Best Practice For Marketing A Home For Sale Is To Call It What It Is!
Let's Celebrate a milestone 'earned' by Kathleen Daniels!
Congratulations for reaching 2M mark!
And here is the re-post!
Best Practice For Marketing A Home For Sale Is To Call It What It Is!
Best Practice For Marketing A Home For Sale Is To Call It What It Is!
No one wants to be fooled. No one wants to waste their time looking at homes that are listed and marketed as having 4 bedrooms when there are, in fact, only three. The same applies if the home is marketed as having 3 bedrooms and there are, in fact, only two. For most people a two bedroom is simply not an option.
I took my clients on a property tour yesterday. We had ten homes to see. It was a long 3.5 hours and we did manage to see them all. Many were clustered in the same neighborhood.
One home was marketed as a 4 bedroom with 3 bathrooms. There was a sign posted on the wall outside of one room which read "2 rooms made into 1." Well guess what folks, that makes it one bedroom and therefore a 3 bedroom home - not four. The half bath does not count as a full bathroom either. It's a half bath. The MLS should reflect 2.5 baths - not three.
One home was marketed as a 3 bedroom. I walked the house three times. I asked the open house host "Where is the third bedroom?" He said, "I'm standing in it. This was the third bedroom. I have an estimate from a contractor. It will cost $2,700 to restore it back to a bedroom exactly as it was, closet and all. I listed it as a 3 bedroom because county records shows it as a 3 bedroom."
I could have bit my tongue but I did not. I used one of Lenn Harley's words, which I love, and I said, "Balderdash! There is nothing in the listing agreement or the MLS that states we are to list what county records shows. That is just good old fashion deception. Thank you for wasting our time."
When my client and I got back into my car I said to her "welcome to my world." I apologized for the lack of honesty that caused her to waste her time. This kind of behavior makes the entire real estate industry look bad.
One home was marketed as having 3 bedrooms. It did not have 3 bedrooms. It had 2 and an office or den. The agent said "it has a closet so it is a bedroom." Sorry, it does not make it a bedroom. A window makes it a bedroom. A window is required for sleeping space. How would someone escape a fire through a closet? Is this a case of ignorance of just plain deception? Either is unacceptable to me.
If sellers know their agents are falsely advertising their home then they need to realize that it does not serve anyone to be dishonest about what their home is, and is not. If agents and sellers are willing to deceive in marketing it makes me wonder what else they may be deceptive with. Justifying deceptive practices does not excuse it.
Kathleen Daniels, Managing Broker-Owner of KD Realty, serving San Jose and Silicon Valley. Kathleen specializes in Probate Real Estate.
BRE# 01366594
And will look forward to your post tomorrow. 
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