Building a Strong Online Presence When Trying to Sell Your Home

If you're trying to sell your home in this market, you really need to know how to show it off. You need your home to stand apart from the competition and in order to do that, there may be one factor you have not considered when selling, and that is how your home looks online.

First of all, one of the most important steps in listing and selling is making sure that you have a good online presence; why is that so important?

We know it's always been "location, location, location" when it comes to real estate. Well it's the same way with marketing; we've got to get the home marketed where the most amount of traffic is. The last statistic I heard was that 90% of all shoppers are going online first before they go out and look at their first home. Wow! That's pretty high, right? So make sure it's looking good.

What types of online marketing should people be expecting from their realtor?

Well it's really important to get that property where the most amount of online traffic is; realtracks.com is where the most amount of local traffic is, but we want the whole world looking at our property. So many times we're dependent on outside people coming into the area to purchase our property, so realtor.com is the most heavily trafficked site worldwide. They also allow your realtor to put more pictures on the site for an extra fee. And actually, a lot of people have started shopping based on the number of pictures that are available for viewing.

Why do you think this is one of the most useful ways to be marketing your home?

We live in a society that wants instant gratification or instant information. We are a visual society. We have one opportunity to make that first impression. When we look online to see that picture, that is the home as far as we're concerned. And right now the market is very unforgiving. There is so much to look at, we're looking for reasons to narrow those options down and visually is one of the quickest ways to do it. Price first, and then the next thing is, "If I don't like the looks of the home from the outside picture, or the inside, I'm not going to go look at it."

We've all heard about staging your home and most people think, "Ok, I'm going to have a realtor come in, I'm going to get rid of the clutter, focus on the entryway, and that kind of thing." A lot of people are not thinking of the photos and staging the photos.

It's really important that people understand that it's all about getting traffic into the house. If people don't like the pictures they are seeing online they are not going to come and look at the house. There are services available where you are able to virtually provide furniture for a property that's already vacant. When looking at an empty room online, there is nothing attractive about it, but if you see the same room after it has been filled with virtual furniture, it is much more inviting.

Let's talk about virtual staging - this can be done with computers?

Yes, if you are trying to sell a home that is already vacant, you can stage it with virtual furniture for your online photos. For example, imagine an empty living room - then imagine it with furniture in it - how much more inviting is that? Remember it's getting people in the front door; that's what it's going to take to sell the property. People have got to get emotionally attached to the home; if they don't get emotionally attached to the home, they don't buy the home. Having rooms furnished in the photos makes such a drastic difference. Again, it's all about getting traffic in the home. If you can't get people in the front door, you can't sell the home.

There is also a unique home-selling program being used by many people. Here are the basics of how it works...

This is an exciting new way for people to save money. If you are looking to buy a home, but you have one to sell first, find a real estate agent that will waive their entire listing fee as long as you agree to purchase your next home with that agent. By waiving their listing fee you can take what you are saving in commission and lower the price of your home to better compete in the marketplace. Remember, we are dealing with a very distressed market out there. It's very important to price your home correctly and this type of arrangement can potentially help you save thousands and thousands of dollars. All you need to do, is agree to purchase your next home through the same agent which is where he or she will make their commission.

People using this type of home-selling program have experienced such success as selling their homes in 2 days, to 10 days, to 15 days, to 30 days; much quicker than others in today's market. Here is one specific example:

A couple had their home on the market for six months before their current agent came along. All they were trying to do is just get out of the payment; they didn't have any equity. But when their agent waived the sales commission, they were able to price their home lower because they weren't being charged anything to sell the home. Then, with the new lower price, it sold within 30 days for full price.