Real Estate Blog - Blogging Success Story - This Townhome in the Central West End Sold in 72 Hours for 99% of List Price

Home : Blogs : Ryan Shaughnessy, Broker/Attorney - Your Lafayette Square Real Estate Partner : The Lafayette Report

Blogging Success Story - This Townhome in the Central West End Sold in 72 Hours for 99% of List Price

Looking to sell a condominium or townhome for sale in the Gaslight Square neighborhood of the Central West End?

PREA Signature Realty just LISTED and SOLD this townhome at 4127 Westminster Place in the Gaslight Square neighborhood of the Central West End in 72 hours for 99% of the list price. So, how did it sell so fast? It was a combination of an aggressive pricing strategy, use of video and social networks to market the property, and use of our database to get the word out.

PRICING STRATEGY: To start the process, we searched the MLS for active listings, pending sales, closed sales and expired listings. We used the closed sales as a guide to the price range. We then used the other active listings to position our sale in the range. Contrary to poplular practice, we didn't simply let the seller set an optimistic price on the hope and belief that someone would fall in love with the property and make an offer. We positioned the price of the listing $4,000 and $13,000 respectively under other properties listed for sale in the same development. Here are some of the facts and figures:

COMPARISON	AVG. SQ. FT.	DOM	AVG. SALE PRICE	AVG. PRICE / SQ.FT.
CONDO SALES-12 MOS. HISTORY-1/4 Mile Radius	1241	159	$179,382	$144
WESTMINSTER TOWNHOMES - 12 MOS. HISTORY	1472	363	$178,000	$121
WESTMINSTER TOWNHOMES - AVAILABLE	1254	52	$189,000	$151
4127 Westminster	1216	3	$179,000	$148

Now, there are two important things to notice here. Pricing the property results in a quick sale - this property sold after 3 days on market. Similarly, it garnered immediate interest from multiple parties based on the value proposition created by pricing the property below the other 2 active listings in the neighborhood. The interest garnered resulted in a substantially shorter number of days on market and a sales price that was above average both in terms of the neighborhood and the specific development.

HARNESSING THE POWER OF THE INTERNET AND SOCIAL NETWORKS: Now, others may disagree. However, we have found that the internet, social networks and e-Blasts get the word out quickly about properties we have listed for sale. So, in this case, we moved quickly to get information about the listing out to the public, prior customers, prospects and members of our sphere of influence. Here is the timeline:

Listing Agreement was signed on September 21, 2009 at 6 p.m.
Video presentation was prepared and uploaded to YouTube.com on September 21, 2009 at 10 p.m. and sent out via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and 40 other social networks.
Blog post was uploaded to ActiveRain.com on September 22, 2009, at 12:30 a.m. and sent out via Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
E-mail was sent to database of 1700 prospects on September 22, 2009, at 1:00 a.m.
Property was entered into MLS on September 22, 2009, at 2 a.m.
Tweetlister posted property on Twitter.com on September 22, 2009 at 4 a.m.

In less than 12 hours, we already had 4 showings scheduled for the property. However, it is interesting where the listing was actually viewed.

MLS: 8 Public Views / 39 Agent Views
Point2Agent: 87 Public Views
Company Website: 25 Views
Craigslist: Unknown Views
Backpage: Unknown Views
YouTube: 49 Views
ActiveRain: 85 Views
Twitter: 42 Views
Tweetlister: 25 Views
Facebook: 11 Views
LinkedIn: 42 Views
E-Blast: 62 Views
Hot Sheet E-Blast: 43 Views

Putting it in another perspective, here is a source of views by type of medium:

Websites - 159 Views
Social Networks - 127 Views
E-Mails - 105 Views

So, in this case, I can't say the blogging and social networks are the best tools for selling homes. However, I can say that this listing had good and immediate exposure to the public based on the use of our blogs and social networks. 3 of the first 4 showings were generated through Twitter, ActiveRain, and our YouTube channel. Only 1 of the 4 showings was from the MLS. Interestingly, the purchasers first viewed the property on ActiveRain and YouTube before it even appeared in their private MLS portal search.

MESSAGE TO THOSE AGENTS SKEPTICAL OF BLOGGING AND SOCIAL NETWORKS

Now, I am not going to say that blogs and social networks sell homes. Without a good marketing plan, an aggressive pricing strategy and a bit of hardwork, I doubt that a home will sell quickly or at a premium price with or without the use of blogs and social networks. However, I can say that social networking, blogging, YouTube videos and e-blasts each contributed to this sale and are additional tools to be used in marketing a home for sale. In the past year, this is the fourth sale that was driven by or at least received an assist from a post to ActiveRain that was then disseminated via Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and other social networking sites.

