that it works; if something werent adding value, I'd eliminate it and replace it with something else. Instead, what I've found is that my plan is a proven, reliable way to help my clients get what they want.
If you're ready to think about listing your home, take a moment to fill out my Home Seller Form.
