Archive for category Marketing
This Weekend is “National Open House Weekend”
For Sale Signs are popping up like tulips and National Open House Weekend is This Saturday and Sunday.
Every home seller should take advantage of the tremendous amount of buyer traffic that will be on the street this 
weekend. The Realtors Association is doing the advertising for you. Don’t pass up the opportunity to show off your home, too!!
What Time Should You Hold Your Home Open?
- Open your home to the public for 3 hours, both Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday, don’t start before 1:00.
Idea’s for Advertising and Marketing Your Open House.
- Place an ad in your Newspaper Classified real estate section. Check to see if your local paper has a special Open House section, many do. You should run your ad the morning of the Open House and if budget allows, run your ad a few days in advance of the Open House.
- Edit your InfoTube ad and include the date and time of your Open House on your free internet ad. Be sure to remove the dates from your ad, once the event has past.
- After editing your ad to include your Open House date, Print new brochures with the date and time, then refill your InfoTube. (Tip: Make sure you print plenty of brochures to hand out at your Open House.)
- Open House Directional Signs. Nothing boosts attendance as much as directional signs placed at all key intersections and the routes traveled to reach your home. You can purchase directional Arrow and Open House signs at most major home centers. Please collect all signs after your Open House to avoid possible citations. Many towns consider left over signs as “littering”, after the event has passed.
- Attract more attention. Purchase an Open House sign for a few dollars at your local hardware store. Tie brightly colored balloons to the sign the day of the event.
- Post your Open House on OpenHouse.com. Place a post on Craigslist. Send out an email. Use the internet to gain as much attention as possible.
Source – InfoTube.net
Hold The Rash, Please
“All appliances, cozy fireplace in living room, dual coolingend unit with guest parking next to the property. Mature 
trees. Comm. pool and spa, Rec. Center. Close to I-10 and shopping. Rash is included”
Sounds lovely, but you can hold that rash, please!
This was posted by a realtor, a trained professional who someone has left in charge of marketing their house. If you are selling your own house and creating your own flat fee MLS listing, please make sure it is typo-free!
10 Steps To Buy A “For Sale By Owner” Home
Since you might be dealing with prospective buyers that aren’t using an agent, you should be very clear on what steps they need to take. Unless they have done this before, they might be looking to you for guidance. You want to make it easy for your buyers to buy from you! That being said, of course, are not obligated to tell them anything that is not in your best interest. Below is an article explaining the ten steps a buyer needs to take to buy your FSBO house.
“With approximately 20 percent of the real estate marketplace comprised of “for sale by owner” listings, many homebuyers are left scratching their heads wondering, “Do I need an agent to go ahead and buy that “for sale by owner” home?” Not only are agents not needed to buy a home, involving one during a FSBO transaction could actually hinder the buying process, as the agent would want the seller and/or the buyer to commit to paying an expensive commission fee.
To buy a “for sale by owner” home, follow these 10 simple steps:
1. Determine Your Budget: The first step in any home buying process is determining how much you can afford. It’s important to not overextend yourself. Luckily, there’s many Internet-based mortgage calculators that will tell you how much you can afford based upon your income, debt level, mortgage rate and available cash for a down payment. Visit our Mortgage Calculators page to determine your housing budget.
2. Get Pre-Approved: Now that you know the price range that you can afford, you’ll want to get pre-approved so that you can move forward in the home buying process. In today’s market, buyers with a large down payment and a strong credit rating are more likely to obtain a mortgage. Start the pre-approval process by clicking here. Getting a pre-approval letter is a quick process that will tell sellers that you are a serious buyer who can afford their home.
3. Search For Homes: This part is simple. Just use the ForSaleByOwner.com search page to find your ideal home.
4. Contact the Owner Directly: Unlike homes represented by an agent, there’s no middleman to interfere with you from getting directly in touch with the seller. Phone or email the seller and ask additional questions about the home that wasn’t on the online property description. If you’re still interested, agree on a mutually convenient time to tour the home.
