Posts Tagged ‘marketing’
5 Tech Savvy Tips for Selling Your Home for Top Dollar
Not long ago, real estate sales involved hammering a sign in the yard, placing newspaper ad’s and mailing post cards to neighbors. Today, selling a home requires a huge amount of internet advertising and distribution…which means using great photographs, video’s and social media to boost your properties image and catch a buyer’s eye.
If you are one of the thousands of home sellers looking to capitalize on the real estate recovery and pocket maximum profit from your home sale, you have to embrace the internet. Home buyers use Ipad, tablets, desktop computers and smart phones to shop online and compare hundreds of homes for sale. Today’s buyers quickly scan through hundreds of listings on sites like Zillow and Realtor.com, looking for that one home that catches their eye.
To maximize the sales price of your home, consider these 5 tech savvy tools and tips.
- Use Professional Grade Photography. A recent study revealed that professional property photo’s increase the perceived value of a home by 13 percent. Considering that a 13% added value on a $250,000 home equals an increase in value of $32,500, it could well be worth your while to hire a pro. Buyers are visually oriented, so selling your home has become a bit like a beauty pageant, of sorts. To increase your sales price, provide the best possible pictures on the internet to grab the buyer’s attention and motivate them to schedule a home showing.
- Post a Video Tour on YouTube. About 20% of buyers search online for home video’s. Grab their attention by posting a video on InfoTube.net . We will upload it to YouTube for you, or you can upload toYouTube.com by yourself.
- Include a Floor Plan of Your Home. If possible, include an interactive floor plan that shows how rooms in your house relate to one another. Interactive floor plans combine the floor plan with professional photo’s and create an exciting shopping experience for home shoppers.
- Get Rid of Clutter. We have all heard this before, but it is amazing at the number of people who do not pay attention to this simple advice. Buyers are not interested in buying furnishings; they are shopping for a home. Your house will show much better if it is clean, organized and all personal items are removed.
- Advertise on the MLS. The internet has made it possible for sellers to list property on the MLS and sell it By Owner. The MLS is the national database of homes that are For Sale. If your listing is not a part of the MLS, you are missing millions of home shoppers every month, who will never know your house is For Sale. All MLS listings are distributed to every major search engine for real estate including Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, Google, Yahoo and many more. These websites report buyer traffic in excess of 24 million home shoppers each month. If you want to maximize your sales price and profit, you have to be on the MLS.
Thank you for visiting InfoTube.net. Please search our website for fantastic deals on thousands of homes for sale by owner, investor and builder. For more great marketing tips and home improvement idea’s…then be sure to LIKE us on Facebook.
Proof that Photo’s Sell Houses
InfoTube receives a number of questions about buying and selling property. But, the two questions ask most often are “Are there any photo’s of this property?”, closely followed by “Is there more than one photo of this home?
The importance of providing quality, multiple property photo’s and video tours can not be understated. By referencing the Point 2 chart above, you quickly see that the more photo’s equal more interest. And where you find interest, you find more offers and more sales.
When observing buyers who are shopping for a home on the internet, the following pattern is obvious and consistent.
- Ad’s with NO Photos: Buyer’s completely ignore these listings and move onto the next house.
- Ad’s with One Photo: Buyers’s click on these ad’s, but when they look for more pictures and find none, they become immediately disappointed and skip to the next house.
- Ad’s with Multiple Photo’s: These ad’s are viewed 10 times more (exposure) than those without photo’s. Buyers stay focused on these ad’s (interest) for 5 times as long, as those without multiple photo’s. These ad’s are bookmarked 90 percent more often (offers), which drives the buyer back to your listing.
- Ad’s with Multiple Photo’s and Video Tours: These ad’s receive the most attention, by far. They are also more “sticky”, with Buyer’s spending an average of 4 minutes gazing at these home ad’s. For seller’s who know they need to make their listing memorable, nothing does the job like a simple Video and multiple photo’s.
If you have a home to sell, don’t under estimate the power of visual media when it comes to web appeal. 90 percent of all home buyer’s shop on the internet, which is a multi-media platform. If you aren’t supplying a lot of high quality pictures and a good video, buyer’s simply ignore your property and spend their time researching your competition.
If you are not providing great photo’s or video of your property, then you are not doing the marketing, which is necessary to sell the home. If your agent isn’t providing these things, they aren’t marketing your property, either.
Take some sage advise. Grab your digital camera and start shooting today. If you don’t know how, make it your New Year’s Resolution to learn something new. In any type of market, pictures and video can make the difference between selling or not.
InfoTube.net offers Featured Home Listings with video tours and a 20 photo slideshow for only $19.95. The upgrade never expires and is good until your home sells. If you don’t have a computer or digital camera, InfoTube will create your Featured Home listing for only $10 more, so no excuses. Upload those photo’s and video’s today, or let InfoTube do the work. Buyer’s are waiting.
