Category Archives: fsbo

Global Power… LOCAL DOMINANCE

Friday, 14 June 2013 09:19

Written by Lane Bailey

2 Comments

Recently, I posted about how Century21.com is crushing the other major brokerage websites for unique visitors. Well… that isn’t the whole story.

What is going on in the world at large is good to know, when you list YOUR house, you need to know what is going to happen with YOUR house.

Will an agent that gets an inquiry on it know anything about it?
Will an agent that gets an inquiry on it be motivated to sell it?
How will it appear online?
Will buyers even see it?

That is the basis of our Lock Down/Lift Up strategy.

First, we lock down the listings, meaning that every listing we have has OUR contact information next to it. Each of MY listings has MY phone number next to it. It has MY email next to it. If they fill out the contact form, it gets sent to ME. Obviously that is great for me… but it is pretty good for you, too. I will know more about your home that some random agent that paid to be on any unrepresented listings, and I want it to sell as quickly as possible.

That is the Lock Down portion of the strategy.

The next thing we do is get premium locations for all of our listings. When people search, OUR listings are the ones at the top of the results. As buyers search, instead of going through pages and pages of homes, people generally only look at the first page. We want OUR listings to be there… and if you are selling YOUR home, you want it there, too.

That is the Lift Up part.

And it isn’t just one or two places… It’s

Zillow.com
Realtor.com
Trulia.com
Homefinder.com
Homes.com
RealEstateBook.com

The last post was about Global Power… but Local Dominance is where we are today.

When it’s time to sell, what do you want for YOUR house?

Century21.com is CRUSHING IT!!

Wednesday, 12 June 2013 08:28

Written by Lane Bailey

2 Comments

We just got a report in the office looking at website usage of the major brokerage sites… C21, RE/MAX, Keller Williams, etc. The results may be surprising to a lot of people.

For 2013, January through April, the number of unique visitors to the sites were as follows:

Century 21 – 10.6 million unique visitors
Coldwell Banker – 5.3 million unique visitors
RE/MAX – 4.6 million unique visitors
Weichert – 3.7 million unique visitors
Keller Williams – 3.0 million unique visitors
ERA – 700 thousand unique visitors
Prudential – 400 thousand unique visitors

It might be good to note that Century 21 Realty’s parent company is Realogy. They also own ERA… as well as Better Homes & Gardens Realty, Sotheby’s International and Coldwell Banker.

But there is another little tidbit that makes Century 21 a little more powerful for sellers. Realogy owns a company called Cartus. While most people may have never heard of them, they are one of the biggest corporate relocation partners in the world. They feed those relocations into the Realogy system… and since Century 21 is easily the biggest, that is where most of them go. And since Century 21 Results Realty Services is one of the biggest C21 franchises in this market, WE get a pretty good feed on those.

Normally I post about market stats and some news about real estate… sometimes views on things that can affect value or other tips for buyers or sellers. But one of the things that can REALLY affect value is marketing power.

It’s the Photos…

Wednesday, 15 May 2013 08:19

Written by Lane Bailey

1 Comment

One of the most important things you can do to make your home stand out, whether it is on the MLS, Zillow, Trulia, Craigslist or some other site, is to have exceptional pictures. Not just for bazillion dollar homes, either…

Vivienne galleria, in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris. This panorama is made from 6 portrait pictures taken at 10mm (16mm in 35mm equiv.), f/8.0 and ISO 100. 3 exposures were blended to extend dynamic range and keep details in heterogeneously lit areas. All work was done with Hugin, Enblend, Enfuse and Gimp. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There are some challenges, like vacant houses or those that really could use some freshening, but still, pictures are the first step in selling your house. Video is nice… and virtual tours can add to the pictures… but in the end, having 5-10 great pictures, along with 15-20 good or better pictures (our local MLSs only accept 25 pictures) can be what gets eyeballs INSIDE your house.

Where the problems start are that few real estate agents take the time to learn how to shoot good pictures, or worse yet, they think that grabbing a few pictures with their phone will be just fine. I know, phones have come a long way… but that doesn’t mean that they take pro-quality pictures.

Even better would be to hire a photographer to shoot the home. Again, most agents just don’t feel that “this listing warrants that type of expenditure”. Oddly, I have had agents tell me that when we were talking about $1M+ homes… If they aren’t willing to hire a pro for a “seven digit home”, when are they?

Image created using the redscale technique with Kodak MAX 400 film. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Luckily, I have a background in photography… and I still have hired in pros to shoot some of my listings. It is simply too important.

But there is another problem that I run into… although not as frequently… that is manipulated images. A little tweaking is fine, and some HDR shots might even be appropriate (HDR is High Dynamic Range, allowing both highlights and shadows to retain detail). But, I see large areas of homes being digitally enhanced. In fact, there is a service that digitally adds furniture to listing photos.