5. Get a Valuation Report of the Home: Either before or after you see the home, get a valuation or property report to see how the home’s asking price compares to other recently sold homes within the neighborhood. It’s similar to a real estate agent’s CMA (comparative market analysis), and it will compare the home you’re considering to up to 20 nearby recent home sales. Remember that such property reports and CMAs do not factor in any recent renovations — such as kitchen or bathroom remodeling — so the price of the home will be affected accordingly.
6. Hire an Attorney: For a few hundred dollars, a quality real estate attorney will provide you with all the advice and counsel you’ll need to go from the offer to closing. Use a local attorney who is knowledgeable about your town’s ordinances when it comes to real estate transactions, as well as your state’s disclosure laws. Our Find a Pro page can help find an attorney near you.
7. Make an Offer: Now that you’ve seen the home firsthand and have a property valuation report, plus an attorney in your corner, you’re ready to present the seller with an offer. Your attorney should have the necessary offer forms and you can also visit our Real Estate Forms section for all the state-specific paperwork you’ll need.
8. Lock in Your Mortgage Rate: Assuming that the seller is entertaining your offer, you’ll want to shop around for the lowest mortgage rate. Quicken Loans has a fast, online mortgage approval process, and Bankrate.com has a great mortgage comparison tool that will give you current rates at major lending institutions. You should also visit local banks and contact mortgage brokers to price compare. Once you’ve settled on a lender and a mortgage product, they will lock you in that mortgage rate and give you a set amount of time to close the real estate transaction. A 30 day or 60 day “lock in” period is most common.
9. Get the Home Inspected: The next step is hiring a quality home inspector who will go through the home – from foundation to attic – to see what condition the home is in. A home inspector will cost $300-$600 and the inspection will take around 2 hours. You’ll get an inspection report outlining any mechanical or structural problems that the home might have. Again, visit our Find a Pro pageto find an inspector near you.
Depending on the results on the inspection report, you might want to re-negotiate the purchase price. For example, the inspector might tell you that the furnace needs to be replaced. Negotiate with the seller to lower the price to compensate for any such expense.
10. Close the Deal: Your real estate attorney will handle most of the details at closing and, depending on your state and local area, will advise you on any special paperwork that needs to be completed between you and the seller. Your attorney and your mortgage lender will also assist you with coordinating the financing and providing payment to the seller. The seller will sign over the deed of the home and, voila, you’re the new homeowner!”
Source: Eric Mangan, ForSaleByOwner.com
Selling FSBO? Don’t Sabotage the Sale of Your House
You’ve gotten your house completed fixed up and ready to sell. You’ve started your FSBO marketing campaign. Now you have to make sure that YOU don’t sabotage the sale of your house because you aren’t ready to sell your own house.
HAVE THE RIGHT MINDSET
Your mindset is the key to accomplishing anything, including selling your own house. As Henry Ford said, “Whether you believe you can, or you can’t, you are right.”
Stop listening to bad news and naysayers. People will say you’re crazy. Don’t argue with them and don’t let them bring you down.
Absolutely refuse to listen to people’s “house selling horror stories”.
Once you have gotten your house ready to sell, there is a point where many people say to themselves, “Ugh. Now I have to sell my house and I hate selling! I don’t know how to sell anything!”
You must come across as sincere, professional, competent, and serious about selling your house. A buyer without an agent will be looking to you for guidance.
If you are dealing with buyers with an agent, you don’t want the agent to take control. If you are already totally comfortable with selling your house, that’s fantastic. If not, you’ll have to act as if you are. Here are some pointers.
DRESS THE PART
You, just like your house, have to make a good first impression. You need to instill in your buyers that you are confident and professional, someone with integrity that they would want to deal with. So you need to look the part.
Whenever you are showing your house your attire should be “dressy casual”. Don’t answer the door looking like you just got back from the gym!
THINK THE PART
I personally dislike what I consider “hard selling” and you may, too. So, I don’t think of myself as a sales person. I think of myself as a trusted advisor. So should you!
I remind myself that I am there to answer questions potential buyers may have. If a question comes up that I don’t know the answer to, that’s OK. I know I can find the answer. And relax and know “if not them, then someone else”.
