When choosing a realtor to sell your home there is one major thing you need to keep in mind.
How are they going to market your home?
Below are a few tools you want to make sure your agent is utilizing when marketing your home. These tools will ensure that your home is getting the most exposure possible.
1) Do they have a strong online presence?
An online presence is very important when trying to sell your home. According to Realtor.com’s field guide to quick real estate statistics, 90% of people looking for homes use the internet. If your agent does not have a strong online presence it can take much longer for your house to become discovered and therefor ultimately take much longer to sell. You can find out how large their internet presence is by just Googling their name. Look for information above and beyond just company listings or yellow page listings. The more pages of information you see, reflects how much presence they have in marketing and social media. The more internet presence, the more active they are in selling your home.
2) Do they have professional Pictures?
I can’t tell you how many times I have seen pictures taken with a phone on the MLS. It is just insane! Think about it, when you are searching for a house what is the first thing you look at? PICTURES! Now wouldn’t you want pictures to show off how amazing your house is? There is no doubt pictures from your phone will work, but what is going to attract more buyers? We live in a virtual world where buyers place a lot of weight in pictures when they are deciding on a home. The same way that you would not expect a handyman to use a plastic hammer when working on your home, likewise you should not expect a realtor to use a cheap camera when marketing your home.
3) Do they have a real home video tour?
Although a home video tour is not mandatory, it is a great tool for selling a home. A video brings you beyond the still pictures and puts you in the house. Not only will a video give a better perspective of the house, but it will also help bring some emotion into the buyer’s minds before actually viewing the home. Don’t settle for virtual tours whereby a realtor just adds music to the pictures he/she took for the Multiple Listing Service (MLS).
Still picture video… NO!
Real home video tour… YES!
These are just a few of the essential tools that must be used in order to properly market a home. What other things do you (as a seller) place a lot of importance on, when deciding on a realtor?
