Real Estate Marketing 101

Tips for Selling a House

Many people think that putting a sign in front of their house, property, apartment or condo is enough to sell it –and sometimes it is in a hot market. However, when the market softens those looking to sell their home need a little real estate professional's marketing know-how to gain qualified leads and ultimately secure the sale of their home. Here is why it’s important to market a property and tips for selling a house:

Why Market
If done properly, marketing generates awareness, leads and ultimately sales. One easy way to remember the cornerstones of marketing is through the 4 Ps: product, price, placement and promotion. If your flip house is your product, it needs to be priced, placed and promoted effectively for maximum exposure and return.

Before any external marketing can be done, get your product—or house, in order. One element people often forget is the outward appearance and cleanliness of their property. They try to sell a house with shabby landscaping and a less-than-perfect exterior and interior. This is product and sales suicide. Get your product sales-ready before you begin to price, place and promote.

Placement and promotion are foundational to generating awareness and interest in a property. Placement ensures you are choosing the right media and promotion is the act of communicating the listing through each medium.

Therefore, in order to create qualified leads and make sure your listing is top of mind for your target market, the right channels need to be chosen to market your home.

How to Market
Although a realtor will likely suggest tried and true advertising ideas, it’s also good for the seller to have an understanding of why marketing a home is important.

In order to choose the best communication outlets for the sale of your house flip, draw from the data you collected on your target market. Once you know who you’re selling to, the task of selling becomes way more focused.

For example, if your flip is a high-end waterfront estate, you may choose to market in lavish home magazines, on the web, through direct mail or with a large and luxurious property-front listing. Alternatively, a simple home in a quiet neighborhood would require a different type of exposure based on the product and target market. For a home of this nature, you’d likely want to: put a sign in front of the house, support it online and in print with pictures and details, have your realtor promote it to their network, and so on.

Marketing your home through price, staging, placement and promotion will elevate your chances of a) getting sold, and b) getting sold for the right price.