ACT THE PART
When showing your house, greet people at the door, shake hands, and tell them you are happy to meet them. Build rapport
Show them around. Let them look and take in what they see. No need to be talking every second. Don’t hover. Be in the kitchen if they have any questions. This is where people usually feel most comfortable and will open up to talk.
Remember that you must come across as sincere, professional, competent, and serious about selling your house. If you are dealing with buyers without an agent, they will be looking to you for guidance. If you are dealing with buyers with an agent, you don’t want their agent to think he can take control because you’re selling for sale by owner.
TALK THE PART
Do more listening than talking. Put the attention on the buyer, not on you. Here are some easy sales tips you can use when talking with buyers.
- Assume that they are going to buy the house. Tell them, “Your family will love having cookouts on the deck this summer.” Help the buyers “see” themselves in your house.
- Listen for the “question behind the question”. If someone asks, “Is there a high school nearby?” Ask, “Oh, do you have teenagers?” Don’t assume they want the answer to that question to be “yes”. They might say, “No, but our last house was by a high school. What a nightmare!” Knowing this will temper how you will answer that question.
Now you’ve got the right mindset and know how to present yourself, as well as your house, in the best possible light to potential buyers. So you can proceed to sell your own house with poise and confidence.
Making Your Open House a “Smashing Success”
If you are selling your house “for sale by owner”, I suggest you combine appointments with potential buyers with an open house. Keep your open house short – no more than two hours, from 1 – 3 pm or 2 – 4 pm. You want to create a crowd!
Be sure to place your classified ads early in the week for your open house! Place ads everywhere you are currently doing your FSBO marketing. Here are some great places to advertise your open house: 
- Pennysaver.com
- Craigslist.org
- Your FSBO listing service
- Your FSBO MLS listing
- Local newspapers
You want to make the house easy to find. Put up a special open house sign or add an open house rider to your “for sale” sign. Put up directional signs or bandit signs around your neighborhood, especially at the nearest busy intersections. Be sure to take them down after the open house, of course.
Pass flyers out to your neighbors, inviting them to your open house and offering a $500 referral fee. Neighbors love to visit these and may know someone perfect for your house!
Buy a bunch of helium balloons to put in your front yard on open house day.
If your house has special unique features that people might miss, set out little cards to draw attention. For example, an “open me” card on a kitchen cabinet draws attention to a unique feature inside.
Have a sign-in sheet on a clipboard and some pens ready. Get everyone’s email for following up.
Bake some cookies to make the house smell wonderful. Offer them along with bottled water (no drinks that stain).
Set up an area where buyers can see and pick up information you have prepared, including:
- Property Information Flyers. Include lots of pictures so people clearly remember your house
.- Loan Program Flyers. Have a mortgage broker give you promotional material for appropriate loan programs. Better yet, see if he’ll attend your open house. This is a great benefit you could provide to your buyers and yourself.
- A “Sales Scrapbook”. Put copies of all your warranties, manuals, receipts for recent work, inspection reports, recent appraisal, copy of the new home warranty you will be supplying, and any similar materials in a 3-ring binder. This makes you look impressively organized and makes your house seem well-cared for. Wouldn’t you rather buy a used car from someone that kept a detailed service log? Same goes with houses!
SOME TIPS FOR YOUR APPOINTMENTS AND OPEN HOUSES
It goes without saying that you have previously repaired, decluttered, depersonalized, cleaned, and staged your house to get it ready to sell.
No smoking. That means you and your visitors!
No pets: Have your pets go elsewhere for the afternoon. Hide the water bowls, beds, crates, toys, kitty litter boxes, and leashes. Some people are so allergic to pets that seeing evidence of them will put them right off your house.
No bad smells: Get a dehumidifier if your basement is damp. If your house doesn’t smell as fresh as you would like get a good air purifier.
Use Oust (unscented version) in the bathrooms or any room that smells less than great. Don’t use anything that has a strong scent as some people are allergic to chemicals in room fresheners, too.
No TV: Turn it off. If there is a big game on that weekend, don’t have an open house.
Take care with kids: If your kids are there, they should be on their best behavior. Playing (quietly) in the yard, reading on their bed, or doing homework would be perfect.
