Part II - The Two Major Rules to Selling Any home…

A 2-part series by Lawrance Morrissey

Part 2: Exposing your home to buyers. 

  In the real estate world, there are two major rules to selling any property, in any condition, price range or location: 1) Properly price the home. 2) Expose it to buyers. While this seems easy enough, almost everyone gets one, if not both rules wrong.
  Pricing your home was discussed in the last issue, and in short, concluded one should get the property appraised. To expose or advertise a home, one has limited resources. Here are the most common types of exposure: 1) Yard sign 2) Flyers 3) Newspaper ad 4) MLS (Listed w/agent) 5) Open house 6) Internet 7) Distributed Publication
  The yard sign is the most common form of exposure, but many homeowners stop there. Putting a yard sign up is a good way to let your neighbors know your home is for sale, but what about people who live a couple of miles away? What about families across the United States or even the other side of the world? 
  While most sellers never forget the yard sign, a large percentage seems to ignore the flyers. Having a photo flyer in the box is crucial for people to take information with them regarding your home. Your flyer should have a photo of the home and all pertinent facts including your asking price and contact information. The first 30 or so will go to your nosey neighbors, but that can’t be avoided since they are doing their own homework for the future sale of their own homes. Keep your flyers stocked. If you run out, refill the box. Keep refilling as often as needed. 
  Newspaper ads don’t seem to do very well in the Indianapolis area. According to many sources, they are very expensive for what you’ll receive, and don’t yield many results. One person I know spent $242 on a newspaper ad and had 1 phone call, - from a real estate agent. Remember this fact: Only 3% of the population is in the real estate market at any given time.That means 97% of the people who receive the paper won’t even attempt to look for your ad. 

  Another way to get exposure is by putting your home on the MLS. The MLS is short for “Multiple Listing Service” which is the master database that real estate agents upload their listings to. The bad news is this exposure will cost you thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars. Some companies offer “Flat-Fee” MLS programs that will put your home on the MLS for an upfront fee. The fee usually costs $700 - $900 and includes limited services. Unfortunately, the home owner is still required to pay the buyer’s agent commission on top of that, which often times can be 3  3.5% of the price of the home. 
  Having open houses work for some people, but it’s important to note that the reason open houses exist are for real estate agents to find new customers, not to sell the home. If the home happens to sell, then great, but it’s actually pretty rare to sell a home that way. It does happen though, so I wouldn’t cross it off your list. 
  The Internet is becoming an ever-increasing way to buy or sell homes. The problem is that there are thousands of websites with homes spread out all over the web. So try to find high-traffic sites with original content. Typically, web-only real estate companies do not work very well, so be sure to use print advertising in addition to Internet exposure. 
  Advertising in a distributed publication (real estate magazine) is one of the best ways to market your home. Typically home magazine ads are much larger than a cost-prohibitive newspaper ad, and they reach a highly targeted audience: Nearly 100% of the readers are in the market to buy or sell a home. 
  The absolute best way to expose your home is to use a combination of the above suggestions simultaneously. The FSBO Store offers marketing packages that includes everything you need to effectively expose your home to over 35,000 home buyers per month.