We are excited about the newly improved Drag-and-Drop Furniture Planner that's included with every Picture Plan. Here's a direct link so that you can play with it yourself: http://vis-home.floorplanner.com/v291685
Besides improving the look of the furniture planner, each Picture Plan now includes a 3D rendering like this one:
The furniture planner is included with every Picture Plan, like this one: www.vis-home.com/demo1
Each Picture Plan includes:
* An Unlimited number of Professional Photographs - giving you complete control over what your buyers see.
* A Drag-and-Drop Furniture Planner - builds a buyer's emotional connection with your listing by planning their own furniture inside your listing.
* A Neighborhood Amenity Map - real world reviews of businesses surrounding your listing to help buyers envision their lives there.
* 3-Click Craigslist Posting - exposes a professional eflyer promoting you and your listings for free!
* Custom Description for every photo - drawing buyers attention to room details they would have missed otherwise.
Considering the unparallel value Picture Plans give you, the price can't be beat. You get unlimited photographs, a floorplan, and all the features listed above for less that $85 on a 1000 sq ft listing.
Recently, I was talking with a friend from New York about why real estate prices are falling nationwide. The conversation turned to a discussion about why some cities felt the pain more so than others.
He advanced the theory that it was all due to sub-prime mortgages - the higher the percentage of all mortgages in a given metro area, the higher the foreclosure/short sale rate and the greater the price decline.
I agreed that this factor impacts the number of properties entering the market, but the price is also largely impacted by the number of buyers. And buyer confidence, I think, can be well measured by the unemployment rate.
After I hung up, I thought more about it and did a bit of internet sleuthing the results of which are below. Which of these factors do you think is more important?
As more listings are input into the MLSs, the question remains - who will buy them?
The NAR predicts that this season's first-time buyers will comprise the largest share of total home buyers. According to the same study released in August 2008,
Furthermore, the average first-time buyer was 30 years old – 12 months younger than the first time buyers in 2007. In leiu of the recent dramatic downturn in the financial markets, this trend is sure to continue growing. These younger buyers have less invested in the market (through 401ks, etc.) and therefore rely less on their investments for income. They've remained relatively immune to the financial crisis and view the drop in housing prices as an opportunity to buy. In contrast, older buyers whose net assets have taken a significant hit in the past few months, are more skittish.
With this new younger market's buying power and importance increasing, how do you ensure that these buyers learn about your listings?
When asked where they first learned about the home purchased, 34% of all buyers from July 07 – June 08 said a real estate agent; 32% the Internet; 15% from yard signs; 7% from a friend, neighbor or relative; 7% from home builders; 3% a print or newspaper ad; 2% directly from the seller; and 1% a home book or magazine. 84% of all homebuyers begin their search online - but that already impressive percentage is even higher with first-time buyers.
Since the objective of listing marketing (MLS posting, newspaper advertisements, etc.) is always to get potential buyers to see the property in person, your marketing budget should reflect that reality. You should spend more money on exposing your listings to other brokers and advertising online and less on print ads in newspapers and magazines.
The best way to quantify the usefulness of any internet presentation is it’s “stickiness” – how long a visitor is likely to interact with it. This requires that the presentation not only contain relevant content, but be engaging enough to keep the visitor's attention. A typical online visitor spends 45 seconds to a minute looking at a traditional virtual tour, 2-3 minutes with an interactive floorplan and 4-5 minutes looking at a Picture Plan.
A Picture Plan includes a floorplan integrated with an unlimited number of professional photographs, a drag-and-drop furniture planner AND a neighborhood amenity map with real world reviews. You can check out a sample Picture Plan here:
Each Picture Plan includes an unlimited number of photographs, a drag-and-drop furniture planner and our new neighborhood amenity map - for only $85. Go to ChicagoPicturePlans.com or call 877.847.8077 to learn the details of this offer.
* An Unlimited number of Professional Photographs - giving you complete control over what your buyers see
* A Drag-and-Drop Furniture Planner - convinces your buyers online that their furniture fits your listing
* 3-Click Craigslist Posting Procedure - posts a professional eflyer promoting you and your listings for free!
* A Neighborhood Amenity Map to help your buyers envision their lives at your listing's neighborhood.
* Customized Description for every photo - drawing buyers attention to room details they would have missed otherwise
* A 3-D rendering of your Picture Plan - which traditionally would cost hundreds of dollars
Good Afternoon, SellTheDamnListing.com is proud to announce our first free luncheon workshop on marketing your listings.
SellTheDamnListing.com lets you discuss the tips, tricks and tools that Chicago's real estate experts use to sell their listings. In this workshop, we've teamed up with Real Support Inc and DB Designs to help you optimize your listing marketing. DB Design offers Smart StagingSM services in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs to help busy homeowners prepare their properties for sale. RealSupport Inc. offers Real Estate agents marketing and administrative support "virtually" and will talk about how to have a marketing team at your fingertips, not at your office. I will facilitate a discussion about how you can improve your internet marketing without spending more money out of pocket.
