Tips for Writing Market Reports
As many of you may know, I spend a great deal of time preparing market reports for Franklin TN. Not only do I produce reports for Franklin TN as a whole, but also for many of the Franklin TN neighborhoods.
I was recently asked by an agent why I produce so many reports. After all, the majority of us find them boring.
Simply put, I produce market reports because they get a response. If you are producing market reports and your phone isn't ringing, you need to change what you're doing. If your market reports get the attention of consumers, then keep doing what you're doing.
I find that buyers and sellers usually want to know three things:
- What's the housing market like? Are we in a buyer's or a seller's market?
- What prices are homes selling for these days?
- What do the homes look like that recently sold?
I follow the market data with a brief explanation of what I observe in the market and a photo of a home from the neighborhood. In some cases, it may be of a home I sold or just an example of what's available in that particular neighborhood.
Market reports with too many charts and graphs are hard for most people to follow. You'll get much better response by showing a photograph of a home, than you will a chart. For this reason, it's important to use a photo of a home from the neighborhood, not a home in a nearby community. Give consumers what they want.
If you do produce charts, then make sure you have some type of explanation to go along with it. In a previous career as a cost analyst for a major bank, I often prepared graphs and charts for the department heads. These were educated people with lots of degrees. The response was always the same--just give it to me in English, what does all this mean?
Consumers are much the same. They want to know, what do all the numbers mean and how do they impact them as buyers or sellers?
Not only will consumers thank you, but you'll see better rankings from the search engines. Search engines don't read charts, they read content. When I first started posting market reports many years ago, I just provided a chart with all the data; no explanations. I didn't understand why I wasn't ranking with the search engines. It wasn't until I started providing an explanation of the data, that I started ranking for those market reports.
What do consumers want to know?
The number of homes recently sold, the average or median sales price, the average days on the market and the available inventory. I also provide the number of pending sales and the absorption rate. My explanation is just a few sentences to help buyers and sellers make sense of the numbers.
When buyers and sellers see this, they know I am the authority for my marketplace. Since I produce market reports for the top selling Franklin TN neighborhoods, I can quickly pull the data up when showing homes or when I'm questioned about a particular neighborhood.
Along with a photo of a representive house, I provide links to my website that takes consumers directly to the page on my site for the homes appearing in the report. I also take them to links for information about buying real estate in Franklin TN and selling real estate in Franklin TN.
That's it. Everything a buyer or seller might want to know about the top ranking neighborhoods in Franklin TN. I close with a clear call to action.
Follow these tips for writing market reports and your phone will be ringing too.
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