Listing & Marketing Your Home
When you are ready to sell your home, your expectation of a listing agent is likely something along these lines: find a buyer for your home within your desired timeline for the most money possible making the whole process of selling one home and moving into another as seamless and painless as possible. Is that really so much to ask?
While we can’t create a buyer for your home, we absolute can increase the odds of grabbing more buyers’ eyes, achieve more showings, and hopefully receive more and better offers through our marketing of your home. But marketing to prospective buyers is just one aspect of the service we provide. We are experienced negotiators, carrying the transaction from offer received to sale closed. We make it a priority to keep on top of market trends and continuing education in order to provide you with solid advice from start to finish. We are in the business of customer service, keeping your interests in mind every step of the way. We are professionals. Real Estate is what we do.
So, no, that is not too much to ask.
Below we outline the 5 Ps of what we feel are our primary responsibilities to our sellers.
1. Price your property properly
Pricing is not fundamentally about what a seller needs or wants to get out of their property, nor is it about one’s intuition or first impression of the home. Competitive market pricing should always be based in real data obtained from comparable sold properties, and then strategically adjusted and set to achieve the seller’s goals. There is no responsibility more fundamental than this. An honest Realtor® will still occasionally be corrected (and even surprised) by the marketplace. The market of the past 5-7 years truly has proven the most basic definition of market value: that price at which a seller is willing to sell and a buyer is willing to buy. But no Realtor® can pull-one-over on the marketplace. The market is a powerful force which is not controlled by anyone. Pricing your property in reasonable step with the current market is responsibility number one for any Realtor®-Seller relationship.
2. Present your property in its best light.
Every home has flaws or weak points to overcome in its presentation. Our job is to present your home in a compelling and accurate way, regardless of any weaknesses. We think it is important to:
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Work with a professional photographer
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Take detailed notes and measurements in order to fill out the listing details
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Get clued in to what is most desirable about your home
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Produce attractive materials (in print and online) to showcase your home
A professional Realtor® learns what appeals to the public and knows what will sell your property. But it all must accurately represent – not over-represent – the home. If the description is unnatural in its use of superlatives and flowery sentences, a buyer can easily be turned off. We all know how key good marketing is in our world. It is imperative that one of your largest investments be presented in its best possible light in order to achieve the best possible chance of garnering the best possible price for the market.
3. Promote your property far and wide.
At The McCreith Team, we use our own resources to get your property exposed to both Realtors® and the public, and when your home sells we are compensated for our work.
Getting your home exposed to other Realtors®, who are already hand-in-hand with most of the prospective buyers in the marketplace, is almost as important as getting your home in front of prospective buyers. We want our colleagues to see your home, love it, send it to their buyers, and book a showing.
For prospective buyers viewing the home in person, we:
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Extensively detail the listing so that Realtors® showing the home can speak accurately about it
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Provide supporting materials on site for the benefit of prospective buyers, such as a full-color flyer, amenities list, or home booklet.
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Are immediately accessible by cell & email to coordinate showings and answer questions from buyers or their Realtors®
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Maintain a good working relationship in the local community among other Realtors®
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Seek to get prompt feedback for showings, which may aid in adjusting our presentation of the home
Getting your home exposed, not only locally, but also to the far corners of the world has become increasingly critical. In the post-pandemic world, we see buyers shopping online for their homes, sometimes even purchasing sight-unseen. We want our presentation of your home online to be so exhaustive that buyers would have sufficient data to confidently do that, even if it is the exception, not the rule.
4. Persuade the buyer of the value of your property.
Our marketing seeks to identify and pique the interest of buyers looking for a property such as yours. When prospective buyers are found, our job is to engage them in discussion (most often through their own Realtor®) about your home to persuade them that your property is worth every penny you are asking for it. Their Realtor® will bring concerns and objections on their behalf, and it is our job to apply what we know about your home’s value in order to remove these objections and bring them to the point of submitting an offer. Diplomacy, knowledge, and experience are key. This applies to our marketing messages, to the first showing and the follow-up feedback, to the process of negotiating terms and conditions for the offer, and all throughout the transaction. Sales is assertive, not passive. A good Realtor® will preempt problems, resolve difficulties, and broaden a buyer’s vision of what your property can do and be for them.
5. Persist through all challenges until closing.
The process from listing your home to closing the transaction can be a long one, littered with landmines and challenges to work through. Unfavorable inspections cause buyers to change their minds and kill the deal, but so does ‘buyer’s remorse’. Appraisals may throw everyone back into negotiations. Closings are late about 10% of the time. Coordinating the closing and possession of 3 or 4 transactions (that are strung together like a train between buyer and seller/buyer and seller) can stretch anyone’s patience to the breaking point and require exceptional diligence on the part of your Realtor®. Problems or concerns often erupt at the most inopportune times. No two real estate transactions are the same.
We will aim to shield you from most of the stress while still keeping you informed of every development. It is our job to solve myriad problems, find needed answers, and negotiate skillfully to endeavor to hold things together when parties are on the brink of termination. Most importantly, we prioritize maintaining our professionalism in all our interactions with clients and Brokers alike, resisting the impulse to react to provocations. This requires a determined persistence.
We tell our clients not to open the champagne until the money is in the bank, and we will truly go to bat for you.