Besides a free lunch, the 10/15 workshop will include discussions on internet marketing and staging with two local experts in those fields. The event will be held 12 - 2 pm at 1 E. Superior St. Suite #604 and is free to all members of the Chicago Association of Realtors. To make sure there's enough food for everyone, please use the registration form below: www.smartfloorplan.com/orders/bin/workshop.php
Good Afternoon, SellTheDamnListing.com is proud to announce our first free luncheon workshop on marketing your listings.
SellTheDamnListing.com lets you discuss the tips, tricks and tools that Chicago's real estate experts use to sell their listings. In this workshop, we've teamed up with Real Support Inc and DB Designs to help you optimize your listing marketing. DB Design offers Smart StagingSM services in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs to help busy homeowners prepare their properties for sale. RealSupport Inc. offers Real Estate agents marketing and administrative support "virtually" and will talk about how to have a marketing team at your fingertips, not at your office. I will facilitate a discussion about how you can improve your internet marketing without spending more money out of pocket.
Besides a free lunch, the 10/15 workshop will include discussions on internet marketing and staging with two local experts in those fields. The event will be held 12 - 2 pm at 1 E. Superior St. Suite #604 and is free to all members of the Chicago Association of Realtors. To make sure there's enough food for everyone, please use the registration form below: www.smartfloorplan.com/orders/bin/workshop.php
Good Afternoon, SellTheDamnListing.com is proud to announce our first free luncheon workshop on marketing your listings.
SellTheDamnListing.com lets you discuss the tips, tricks and tools that Chicago's real estate experts use to sell their listings. In this workshop, we've teamed up with Real Support Inc and DB Designs to help you optimize your listing marketing. DB Design offers Smart StagingSM services in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs to help busy homeowners prepare their properties for sale. RealSupport Inc. offers Real Estate agents marketing and administrative support "virtually" and will talk about how to have a marketing team at your fingertips, not at your office. I will facilitate a discussion about how you can improve your internet marketing without spending more money out of pocket.
Besides a free lunch, the 10/15 workshop will include discussions on internet marketing and staging with two local experts in those fields. The event will be held 12 - 2 pm at 1 E. Superior St. Suite #604 and is free to all members of the Chicago Association of Realtors. To make sure there's enough food for everyone, please use the registration form below: www.smartfloorplan.com/orders/bin/workshop.php
I apologize for not posting regularly the past month. I was on vacation seeing this great nation of ours and unable to post.
Port Aransas, Texas, Washington D.C., Traverse City, MI. whew! It’s good to be back!
Now, let’s get right into it
According to the NAR (National Association of Realtors), in 1995, 41% of buyers relied on open houses to sell their home. In 2000, that number dropped to 28%. As the market began to heat up in 2003, the number began rising. In 2005, the last year the NAR made this information available, that number was 51%.
In 2005, 51% of sellers were using open houses, even though they found its effectiveness questionable. 45% of seller felt open houses “somewhat useful”, while 12% didn’t consider them useful at all.
With this modern reality in mind, you should first consider putting your listing on MLS or realtor.com with some informative and flattering photos or a virtual tour (i.e, PicturePlans). This marketing effort should be in coordination with an email campaign targeted to other agents.
Online marketing has changed the game. Play it right.
So then, why should you hold an open house?
Benefits: -Meet prospective clients -Get feedback on the home -Use the Open House as a part of a comprehensive marketing campaign -Demonstrate to the seller what a great job you’re doing
More importantly, unless you properly prepare, coordinate and execute the open house, all efforts are for naught.
I will be posting a series of posts detailing the steps and reasons on how to prepare, coordinate and execute the most effective open house.
Do you guys still hold open houses? What kind of success have you had?
Realtor.com leads the pack with a 8.8% share while the second place site, realtytrac.com (a site that deals exclusively with foreclosures) only has 3.7%.
What makes Realtor.com especially attractive (and overwhelmingly popular) to online viewers is that they don’t have to sign up to look at the listing details. This feature also makes it tougher for you to track & capture the leads that your listing on Realtor.com has garnered – so, how do you overcome that?
Give the viewers what they want – Information.
You can do that by several different ways:
-A “Showcase” account which can be pricy (depending on which brokerage you’re working with) but allows for 25 photos and additional verbiage.
-Or for a $20 fee you can post a link in the virtual tour field – this gives you a practically unlimited canvas to grab the viewer’s eye.
The newest version of PicturePlans addresses this issue by including a custom text description (200 character limit) for every one of the unlimited photographs that’s included with each package.
How do you use Realtor.com to attract attention to your listings? What tools are the most effective on Realtor.com? Or, if you hate realtor.com, which websites have you found to be more useful?
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
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