Interested in selling your townhome or condominium in St. Louis with a brokerage commited to harnessing the power of the internet and social networks to maximize the sales price for your home and minimize the days on market? Contact Ryan Shaughnessy at PREA Signature Realty at 314-971-4381.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

PREA SIGNATURE REALTY

PREA Signature Realty is a full service brokerage located at 1709 Park Avenue in the Lafayette Square neighborhood of the City of St. Louis. PREA Signature proudly serves the following city neighborhoods: Lafayette Square, Soulard, Benton Park, Benton Park West, Downtown Loft District, Forest Park Southwest, Central West End, Tower Grove East, Tower Grove South, Compton Heights, Shaw, The Hill, Dogtown, Carondelet, Holly Hills, St. Louis Hills, Dutchtown, and the Other Historic Neighborhoods of the City of Saint Louis, Missouri.

The opinions expressed herein represent the opinions of the author only and do not reflect the opinions of PREA Signature Realty. All photos and written content were produced by PREA Signature Realty. All Rights Reserved - PREA Signature Realty (2009). This content may not be reproduced or reprinted, except for Active Rain re-blogging, without express written permission of PREA Signature Realty.

For more information, visit our website at www.PREASignatureRealty.com or contact Ryan Shaughnessy at 314-971-4381 or send an email to Ryan@PREASignatureRealty.com.

Posted by Ryan Shaughnessy, Broker/Attorney - Your Lafayette Square Real Estate Partner on 09/25/2009 06:44 PM

Comments (25)

Blogging for Sales in the Sales Strategies / Tactics Channel

townhome for sale in gaslight square, use of social networks to sell homes, importance of aggressive pricing strategies

Originally posted at: THE LAFAYETTE REPORT: Blogging Success Story - This Townhome in the Central West End Sold in 72 Hours for 99% of List Price

This post has been included in Missouri Information Saint Louis City County, MO Information Saint Louis, MO Information
Post is included in group: The Ninety-ninth Percentile
Post is included in group: Show Me Missouri
Post is included in group: Realtors®
Post is included in group: Real Estate Rookie
Post is included in group: Dedicated Bloggers

25 Comments on Blogging Success Story - This Townhome in the Central West End Sold in 72 Hours for 99% of List Price

SEP

Ryan

That is a great achievement. Congratulations on a job well done.

That's fantastic! Congratulations....it's so true that blogging pulls us up in the search engines and it works...exposure.

Ryan,

Thanks for the post. Although I had not written down what I have done to sell my last two listings in 6 days, it followed many of the things you did to sell this townhouse! Think the real key is using the internet in every avenue possible!

Hi Ryan ~ You've really set the standard for listing posts IMO and these results are really amazing. Great to hear and super evidence to present to future sellers. Love it!

Liz

Hi Ryan,

Congratulation for the work well done. This is an indication social networks can be very helpfull in the business.

John Pusa

Ryan

Amazing work and achievement. Great job on a mission of focused energy.

This is really amazing! Not just selling it so quickly, but that you do all this tracking & organize the stats like this. It's very enjoyable---and motivating-- reading! I'm sure I share the feeling of your sellers---in awe of your brilliance! :-) (btw, what is an e-blast??)

Ryan the had to be the quickest sale you ever had. Wouldn't it be nice if they all sold that fast.

Ryan, that's excellent! Congratulations on such a quick sale. Another proof of Right Tools + Right Price = Sales.

SEP

Debbie - Our goal is to sell the home in 90 days (the average in our market is over 180 days). More than this sale, the post was more to remind my agents to price fairly (but aggressively), to promote the listing via internet and social networks, and to make sure your prospects, customers and sphere of influence know its available.

Karen - ActiveRain certainly has great SEO advantages and it gets us to page 1 of Google for our search terms. It is a great, low cost product.

Betty - We start with the internet, then MLS, then sign, post cards, etc. Internet gets me more immediate results. In this case, the listing post cards actually went out the day it sold. Oddly, at the owner's request, there was no sign in the yard.

Liz - We continue to experiment with listing posts and have received mixed results. However, I have seen some agents stuck in time where they simply put sign in yard, enter in MLS, do a classified ad in the paper and pray for someone to buy it. We obviously take a different approach.

John - I think social networks can work and provide assistance if you participate in them. Simply putting up a profile didn't work for me. However, adding blog posts and video and participating in discussions have generated leads.

