The Listing Agent’s Role in Marketing Your
Home
Advertising to the “Public”
Every home seller likes to be assured that their listing agent and or the
real estate company will run ads featuring their home. Newspaper ads run the
gamut from photo ads to lots of listings reflected on a page with primarily only
copy. Classified ads featuring your home are another tool. Ads may also appear
in local real estate magazines and on the internet (ideally on several sites).
Of course, Realtors and their brokerages will run ads featuring your
house, but not necessarily for the reasons the seller expects. The primary
motivation for advertising is to make the telephone ring. Advertising creates
phone calls and some of those callers become clients of the agents answering
these calls. This builds up a pool of homebuyers looking for property in
general. Multiply this by all the agents and companies who also advertise homes,
and there is a large pool of homebuyers in the market at any given time - all of
whom have contacted a Realtor. The agents representing those homebuyers know
about your home because it is listed in the Multiple Listing Service, has been
on broker open house preview, and because your agent is also marketing directly
to these agents.
Through, the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), the agents match up their
clients (computer prospecting), with available homes, one of which may be yours.
Realtors then show the selected homes to their clients, who ideally end up
buying one. Although, ads do not typically sell your house directly, they create
a pool of clients for Realtors; and one of these existing clients typically
purchases your home.
Behind the “Advertising Scene”
When an Agent or their brokerage, advertise homes they have for sale,
there is more than one objective. Certainly, the real estate office wants to
generate phone calls and sell houses, but the advertising also shows other
homeowners how effectively they market their listings. This impresses not only
the seller, but also others who may be thinking of selling their home.
The advertising brings in more listings, which generate more ad calls,
which produces more buyers…. Cross selling is often how your property is sold;
about 5% of the time, you and your agent will get “lucky”; And someone calling
on your house may actually end up buying it.
Neighborhood Announcements
When you first list your home many agents send "announcements" to all of
the other houses in your neighborhood. This is typically done in the form of
postcards, or letters. This too is has a double purpose: your neighbors might
have friends who are looking to buy a house (but they probably would notice the
for sale sign, anyway) and of course this hopefully impresses other area
homeowners that might be contemplating a sale.
Open Houses
An open house can be also be helpful, but not for the reasons most
homeowners think. Just like with advertising, most visitors to open houses
rarely buy the house they come to look at. They usually do not even know the
price of your home when they stop by to visit - they probably just followed an
"Open House" sign to your door. Often, the exterior of the home appealed to
them, because the home is over their budget.
An open house reminds your neighbors that your home is for sale, and
offers them an opportunity to "take a look." Hopefully your neighbors will tell
friends or family members about your house, creating "word of mouth"
advertising.
Of course, there are other reasons for holding open houses, too. Listing
agents who "farm" a particular neighborhood use them as an opportunity to meet
with other local homeowners who will someday be selling their home. Most of us,
Agents hope to also list your neighbor’s homes in the future.
Advertising to Realtors
Realtors are typically more comfortable showing clients homes that they
are familiar with. The Broker’s Open House is a very effective means to quickly
get a large number of Realtors into your front door. To maximize attendance,
your Listing Agent might provide refreshments or a raffle of some sort.
Property Brochure Distribution is another way that your Listing Agent may
be marketing your home to other Realtors. There are also services that hand
deliver your property brochure to each individual agent in a specific geographic
area. Some Realtors employ an internet program to email listing cards to the top
local selling agents in your community.
Because Realtors are the ones with the “buyer pool”, It is much more
productive and beneficial when your listing agent directs most of his or her
marketing efforts toward other agents. It is an easy mistake to measure your
agent’s effectiveness solely by counting the number of newspaper and magazine
ads featuring your property. "Behind the scenes" marketing is difficult for the
seller to measure.
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