subject: Marketing Your Home or Condo [print this page] Marketing Your Home or Condo Marketing Your Home or Condo
If you're thinking of selling your house or condo, you need a marketing plan. Just like any other product people buy or sell, a properties value must be communicated to the proper audience to ensure the seller gets the best possible price.
Marketing your Home or Condo means more than putting up a lawn sign and sticking an ad in your local newspaper. You need to have a complete marketing plan that takes into account your home's unique qualities, your objectives and details the specific resources available to you.
Your planning should begin as soon as you choose a Realtor, and often even before that. Part of your marketing plan will involve pricing your property, deciding when to list it and what features need to be cleaned or repaired. At this stage it is essential that you are completely honest with your Realtor about the condition of your home, your financial needs and any time constraints.
Once you have the basic information established, you need to get to the "guts" of the marketing plan, or determine how best to let people know that your home is for sale and get them excited about it. You need to keep in mind when you are planning that there are two key target audiences: home buyers and other real estate agents. You will need different marketing vehicles and slightly different information to effectively reach each audience.
There are a myriad marketing products and activities that can be utilized to help sell your home. Ask your Realtor about the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), newspaper advertising, brochures, open houses, neighbourhood mailings, online sites such as craigslist, or creatiing your own web site to promote the sale of your property, etc.
Your Realtor can help you determine which tools will be most beneficial in your particular situation and market. Whatever the plan you decide on, make certain that you are an active part of it. Reviewing the plan's success on a regular basis should be a built-in part of any successful marketing plan. This article just gives a sampling of the many ways there are to market your home, to ensure the best price possible.