Tom - We worked quietly and quickly on this one. For those owners who want to list high and then reduce over time, I think it is a mistake. If you price it right, you generate more traffic. This property sold in part because 2 other units in the same development were overpriced. It was a good value proposition.

Mara - It isn't brilliance. It is simply a formula. I think Rita has it right. RIGHT PRICE + GOOD NEIGHBORHOOD + INTERNET EXPOSURE = TRAFFIC AND SALE. We track almost all of our advertising with Google Analytics, BUD URLs, or site software. The BUD URLs are great for tracking. You can even add them to print mailers to see how much traffic they generate back to a blog post, video or virtual tour, etc. An e-blast is a formatted e-mail sent to our database of prospects, customers, or agents. In this case, we sent this one based on geography, status as renters or first-time home buyers, agents who sold in CWE and other historic neighborhoods, prospects interested in a certain price range, etc. The database sorts through the criteria. I use is sparingly usually 1x to announce the listing. I have very few recipients opt-out of receiving the e-mails because they are tailored to interest. We also use a single page website that simply has a sign up for new listings and hot properties. The customer can specify street, neighborhood, zip code, etc. They then receive properties via e-mail until they opt out. We never contact them. However, we have more than a few that then contact us.

George - It wasn't the quickest sale ever. However, it was my quickest sale in the current market. Post is less about the time to sell and more about the importance of taking a thoughtful approach to pricing, marketing and sales.

Rita - You hit it on the head. In this case, there were four big factors - price, location, walkable neighborhood/tree lined street, and deadline for first-time home buyer tax credit. We don't always have control of all of the buying factors. However, we can influence pricing, marketing strategies, etc.

Ryan,

Congratulations on the quick sale and the great SP/LP ratio.

I like the final message to the skeptical agent too.

Don - You can bet that I'm going to use this story to talk about social networking at your upcoming meeting. I look at blogging, pricing, etc. as just pieces of the puzzle. We benefited from the homes that were overpriced in the neighborhood... and yes we used that in our marketing to our advantage.

SEP

Why did it sell so quickly? Simple - You did your job and you did it well!

Congrats Ryan. And for agents who don't "get" blogging and internet marketing, that's fine. Leaves more business for us. :)

Jenny - I am still amazed by the number of agents who think listing a home means - (1) asking the seller what he wants to sell it for, (2) entering it into the MLS, (3) placing a sign in the yard, and (4) hoping it sells. I speak at other brokerages on tech issues and often get blank stares when I talk about blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. They don't get it until I place the e-mails on the table generated from these activities or tell some of the success stories. This post is going to be used in an upcoming presentation on integrating video, blogging and social networking into your listing marketing plan. They don't all come as easy as this one... but it sure helps when you price and market it right.

OCT

Hi Ryan. Congratulations for a job well done. ~ Lana

OCT

Lana - Thanks. You never know how they will go. The best laid plans can go awry. This one didn't and is going as smooth as they come.

Hi Ryan -- How did the buyer who purchased this property find it?

Chris - They saw my message on Twitter announcing a new listing with link to AR post and YouTube video. It may have been my post via Ping.fm or my listing post via Tweetlister.com. They viewed the AR post and watched the embedded YouTube video. I then sent out an e-mail to 1700 people who were interested in the area, type of housing or price range (which included the purchasers). They replied to the e-mail indicating that they had already seen the video, were interested, and wanted to view the property. The next day they viewed it in their MLS portal. Two showings on back to back days and they bought it.

Hi Ryan -- Wow, that is amazing, congrats. How did you develop a list of 1,700 people interested in a certain real estate area? Congrats again!

Chris:

We use a central database for prospects, customers, agents and vendors. We track a fair amount of data that allows us to drill down and target e-mailings. Add in names from the neighborhood association, street association and condominium association. Add corporate HR from local companies and recruiters in the immediate area. Then add any agent who has listed or sold a home within 1/2 mile of the property and top 10 agents in city condo sales. The numbers add up pretty quick.

Ryan

Hello Ryan, great job on the quick sale and thanks for sharing your traffic stats on this one! John

PS - for craigslist ads and backpage ads in the html link I add at the end "?cla" or "?bpa" and Google Analytics or my GoDaddy tracking program tally these two traffic sources. cla is usually a big number in our area.

I typically ad the Google Analytics code - just didn't get around to it. We were moving pretty fast. I love the statistics because it helps me assess what is and isn't working.

OCT

Hey this should have been featured! Really good detailed and realistic analysis - !

Thanks Liz - sounds like you had a great trip to Toronto...

Ryan,

What an awesome success story. I love to hear these!

Ann

This blog does not allow anonymous comments