The Importance of Proper Marketing and How to Save Thousands Selling your Home in Saskatoon

In 2018, the success rate of selling a home in Saskatoon was only 42%.  Despite a total of 7,956 listings that were added last year to Saskatoon’s MLS®, only 3,343 sales were reported.

That means that 4,613 of those 7,967 listings failed to sell.

There are a number of factors that contribute to the successful sale of a property, and there are only a handful of these factors that you and I can actually control.

Here’s how my clients get their homes SOLD:

The four P’s are the golden ticket to success in selling a home in Saskatoon: Preparation, Presentation, Promotion, and Pricing. We can manipulate all four of those items in order to attract a reasonable offer from prospective buyers.

• Are you willing to pay top dollar for something that isn’t superior to similar products on the market? In order to properly prepare the property for the market, you and your agent must plan a coercive marketing plan that will effectively sell the home.
• How your property is presented to the public with tie in with the preparation, but there are some ongoing tasks that will aid in presenting as 10/10 throughout the time on the market.
• A diverse and inclusive marketing plan will reach the most potential buyers. There are many other marketing tools than the MLS®, which is still one of the most potent promotional devices; but other tools may have more impact these days.
• Pricing your home with careful thought and consideration will result in getting the highest possible price while appealing to other buyers as an attractive option. Price is the last toggle we want to manipulate. If the preparation work is executed properly, the property is presenting at its very possible best to the public, we’re utilizing all of our marketing tools, and we haven’t received a reasonable offer in a reasonable timeframe; then nothing is likely to change until the price does.

How homes are chosen for viewing by potential buyers, and what’s changed

Prior to delving into these steps, it’s important to acknowledge the changes that have taken place in the industry over the last few years:

Before the popularity and accessibility of the internet took the world by sweeps, real estate agents used to pick and choose which homes their potential buyers would be viewing. Now, (according to the National Association of Realtors) 83% of buyers are searching online for their future home.

Your Realtor® should be ensuring that your home is being exposed to the largest number of prospective buyers as possible, using the most alluring presentation possible.

Rather than depending on other agents to get your listing out to their prospective buyers, we need to take matters into our own hands and make sure all potential buyers are seeing your product. Since the majority of buyers are doing their own online searching, we must ensure your home listing is being seen by those buyers with the goal of getting them and their agents to step foot in the property.

Essentially, the more eyes and physical showings on and of the property, the higher the chance of a potential buyer attaching emotionally to the home, and submitting an offer.

PREPARATION & PRESENTATION

Every seller has the same goal: to receive the highest offer and collect as much possible from the sale.  In order to make that happen, the home must be shown in its best light. Buyers want to view a home that is similar to a show home: organized, staged, and clean. The details cannot be overlooked; these are the cornerstones of proper preparation.

An experienced decorator with a keen eye for detail will provide the best advice in order to appeal to the masses. The suggestions from the experts and efforts required in order to carry out those suggestions will deliver value that the groundwork of the marketing plan, and the four P’s depends upon. There’s a psychology to the preparation that will translate to a buyer’s eye, and sometimes as sellers who live in our own homes – our eyes see things differently.

This stage and advanced planning and preparation will be but a beginning.  There is more work to be done to reach the goal of achieving the highest price possible for your property, like preparing properly for showings.  You can find more information in my Seller’s Guide.

Keeping in mind that buyers are seeing your home for their first time online, this will essentially be the first ‘showing’ that potential buyer experiences. We want to ensure the first impression makes an impact.

The majority of home buyers searched websites for their future home, according to the National Association of Realtors 2016 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers.

This may not come as a shock, but those home buyers found quality photos and detailed information to be of influence.

These days, this information likely isn’t surprising, but did you know that quality photos affect the price a buyer is willing to pay?

In a study completed in 2013 said “For homes listed between $200,000 and $1 million, Redfin found that homes with listing photos taken with DSLR cameras sell for $3,400 to $11,200 more relative to their list prices.”

It’s heartbreaking to see million dollar homes hit the MLS® and the photos were taken with a cell phone, or worse – with an old camera and a digital date in the corner! There’s even a Facebook group called “really bad MLS photos” where 11,600+ members get a kick out of the poor service these agents are providing to their clients.

High-Quality professional photos and a well-written description of the home and its features are the lifeline to an in-person showing.  The more showings, the better chance of a good offer.

The bearing this preparation work holds is something that should be taken very seriously and it truly is the foundation to achieving the highest potential appeal and effect that the home and neighborhood will have on a potential buyer.

One of the latest pieces of technology that will aid in reaching more buyers, is a virtual tour of the home. The equipment uses 3D technology to scan each area of the home to allow for users to experience a virtual walk-through of each part of the home. Here’s a peek at how it looks:

PROMOTION

The second most important toggle that we can control in any market, is the way that your listing is promoted to potential buyers.  Since most buyers are searching online for their next home, having an online presence is paramount in meeting the goal of ending up in front of the most people possible.

According to NAR’s Home Buyer and Seller Generational Trends Report for 2017, 67% of home buyers actually first viewed the home they bought online.

There are numerous real estate websites out there, but is your listing reaching them all? Who, and how many potential buyers is it actually reaching?

In order to have the largest and farthest reach, your listing must show up on every possible means.  Here are some of the sites where I ensure your listing shows up.

These sites all receive syndication via Point2 Homes, which you must be a paying member of.  Most agents don’t invest in having an online presence, but I believe that since that’s where most buyers are looking, you’d be ignorant to cheap out on something so obviously valuable to a real estate marketing plan and ultimately – you.

Don’t forget about all of the local real estate websites, branded brokerage websites (like Remax, Century 21, Coldwell Banker etc.), Realtor.ca, and of course the MLS®. Want to know how many people are viewing your listing from each of these sources? Tracking this information for you is also a good indicator of how your listing is performing.

One of the other increasingly vital tools is social media. Why not make use of an existing audience and direct even more potential buyers to your listing? A large local social media following helps get your listing exposed.

That descriptive text that goes along with the beautiful professional photos? Keywords are used strategically, again – so that your listing gets the most exposure to the people who are searching for homes like yours.

PRICING

It’s important to remember that market value is defined as the most money that a willing buyer might pay for your property, and we won’t know that number until the home actually sells.  All the marketing in the world can’t sell a grossly overpriced home.

You can count on the “value range” approach in evaluating your property leaving you fully educated about all possible scenarios (including best, and worst). We’ll discuss what is required to meet your price objectives, and you can depend on my expertise for guidance on how to reach those objectives realistically in today’s market.

As mentioned above, the market will be the final judge of your homes value. Each person perceives value differently. The “3 P’s” discussed in this article are indispensable and play the most significant role in how potential buyers are viewing your home. This is where most other agents fail in providing value to you as a seller.