With the glut of available homes on the market, how your home is marketed is the biggest factor in determining how quickly it will sell (assuming the price is reasonably presented). A real estate agent’s marketing plan should be the most crucial determinant in deciding who to list your home with. But, how can you really know about the agent’s marketing strategies?
One way is to see what they are doing with their current clients. Do those homes “stand out”? Contact those sellers. Are they getting a lot of showings and offers?
Another way is looking at how the agent markets themselves and their services:
Does the photo they use for themselves represent how they look?
Does their print advertising look like everyone else’s?
What technology are they using to show your home? Are they using video?
Is their website interesting and full of current information or just cookie cutter?
Do they have a professional presence on social networks?
Does their marketing show them as an expert or does it merely pat them on the back?
Quality photos on the web and top notch video may be the factor that drives people to see your house (and they are very important). However, how an agent drives traffic to see those photos and videos is even more important.
We all know the saying – “It’s not what you know…it’s who you know.” However, in marketing, it’s more crucial to know “who knows you”. Agents who are unknown are not good marketers. Today, you need an excellent marketer to represent you.
Last week, we explained that having someone who truly knows the market was crucial if you were planning to buy or sell a home today. This expert should know what is happening in real estate, understand why it is happening and be able to simply and effectively explain each point to you and your family. Today, we want to discuss the consequences if you don’t have a true industry professional on your side.
When families enter into a contract to buy or sell a house, two things are true:
The buyer wants to own the home.
The seller wants to sell the home.
In order for both these things to take place, the transaction must be completed. That is not an easy task in the current market. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their Existing Homes Sales Report yesterday. In the report, NAR announced that one out of every three contracts to purchase a home in October never made it to a closing table. How does that ratio stack up against previous numbers? Here is a graph showing previous rates of cancellations:
Cancellations have more than quadrupled in the last 14 months! According to NAR, cancellations are caused by:
“… declined mortgage applications, failures in loan underwriting from appraised values coming in below the negotiated price, or other problems including home inspections and employment losses.”
Bottom Line
No one can guarantee you won’t face challenges. However, the best agents and mortgage professionals know how to manage the expectations of all the parties involved thus dramatically increasing the chances your deal will close and you and your family will be able to move on with your lives. Hire that true professional!!
Posted By: KCMBog.com
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