Get Creative in Marketing Your Home

You’ve made the decision to sell your home. You’ve found a real estate agent who understands your needs. You’ve de-cluttered your closets, spruced up the lawn, and finished up all of those home improvement projects you had been putting off. Your house is listed, but how can you maximize the number of people who see it?

It’s time to get creative. Gone are the days when the local newspaper was the only way to advertise your home. Real estate agents are getting creative about marketing properties online, via print media and word of mouth. The Internet gives them more potential advertising outlets than ever before. From Facebook to virtual tours, the online marketing possibilities for your home are endless. Your agent can help you target the best outlets for marketing your home and a proactive agent will be willing to spend the time and money necessary to give your home the attention it deserves.

An online virtual tour of your property can be a huge step toward attracting buyers to a showing. A virtual tour, with its 360-degree views of the interior and exterior of your home, provides potential buyers with a sense of depth that a photo can’t quite impart.  There are many different types of tours, and it may be best to speak with your agent about what they are planning. 

Property website links and online flyers are great marketing tools.  Your agent will send these to other local real estate agents and potential buyers but you can also send them via email to your own friends, family, acquaintances or any groups that you may belong to. This type of marketing can reach out even to busy people who might have more time to spend reading an email message than searching the Internet for properties for sale. You’ll want to make sure to include photos and enticing selling points about your home. You might be surprised by how quickly information about your home gets around via this electronic “word of mouth.”

Facebook is becoming a major real estate marketing tool. Many real estate agents have a professional Facebook page where they can feature listings that are visible to the public. If you have your own Facebook page, be sure to include links or photos of your home and information about the listing – you never know when a friend (or a friend of a friend) might be looking for a new home.

Print marketing comes in all shapes and sizes. In addition to the traditional real estate ads that typically appear in the weekend editions of newspapers, you should also ask your agent if they plan to also advertise in other places.  There are many magazines and publications that specialize in real estate.  Ask if you could advertise in one of them.

Some agents also choose to market directly to a mailing list. Lists can target potential buyers, or a radius neighborhood list and will drop information directly into their mailboxes. Often taking the form of a postcard, these mailings feature photos of homes for sale, as well as the asking price and some information about the property. You never know when you might catch the eye of a potential buyer.

Most home sellers choose to feature signage that is easily visible from the street. You just never know when a passer-by might be looking for a home to buy in your neighborhood. The more signage, the better! If you live on a street where this is little traffic, a sign on the corner of a busier cross street might help attract the attention of potential buyers.

With a little effort and ingenuity, your agent can brainstorm plenty of creative ways to market your home. Remember, the key is to spread the word far and wide. The more information floating around – both physically and virtually – the better!