5 Idea’s to Turbo Charge your Home Sale
If you have a property to sell, we have 5 proven marketing idea’s that you should consider. In addition to our guarantee of more buyer attention for your property, these tips are FREE and EASY to do.
5 Surefire, Guerilla Real Estate Marketing Tips for Sellers
-
Use an InfoTube or InfoBox and keep them FULL at all times. Buyers love the convenience of curbside home info, which is the reason your brochures disappear so quickly. Nothing is more disappointing than an empty InfoTube, and it leaves the impression that you could care less about selling. Print plenty of brochures and be vigilant about keeping your tubes and boxes filled. There is no better advertising, and the price is literally a piece of paper.
-
Place a listing for your home on every website that provides free home classified’s. 90 percent of home shoppers begin their search on the web and multiple site listings increase the odds of your property being seen. 3 MUST’s for your real estate listings are InfoTube.net, zillow and craigslist.
-
Network- Place your home listing information on your myspace or facebook page. If you Twitter…Tweet your house
-
Post on Real Estate Forums. Contribute to real estate forums and include the link to your home listing in your signature.
-
Do a Video Tour. Video is a great way to show off your property and surrounding neighborhood ammenities. Highlight scenes that enhance your still photo slideshow. For example, if your area has a park, new school, nice shopping or great view, grab your digital camera, shoot and show us. Sites like InfoTube.net feature home video tours on their home page and they upload them to youtube automatically.
If you have a few bucks to spend, nothing increases your exposure to home buyers like an MLS listing. For $399 you can buy a showcase listing on Realtor.com for 6 months, and still sell your home yourself. The combined traffic to the MLS real estate hubs is around 8 million visitors per month. 6 months times 8 million shoppers=48 million prospective home buyers.
Happy Thanksgiving and thanks for visiting InfoTube.net.
Find Hidden Real Estate Prices
Although the logic escapes me, many Realtors do not provide sales prices, when advertising homes for sale. They operate on the old, tired business practice of printing teaser ad’s or brochures, that force customers to call or email a sales person. This annoying “game” is a disservice to buyer and seller, alike. But, many agent’s still hide basic property information, attempting to latch onto an unwitting customer they can flip into some type of sale.
The new Google Base website for home listings circumvents this questionable and irritating practice, by revealing the hidden sales prices for listed homes.
Tip for Buyers: If you are house hunting and resent the phone tag game, go to Google Base to find the hidden asking prices. Refuse to track down any sales agent to get basic information. Unfortunately, for the innocent home seller, I always eliminate properties from my candidate list, when I discover the listing agent is a game player. I simply move on to the next listing that is represented by someone who values my time and intellegence. Life is too short to put up with a listing agent who plays hide and seek with the home seller’s information.
Tip for Sellers: If your home is listed with an agent, have them acknowlege in writing, that they will provide easy access to all information about your home, including the price. Make sure they use an InfoTube or InfoBox to ensure that home information is readily available to drive by traffic. Seller’s, you don’t profit from missed buyer inquiries, nor do you benefit from an agent flipping potential buyers to other listings. A good agent will give your home as much exposure, to as many people as possible. And, they will utilize all means, low and high tech, to provide instant information when the customer wants it…even while they are sitting in front of your home.
Thank you for visiting InfoTube.net. Please let us know if we can assist you in the sale of your home or help you with an MLS listing.
Seller’s Should Freshen Up a Stale Listing with New Photo’s
As home shoppers search through listings of homes for sale, nothing screams STALE LISTING, like seeing a photo of your home that was taken during another season.
If the season’s have changed while your home is on the market, freshen up your listing with new seasonal photo’s. It’s Free and Easy to Do.
- For extra appeal, stage the photo with seasonal color or add a pumpkin or two before you snap the picture. The bonus, pumpkins and seasonal decor can be enjoyed through Thanksgiving.
- If your home has features that are more appealing during certain times of the year, such as swimming pools, waterfronts, flower beds and landscape, leave the photo’s, but change the captions to reflect the height of the season. (ie: Fun in the Sun 2009, for example).
- Highlight and rephotograph the area’s of your home that are appealing when the weather is crisp. Photograph a fire in the indoor or outdoor fireplace. Decorate the dining room for fall entertaining, then shoot. Snap a picture of your media room right before the big game. The goal is to Showoff the features of your home that you enjoy during this time of year.
- A home/neighborhood video tour is another great way to freshen up your listing and reach a whole new audience, too. InfoTube.net uploads video tours on its homepage and to youtube.com, bringing your home to the attention of a whole new crowd.
It takes only a few minutes to edit your ad and replace old, dated photo’s. Freshen up your listing and celebrate the season. Buyer’s will notice.
Thank you for visiting InfoTube.net. Please feel free to post your comments or questions by clicking the link below.