Should you market your home on the internet, or work with a more traditional signs and fliers agent who knows a lot of people?
After showing a home at Mueller for sale this morning, I went over to meet a potential seller in the neighborhood at lunchtime. We toured her home and discussed some of the necessary preparations that would have to be undertaken to get the most return from a sale, and the impact of the new homes on the relationship between supply and demand here. The verdict was that early Spring is traditionally a low inventory time of year, and that with no new detached homes being announced before Summer, this might be a good time to list.
She mentioned that her old room mate was a Realtor, so I thought is was worth articulating my value proposition. I took a few moments to explain how I use the internet to sell homes, and I thought I’d share that here. I have a whole presentation about it, but here’s the Cliff Notes version of our conversation which I think answers the original question.
Me: Most people start their home search on the internet so I spend the largest proportion of my marketing dollars there.
Seller: But when I’m looking for a home, I just go to AustinHomeSearch and search the MLS – doesn’t everyone do that?
Me:Many people do. Having a properly prepared MLS entry is an essential part of most marketing strategies. Correctly using the MLS allows your home listing to feed into a number of other systems. Not all, but most homes sell through the MLS – a few sell through a silent market approach. AustinHomeSearch and other MLS feeds are a big source of buyers.
Seller: Doesn’t the MLS get the most hits from home searchers?
Me: It certainly puts you on the map. The other three sites that have the highest traffic in Austin are Zillow, Realtor.com and Trulia – so I pay to advertise my listings there. I also have my own sites which I use to promote listings on. But that’s really for other sellers to see.
Seller: Don’t your sites get much traffic?
Me: Actually, they rank highly for search terms related to Mueller Austin Homes for sale. [at this point, I normally whip open a browser and google that term and show that I am usually first place after the developer site] And I also run paid advertising to actually advertise your listing [see screenshot below]
Mueller Austin Homes
Me: People find their homes in different ways, and not all of it is through people searching on real estate portals. So some of my marketing budget goes on letting neighbors know about homes for sale, some on letting agents know, and some goes to online marketing. And also my postcards to the neighbors are just my way of letting people know that I’m here, buying and selling homes for clients in Mueller.
Ultimately real estate brokerage results in different agents representing the buyer and seller in any given Austin home sale. So as a listing agent I find motivated and capable buyers for your home – by directly marketing to buyers and by marketing to other agents. One way I do that is through internet marketing, though it is important to look at the other ways in which people buy homes and cover the traditional “signs, fliers and networking” approaches too.
Get in touch if you’re interested in finding a buyer for your home at Mueller – 512.215.4785