6 Essential Tips for Selling Strong in 2008!

Are you selling your home in 2008? 

Here are my top six essential selling strategies for getting your home sold in 2008!

1.  Positioning through pricing

You will hear this from me often.  Your price is your position in the market.  In real estate, the two most notable characteristics of market positioning are location and price.  When I ask a buyer what he or she is looking for, the first two things mentioned are typically:

• “I want to stay in this price range.”
• “I really like this area and would love to find a home here.”

You can’t do anything about the location of your home.  You chose that market when you bought your home.  But you can choose how to position your home through pricing.  Here is another way to understand what I am talking about: through pricing, you choose your target audience. 

If your price is off, it means you are marketing your home to the wrong audience.  Since the audience is smaller in a buyer’s market, it is crucial that you are communicating with the right audience.  The most important tip I can give you is to stop thinking in terms of you and start thinking in terms of the buyer.  This is what sales and marketing is all about – the buyer…not the seller.   Remember, without the buyer, you only have a home for sale.  Your goal is to have a home that is sold!

Now to take full advantage of what I am talking about here, you need an agent who studies the market regularly to keep you updated.  Don’t be left behind if the market shifts.  Having an agent who understands how a local real estate  market operates and is tracking market indicators like the current pending ratio, the market’s absorption rate, and inventory levels is vital to keeping your home competively positioned in today’s market place.  Otherwise you may find yourself chasing the market.

Here is another essential tip to remember:  buyers are not concerned with the sales price – sellers are.  Why?  The sales price affects the seller’s bottom-line.  Buyers are concerned with the monthly bottom line.  So use Incentives and creative terms to draw the buyers in.

2.  Utilizing Incentives and Creative Terms (that are legal)

When the pool of qualified buyers shrinks, sellers are often encouraged by agents and the media to reduce their price.  Now I do believe in adjusting a listing price that is no longer viable in the marketplace – just refer to my previous point in this post. 

But if the price reduction is designed to draw in buyers, you may be setting yourself up for some disappointment.  Unless the price reduction is significant, buyers tend to sit on the side lines to see how low the price will go.  Obviously this is counter productive to your effort to sell your home, and it is also counterproductive for a buyer who really needs to buy a home. 

As buyers continue to remain hesitant to buy, the worst mistake a seller could make would be to drop the price by the inch.  This strategy will NOT produce the results you are looking for.  Instead, sellers need to constantly communicate to the market and draw buyers in with incentives.  Builders do this all the time, and there is NO reason resellers can’t do the same thing. 

Here are a few examples: 

• all closing costs paid up to X% (not a dollar amount) of the purchase price
• One year of taxes paid
• One year of HOA fees paid
• How about this – LIVE FOR FREE FOR ONE YEAR – 12 months of mortgage payments paid by seller
• Down payment assistance available

NOTE:  these incentives must be offered above board.  There are laws and regulations that must be adhered to. Consulting a professional is very important when using incentives and creative terms.  If something is not legal, it will prevent your home from closing or worse – uhhmm….lawsuit?

So if you want to keep communicating to the market, use incentives to sweeten the deal.   Remember, it is not as much about pricing as it is the bottom line.  With a little math, incentives can draw in more buyers without changing your net profit.

3.  Help Buyers Locate Sources of Solid Financing

This of course is the job of your agent or the buyer’s agent.  Because lending requirements have gotten more strict, it is very important to know your potential buyer is qualified to buy your home under current lending standards before you accept an offer.  If you are listing with an agent, your agent should take the appropriate steps make sure the financing is solid. 

If you are going FSBO, don’t wince at asking the hard questions.  Otherwise, you may find your house going back in the market with the risk of missing a buyer who really did have solid pricing while your property was under contract. 

VERY IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:  Every possible step could be made and financing could still fall through.  The point I am trying make is that you want to make sure you or your agent has taken every POSSIBLE step to ensure the buyer’s financing is not a pipe dream wish with a loose lender. 

Over this next year, acquisitions and mergers of banks and mortgage companies can be expected.  Many smaller mortgage companies will close their doors.  Knowing who the buyer’s lender is will be more important this year than ever. 

4.  Exposure on as many Real Estate Search Sites on the Web

Research from the  National Association of Realtors (NAR) says over 70% of buyers begin their search online.  And buyers use a variety of real estate sites to search for property. 

Some of these are set to automatically load listings straight from the local MLS.  But there are other sites where the local MLS does not feed into these sites. 

Online marketing is essential if you want your home exposed to as many buyers as possible.  Make sure your agent is tech savvy and knows the latest online marketing trends (by the way – these trends are changing rapidly and many agents are still relying on archaic internet marketing tactics that are not viable anymore). 

5. Photos that Sell!

No more out of focus photos.  I can’t believe the pictures I come across in the MLS sometimes!  If real estate agents are being paid big bucks to market and sell your home, you would think that would include good photos.  Photos sell homes (just look at the many magazines dedicated to decorating and interior design).  We love looking at photos of beautiful homes.

The photos of your home shouldn’t just “show” prospective buyers what your home looks like.  Photography should “showcase” your home on the web and in print materials with a selling strategy behind each photo.  The day of haphazardly snapping a few shots of a home to post on the web is over.  The luxury home market gets this, but there is no reason why quality photos taken with a clear marketing strategy shouldn’t be the norm across the board in real estate. 

6. Killer Ad Copy that Sells

Words sell products everyday.  Just think about it for a minute.  Have you ever bought anything on the internet or out of a catalog before?  If you have, I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that you didn’t just look at some pictures of the product and then decide to click the buy button.  My guess is that it was the words that sold you on the product. 

My marketing philosophy is simple.  Photos and graphic layout appeal to the emotional side of the buyer.  But words capture both the emotional and logical side of the buyer.  Through words, pictures and experiences can be painted in the mind to secure the buyer’s commitment to take the next step to learn more about how they can become the new owners of your home.

In real estate, I think one of the most under utilized tools is the ad copy.  In the world of marketing, copywriting is an entire field unto itself that sells billions of dollars. The last credit card offer you received in the mail…a banker didn’t write that letter.  That’s right – meet the copywriter!  She knows how your mind thinks and she writes accordingly in an effort to persuade you to take the next step…pick up that phone and add another credit card to your wallet!

For real estate marketing, ad copy is the selling description of the home.  I say selling description on purpose.  Most listings have descriptions of the home that goes over a list of features. 

Anyone who is experienced in sales and marketing will tell you that features don’t sell a product.  When we buy something, we buy the benefit of that product and the value that product brings to our lives. 

When selling real estate, the ad copy shouldn’t be taken lightly.  Understanding the benefits of the top features of a home is the first step to writing killer ad copy.

Sellers note my advice to buyers and investors in my upcoming post because this is what I share with my buying clients…

Oh yeah…one more thing…if you haven’t already, make sure you hire a real estate agent who can do this for you and show you through weekly updates that they are marketing your home…call me or contact me today if you need a recommendation.  Presently, one agent comes to mind!