If I could do only ONE thing to market my seller's home it would be put it in MLS. I spend a heck of a lot of money being part of my MLS and for good reason. It reaches the folks 99% likely to sell my listings. It lets me compile the majority of the information I need to advise my clients properly on pricing, days on market, competition, market analytics and everything else an informed agent should know. I can prospect from it. I can email from it. I can upload my listings to most major home search engines from it now because of Listhub.

A big shout out to Jennifer Allen in Realty Times for the great article that made me laugh remembering every seller who ever smugly asked me ‘So what are ya gonna do if my house doesn't sell?" Her answer inspired me to share these thoughts on how I use the best trick in my bag.

"Frankly, the MLS system is an incredibly efficient system to sell houses and there's nothing we can do individually to out-market that MLS." Good point Jennifer...

So why do so many agents put up listings with no pictures and little or no data?
I fill in every possible field with verified information. I make sure every room has measurements, lot size is entered, schools are verified and the sellers' names are spelled correctly. (None of this ‘Call Listing Agent' for name. Come on...I can go to the online tax records just like anybody else. Which reminds me...I make sure my clients know that all their information is available. It will not be a secret from anyone when they bought, who owns the house or what they paid for it.) I scan for upload ALL of the seller signed addenda and disclosures necessary to write a contract. I have a professionally drawn floor plan prepared for upload. I write ad copy...real ad copy. Not just the abbreviated ‘realtor' short copy so many of us are fond of using. I decide what the "headline" will be to get buyers jazzed about reading more. It's all ready for me to copy/paste, in every variation I will need, for every medium I will use to promote this listing.

I hire a professional photographer...every time.
I don't care if your listing is $100,000 or $600,000...you get professional pictures. LOTS of professional pictures. One for every single slot available on MLS, my company website, Realtor.com and any place else it will be syndicated. Then I prepare an entire series of pictures, optimized for the web, sized perfectly for the display and number them, in order of importance, the way I want them to show up in all of those places. I name each one so I can recognize it without looking at the thumbnail during upload. I want the order to approximate walking through the house if at all possible. I prepare the virtual tour. No fish eye stuff. Professional pictures, that load quickly, panning to appropriate music (which can be shut off for folks surfing at work or late at night) and lots of clickable links on a floor plan to see what the house looks like from every direction.

I have a checklist and I'm not afraid to use it.
I do not even consider clicking SUBMIT in MLS until I have absolutely everything ready to load. Once my listing hits the Daily Hotsheet it has every single thing attached to it that a buyer or their agent could possibly desire to get them interested enough to make a showing appointment or write a contract. And there is another very good reason for that; Listhub, the awesome ability to syndicate your listing with no further effort on your part. But beware. It is a very bad idea to syndicate listings entered in dribs and drabs. Listhub may update daily but some sites still take days to display your listing...and days to pick up a correction...sometimes they never get picked. How long do you want your listing out there on Zillow or Yahoo with no pictures, sparse or bad data? I shudder at the thought.

Last but not least, I go to those major sites and ‘claim' my listing.
I cannot imagine anything worse than having an interested buyer ask a question and not have it get to me in a timely fashion. Or worse having a disgruntled neighbor or other anonymous person make a comment about my listing on a syndicated site that I am not aware of and haven't had the opportunity to provide the actual facts that will counteract the damage.

We work hard for the money.
Once you've done all the work of getting the listing, staging it, pricing it and preparing your client for showings, why in the world would you want Opening Day to be more fizzle than sizzle? Jennifer Allen says it best...

"Wouldn't it make more sense to hit the market with all guns blazing?"