Of course, there actually IS a place for digital manipulation. I have used a service that allows prospective buyers to “digitally remodel” a house. They could go into key rooms and digitally alter details like wall and trim colors, floor surfaces and cabinetry and counters. The big difference is that THEY started with a true representation of the room, and THEY made the changes. They weren’t presented with an unrealistic portrayal of the area.

Some common things that get edited that might be ok would be trashcans by the street (seems easier to me to move them…) or a reflection of the photographer in a bathroom mirror. But some things that cross the line… at least in my mind… are editing out power lines in the backyard, getting rid of stains on the carpet, cracks in the driveway and other defects which are factually accurate.

One direction that we have as REALTORS® is that we HAVE to honestly represent the property. And as real estate licensees, we aren’t allowed to hide or lie about defects of which we have knowledge. Advertising a proeprty should put it in its BEST light, but it should be honest, as well.

Wayback Wednesday… a 3fer, Cheap Ways to Prep Your Home to Sell

Wednesday, 08 February 2012 08:00

Written by Lane Bailey

0 Comments

Image via Wikipedia

Normally, each week I pull a post from the past to highlight again. This week, I’m pulling three of them. They were all part of a series I did on Cheap Tips…

It has never been more important to make sure your house shows as well as possible. And for most sellers that I deal with (spelled n-o-t b-a-n-k-s), they don’t have a bottomless pit of cash to spend while getting ready to sell their home. Finding efficient and inexpensive ways to make their home look WAY better than the foreclosure up the street are priorities. It doesn’t matter if you are hiring an agent selling unrepresented (FSBO or For Sale By Owner), these tips will help out.

Check out the posts from last year and feel free to drop some of your own tips in the comments.

Craigslist Annoys Me…

Monday, 09 May 2011 08:43

Written by Lane Bailey

0 Comments

Image via Wikipedia

I use Craigslist to post listings… I use Craigslist to cruise listings, too. And I get annoyed almost every time I open the site… I expect that you do, too.

The real estate ads seem to be the worst. And real estate professionals are right in the thick of it. I think it gives a bad name to all of us when so many of our peers have a flagrant disregard of the terms of use for the service. If they don’t like the rules, don’t use the site. If they still think that the exposure is valuable, follow the rules.

There are a few things that my peers do that are over the edge…

Spam/Overposting. Craigslist rules limit re-posting of an ad to once every 48 hours. Yet, when I log in, I see some ads re-posted as many as 20 times in a single day. Real estate agents aren’t the only people violating this rule… but we might be the biggest group.
Mis-categorization. This comes in two flavors.
- Flavor one is posting service ads in real estate categories. It isn’t that hard to figure out… an ad promoting YOU as a real estate agent is NOT the same as an ad for a property. There is a place for you to advertise yourself.
- Flavor two is posting ads in the wrong category on purpose… to try to get renters to buy. And the worst type of this is where the poster doesn’t actually disclose that they are talking about a “rent-to-own” house rather than a rental. When someone calls, they put out the hard sell to get them into any property that they have available.
Failure to Disclose. This one is an actual licensing law violation. Whenever a real estate agent or broker places an ad, they HAVE to disclose that they are licensed, and the name of the brokerage where the license is held. There also has to be a number to contact the brokerage.
Blind Ads. These are a variation of the failure to disclose… but the agent (not always a licensed agent, though) will post a REALLY vague ad and then just use anyone that calls as a lead and see what they might be able to sell them. Often they don’t even know of a property that matches the ad they posted.

There are a few things that we (as real estate professionals) and you (as consumers) can do to turn the tide. We need to police ourselves so that we can all have a better experience.

When I talk with agents that use these tactics, they always give the same responses… they are doing it to get a leg up on the competition. So, we agents need to make a decision to NOT use these types of tactics. As brokers, we can stop our agents from using them. People post their ads over and over in order to keep them on page one. Well… if you post YOUR ad there 6-20 times a day, and everyone else does that too, you HAVE to post it over and over because there are now 6-20 times more ads.

As consumers… and agents… flag the rule breakers. When their ads go away, they don’t get ANY leg up. At some point, CL will start banning IPs from posting and killing accounts of spammers. Heck, maybe they already do. But, when these folks start having big issues with their “Craigslist Domination Strategy” and they get nothing because of their behavior, they will change.

And we all get a better experience…

FREE EBOOK: Cracking The CraigsListCode (yourmortgageandmarketingpartner.wordpress.com)
8 Signs You’re Being Scammed on Craigslist (nakedlaw.avvo.com)

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Category Archives: fsbo

Global Power… LOCAL DOMINANCE

When it’s time to sell, what do you want for YOUR house?

Century21.com is CRUSHING IT!!

It’s the Photos…

Wayback Wednesday… a 3fer, Cheap Ways to Prep Your Home to Sell

Craigslist Annoys Me…

What's YOUR Home Worth?

Custom Listings

Browse Listings

Follow Me on Pinterest

Category Archives: fsbo

Global Power… LOCAL DOMINANCE

When it’s time to sell, what do you want for YOUR house?

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