Take security precautions: It is best to have at least one other person helping you. Hide your valuables. Turn off your computers. Hide your laptop. Think what a bad day it would be if someone snuck out with it.
Never be discouraged if you have a light turn out at your open house. I once had an open house and only one couple show up. But I quickly got over my disappointment when they bought the house!
Be Careful What Your FSBO MLS Listing Says!
When creating your flat fee MLS listing, it’s better to under deliver than exaggerate a claim. For example, if you put on a new roof 2 years ago, you can’t list that as a new roof! It has to be less than one year old for anything to be called “new”. If your house has room in the basement that you use as a fourth bedroom, don’t call it a 4th bedroom, un
less it has a window and a closet. No closet? Call it a study or an office.
You can get into legal trouble if you make claims that aren’t true.
Read this important article on FrontDoor.com for more ways to stay out of trouble when creating your FSBO MLS listing!
How Selling Your House is Like Chocolate Chip Cookies
When Debbie Fields opened her first store, she chose a busy downtown mall surrounded by office buildings. This mall was frequented by hungry office workers all day long. How could she go wrong? Midway through her first day, with most her cookies unsold, she decided waiting for customers wasn’t working for her. So she loaded her up her tray, took the cookies into the mall and the street and pushed cookies! Now “Mrs. Fields Cookies” is the most recognized – and sought after — premier cookie brand in the world.
If hoards of hungry people can pass by a stand of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and not buy, why would a home owner think just putting up a “for sale” sign or listing on MLS will bring them an eager buyer, hungry to buy their house?
I know you love your home. You probably think it’s the greatest house ever, and maybe it is. But the lesson here is that you have to do more than show up and wait, whether you are selling chocolate chip cookies or selling your house. You’ve got to sell proactively. You must grab people’s attention. You must stand out from the crowd. You’ve got to “sell” it!
That is just what I teach you to do in The Truth About FSBO.
Why I Love “Build A Sign”
One of the companies I highly endorse is BuildASign.com . You’ll notice their name under my “Helpful Products” on the lower left of this page. Not only do I love their customizable signs and their prices, I love the company philosophy. Visit the “Press Room ” on their site and you’ll see what I mean.
Some of their good deeds in the past two years have included:
- Giving away 20,000 free, customizable banners (we’re talking a generous 3ft. x 6 ft.!) to military families to welcome home soldiers.
- Giving away 100,000 free customizable signs during the election to encourage people to vote.
- Giving away $1,000,000 (that’s right – one million) worth of signs to businesses in hurricane affected areas to revitalize small businesses.
That is pretty impressive, isn’t it?
So whether you need to a “for sale” sign to sell your own house, or for any other occasion, please remember BuildASign.com !
This is a Really Bad “For Sale by Owner” Sign
For Sale By Owner (FSBO) Sign
Now here is a REALLY bad example of a for sale sign. I assume it’s a joke. However, truth is usually stranger than fiction, so you never know! If it’s for real, I guess the seller must have buyers lined up waiting to live next door to the “bad word” neighbor.
The Three Best Things to Have on Your “For Sale by Owner” Sign
The three best things to have on your FSBO “for sale” sign are probably not what you think. First of all it’s NOT “for sale by owner”! Most FSBO signs look like this:
For Sale By Owner Sign
It says “for sale by owner” loud and clear. We got it, but really, who cares? Next there will be a phone number hand written in the white space that no one can read.
The #1 best thing your sign can say is “100% financing”. You only say this if it’s true, of course! Talk to your mortgage broker and see if he can offer such a program. That will get attention!
The #2 best thing your sign can say is “owner financing”. Again, you can only say this if it’s true! If you have a lot of equity in your house, could you offer at least partial owner financing? This will open doors to a whole new set of buyers.
The #3 best thing your sign can say is www.123MainStreet.com (fill in your address, of course). You can get a single property website for your house that will really make your marketing efforts stand out. Signs with websites have been shown to increase interest in your house by 82% ! Let’s face it, buyers would rather look at your house online than have a conversation with you, just yet.
At BuildASign.com there are many perfect templates for home selling, and you can get a great looking custom sign for under $30!
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