Does Marketing Matter When Selling Your Home?

the BREL way to market a home

I hear it all the time: “A house just needs to be on MLS and it will sell”. WRONG! So, so wrong.

If simply making a product available resulted in a sale and top profit, the Nike’s and Apple’s of the world wouldn’t need to spend millions marketing their products.
True, if your home is on MLS, it will likely eventually sell – but how long will it take and how much will it sell for?

One of the most critical factors in selling your home is exposing it to as many Buyers as possible. Getting top dollar for your house means locating the right Buyer, not just any Buyer. And sometimes, that right Buyer doesn’t even know he’s looking for a new house or condo. That’s where marketing comes in.

Today we want to share some stories about how our marketing directly brings in Buyers for our Sellers:

• If you’re on Facebook (and you probably are), you’ve probably seen our property specific ads on the side of your screen. But do they work? Earlier this year, we found a Buyer for a property we had listed because of a Facebook ad – the Buyer had been receiving daily house listings from their real estate agent and only discovered the loft they ended up buying (in a spontaneous person bidding war) because they clicked on our Facebook ad. 
• We’re sort of obsessed with being on the first page of Google, and when it comes to selling your home, that matters. 93% of Buyers search for a home online. The condos and houses we list literally get thousands of views on our own website – and more than they do on realtor.ca.
• If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know I have a particular pet peeve for real estate photos taken with camera phones. Studies show that 60% of the time a Buyer spends looking at a property listing is spent looking at photos. It’s pretty normal for people to show up to our open houses and compliment our photographer. We love that.
• Buyers love virtual tours and property videos – it’s one of the best ways to let people virtually move into your space and reach out-of-town Buyers. More than once, we’ve sold properties strictly based on videos.
• A strong targeted e-mail marketing campaign is critical to getting your home seen by as many agents and potential Buyers as possible. Every day, hundreds of properties get listed on the Toronto MLS – sometimes, the only way for your property not to get lost in it all is to showcase it to the people who’ll actually care that it’s listed. Late last year, we found a $1 million+ property for one of our Buyers because of an e-mail the listing agent sent out – somehow, we’d all overlooked the property until that e-mail arrived in our inbox.
• Twitter. Facebook. Instagram. YouTube. Sometimes it’s hard to keep track of the latest social media trend, but if you’re selling your home, you need to be on ALL OF THEM. You never know where the right Buyer is spending their time online.

So…don’t trust the agent who tells you your home just has to be on MLS to sell. Don’t trust the agent who doesn’t have a solid marketing plan. And if they have a marketing plan, make sure that it’s actually about selling your home and not just selling themselves.