You’re getting close to being ready to put your house on the market and start showing it to potential buyers. So far you have prepared you house for sale, staged your property for showings, and priced your home accurately and competitively. Now you have to let the world know that your house is for sale!
This is where marketing and advertising your home comes into the process. You want to let every prospective buyer that is considering buying a home in your neighborhood know that your house is for sale, and and give him/her every reason why your house is the house they should buy. You’re trying to get as many eyeballs to take a look at the property as you can because the more eyeballs that you capture the more showings you’ll get, and the more offers you can expect.
Take Great Pictures
One of the first things that you want to do is take a bunch of digital pictures of the property. Do this on a bright sunny day. Take lots of pictures of the beautufully staged interior, and be sure to get plenty of the kitchen and baths. Also take lots of pictures of the exterior that include the freshly mowed and trimmed lawn and flowerbeds. You’re going to use these pictures for your property brochures as well as uploading them onto “sale by owner” websites. If you have a digital video camera you might want to do a video virtual tour, and post the video on YouTube.
Creat Compelling Property Flyers
In the article about selling your home using the internet I listed ChoiceA.com. If you sign up with them to list your property on their website they have a tool that you can use to create property flyers. You can also upload your property photos to their site. Microsoft Office Online also has a For Sale By Owner flyer template that you can use to create a compelling listing flyer. It’s a downloadable file. Once you download it you just insert your property photos and properety description.
Include as many pictures of the property as you can on the flyer, even if you have to print some on the back. People love looking at pictures and the more the better.
If you put together a video virtual tour of your home and uploaded it to YouTube don’t forget to include the URL somewhere on the flyer so they can take a look at the video.
Put a Sign in the Yard
This is probably the most obvious and fundamental marketing strategy to sell your own home. Putting a sign in your front yard tells all the neighbors that you’re selling, and maybe one of your neighbors knows someone who’s buying. A sign in the yard also tells the folks that are driving neighborhoods looking for homes that your home is on the market. You can get a For Sale By Owner sign at your local Home Depot, or you can go online and order one. Get a sign that is at least 3′ x 2′ in size, and fairly sturdy. Make sure you put your telephone number on the sign, and if appropriate, indicate that showings are by appointment only.
If you created and printed property flyers then you’ll also want to get a brochure box, or a tube, to place flyers in and hang it on the yard sign. Be sure to keep a close eye on the box and keep it filled with flyers. Drive-bys love to stop and pick up a flyer, and this is usually your first opportunity to present your home to a prospective buyer.
Sell My House Using the Internet
There is a complete article devoted to using the internet to help you sell your own home. Advertising your home for sale by owner in the local newspaper isn’t going to cut it these days. You have to take advantage of today’s technology, specifically the internet, to successfully reach the target market of people buying homes, because that’s where they’re looking for their next home.
Use Social Media to Get the Word Out
If you use Facebook or My Space or Twitter, use your sites as a vehicle to spread the word that your house is for sale. You can include pictures, upload your video, or provide a link to one of the online sites that you’ve listed your property on.
Use the local MLS and Realtor.com
Without question your local MLS (Multiple Listing Service) is the most powerful tool available to sell homes. This is because thousands of local agents use this tool as their source of what homes are on the market. They use this tool everyday to find homes for their buyer-clients. The local MLS also distributes all their local listings to thousands of brokers and agent websites, and to Realtor.com (the most visited real estate website on the internet).
In the article I wrote about using the internet to help you sell your own home, it was mentioned that 80% of home buyers search for their new home by looking online at real estate websites. 99% of these websites are fed their listings via the local MLS. If you want to get your home listed in the local MLS, and thereby listed on 99% of real estate websites including Realtor.com, then be sure to read Sell Your Own Home Using ForSaleByOwner.com.
