I’ve often thought it would be a great concept for a Reality TV show to have a crew watch my assistant and I as we try to find homes and schedule showings for our buyers. You would not believe some of the things that we see online as far as listings go. If you have ever taken the time to look up homes online, you’ve probably seen firsthand some of the craziness that I am referring to. I thought it might be helpful to list some of the top reasons listings fail to reach their audience. Even if you are listed with another agent, you may want to take a look and see if you fall into any of these scenarios. I promise you, I can’t make this stuff up!
1. Your exterior photo is from the property appraiser website, taken in 2006, complete with the date stamp on it!
2. Your agents describes your 2500 SQFT home in one sentence or even less. Ex. "Short Sale" End of description!
3. The showing instructions require the buyer’s agent to jump through hoops to show your home…and the home is vacant.
4. Your listing fails to mention anything beyond the required MLS fields. In other words, the details that buyers look for are omitted because they aren’t required by the MLS system and that would require extra work from the listing agent.
5. There are only 2 maybe 3 photos of the home and they are all exterior shots.
6. Your agent does not respond to text, phone calls or emails yet requires that you contact them for showing the home.
7. You home is priced incorrectly. NEVER price a home for example at $299,900. Price it at $300,000, that way you hit buyers looking up and down. Pricing at 299,900 just eliminated all those buyers looking between 300K and 400K, by 100 dollars. WOW!
8. You don’t have a virtual tour. Buyers like to get a better feel for the home and some sites allow you to eliminate homes without the virtual tours! Agents that dont do virtual tours are just cheap. FYI, you can do unlimited virtual tours for $30.00 a month.
9. Your listings photos have people, pets and clutter in them. Is it really that hard to ask someone to get out of the shot?
10. Your description mentions a beautiful pool and kitchen yet there are no photos that show them.
At the end of the day, you as a seller need to be aware that agents will do all of the above with the best of intentions. You owe it to yourself to fully review your listing thoroughly for content and internet exposure. Keep in mind that a good agent will send this listing out globally, so it needs to be right if you want to attract the right buyer for your home. This also means doing it right the FIRST time since once it gets pushed out, the changes made after the fact may not show up on all sites. My recommendation? Before you list, ask to see your agents current inventory online. View it as a buyer. Do they make it look good online? Do they have the right photos and verbiage? It all adds up. Make sure your listing is also accessible to the agents who will likely be showing it to their buyers. Most of all, make sure your agent is accessible to handle your listing. Can’t reach them on the phone or wait for a long time to respond to your email? They might just be too busy to do the job. Don’t get stuck for 6 months in a listing agreement with a bad agent. Did I mention my listing agreement allows you to cancel at any time for free? Call me. I’ll tell you the truth and get your home sold!
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