Marketing your home is one of the most important factors in the overall selling process. If your home is not marketed correctly it won’t be seen by nearly as many home buyers and in turn possibly sell for a lower price and take a longer time to sell. Insufficient marketing is one of the main reasons homes don’t sell. If you want your home to sell quickly and for a competitive price, you need to ensure that it is marketed correctly. If you believe that your real estate agent is making mistakes that could be affecting your home’s chance of selling or selling for an optimal price, it’s time to have a conversation or find an alternative method or person to sell your home. Here are five real estate marketing mistakes that you do not want your agent to make.
Neglecting Professional Photography
After you have decluttered, cleaned, and perfectly staged your entire home the last thing you want to do is skimp on quality photos. These images will be put on social media and real estate listing websites for potential home buyers to view. They are the first impression of your home so they need to wow buyers and draw them in enough to want to schedule a walk-through, attend an open house, or even better make an offer on your home. This is not a step that you want to neglect since professional real estate photographs can make your house sell 32% faster than a house with low quality or average pictures. Professional real estate photographers are trained to highlight the best features of your home.
Hiring a professional real estate photographer is a courtesy that most real estate agents include in their service. It is customary for the cost of professional photography to be part of your real estate agent’s commission that you will pay at closing. If your real estate agent does not pay for professional photos you will need to pay. Typically, a professional photographer will cost somewhere between $110 and $300.
Errors and Less than Stellar Writing in Property Listing Description
Your property description is generally a short blurb that ranges from 50 to 100 words in length. In this small space, it is the job of your real estate agent to describe your home in such a way that is tells your home’s story and captures the attention of potential buyers. The description is also meant to complete the full picture of your home and fill in any gaps that your professional photographs haven’t conveyed. However, a description with grammatical errors, misspellings, repetitive descriptions, and inaccuracies will deter potential buyers. Grammarly and Redfin conducted a study that found over 43% of home buyers said they would be less inclined to schedule a home tour if the property’s online description had incorrect grammar or misspellings. In addition to bad grammar and misspellings, repetitive descriptions or bland and boring descriptions will leave potential buyers less than impressed. Use the little space available to really give a full picture of your home by describing its best qualities. Maybe your home is completely renovated and has a full chef’s kitchen. Perhaps it sits on the edge of a high hill that overlooks a picturesque town. Whatever highlights clearly demonstrate your home’s unique qualities should be included in the description. A final and very important factor to consider is if the description is accurate and whether it violates the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits the use of language the could be interpreted as discriminatory against a person’s race, color, religion, national origin, gender, disability, or familial status. Your realtor should know and comply with the Fair Housing Act when creating a description of your home. If your realtor’s description of your house is not adequate or it violates the Fair Housing Act you will need to discuss the flaws with them or look for a new real estate agent.
Overlooking the Power of Video
Online videos of your home may not be as necessary as listing photos and an accurate compelling description, but they are not far behind. Videos allow for a more in-depth look at your home. Videos have become more and more popular as buyers become more comfortable with researching homes online. YouTube is the most visited site to view videos, followed by brokerage websites and Google video. The most popular videos tend to be those that are less than 60 seconds, especially if your home is being marketed on social media. These posts generate 1,200% more shares than posts that do not have a video.
Overlooking Social Media
Listing your home on a website is not the only way to market it. Your real estate agent should have a business account on multiple social media sites that they are well versed in using. Instagram is the perfect social media platform to display your home’s professional photographs and really tell a story. Instagram Live opens up another avenue to market a home. Live feeds allow your real estate agent to bring potential buyers further into your home and really display its best qualities. Of course with Instagram hashtags play a major role in boosting the story and streamlining it to potential buyers. Facebook is much the same as Instagram in that a beautiful picture can really capture the attention of those scrolling the platform. Also, Facebook has a massive following with over 82% of people aged 18-29 on Facebook and 79% of people aged 30-49 on the social media site. With so many potential buyers on Facebook, your real estate agent needs to ensure he or she posts about your home multiple times a day. Flyers, professional photographs, and Facebook live are all ways to draw attention to your home. In addition to Facebook and Instagram, your agent can utilize LinkedIn, Twitter, and any other social media site that will bring attention to your home.
Using Only one Marketing Strategy
Yes, over 90% of home buyers search online at some point during their home hunt but that’s not the only way your real estate agent can connect with them. Your real estate agent’s network of fellow agents and local businesses is one of their most powerful tools. One way that your real estate agent should begin marketing your home is through a ‘Coming Soon’ posting and email that is distributed to their database of agents. Your agent should also pass out real estate flyers around your community to reach individuals who may not be online but are still searching for a house.
It may still be a seller’s market and homes are still selling quickly and at record high prices, but that doesn’t mean you can afford to skip the essential strategies to market a house. Finding the right real estate agent to market your house may take time. A great real estate agent will listen to your needs, create a multi-step process to market and sell your home, and be willing to readjust their plan should the need arise. Take the time to interview real estate agents and search for a top agent that you can trust and that can sell your house quickly and for the right price.