Roxborough Real Estate: 10 Steps to List & Sell Your Home
By Jon Miller
The Roxborough real estate market is competitive, some homes sit on the market while others sell. To have the best chance of being the house that sells, you'll need an effective marketing plan. The following list will help you to find the right marketing plan for you when you're ready to list.
1. What's Your Bottom Line
You can get a sense of real estate values, and what your home can sell for, by searching Roxborough real estate online. Since those homes haven't yet sold, the asking price may not be the best indicator of value, but it's a start. For a better indication of the value of your home, use our Roxborough Home Value Estimate Tool. This online tool will give you an automatic estimate of the value of your home in less than 2 minutes. For the most accurate estimate of your home, you'll want a Comparative Market Analysis of the value of your home from an experienced Roxborough real estate agent.
Once you have the value of your home, you can estimate what you'll get from the sale of your home by subtracting about 8-10% for taxes, closing costs, and commission. You'll also need to subtract your mortgage payoff, which you can get by calling your lender.
2. Should You Rent or Sell?
For most people, taking on a second job as a landlord isn't appealing, but for the right person it can be a good choice. If you become a landlord, you'll need to get the necessary permits and licenses and research the legal aspects. You can get an idea of what you can get for rent by searching through online ads. A common formula is that your rent should be 25% more than your mortgage payment to allow for vacancy, taxes, maintenance, repairs, and additional fees. If you're planning on hiring a management company so that you don't have to take late night phone calls, plan on an additional 10%. If these costs don't add up, selling might be the way to go. Forbes.com offers a free rent vs. sell calculator.
3. Choose an Agent
Choose an agent based on their marketing strategy, their knowledge of the Roxborough real estate market, and the value that they bring rather than simply choosing an agent who discounts their commission or tells you the highest price. While these may sound good, you may end up leaving money on the table if your home isn't advertised aggressively and if buyers are turned off when they compare your home to others offered at the same price. Remember, if a price seems high to you, it probably will to buyers, too.
4. Get Your Home Ready to Sell
It's certainly possible to snap a few photos from a smartphone and get your home on the internet tomorrow. But, a home that is clean, organized, and ready to show will typically sell faster and for more money than a home that isn't prepared.
While you're probably not going to re-model your home to sell it, you will have an easier time if you make it as showing-ready as possible. Painting walls, steam-cleaning carpets, washing windows, landscaping, and cleaning out gutters will go a long way for little cost. Staging your home, either by a professional or with the input of your agent, creates a welcoming environment and shows off the best features of your home. It's an investment that pays for itself since staged homes typically sell more quickly and for a higher price.
5. Get Professional Quality Photos
Nearly every home buyer sees your home online before they decide if they will call their agent and see it in person or not. If a low quality photo is their first impression, those potential buyers may choose to click to the next home on the list. A quality photo by an experienced photographer using professional equipment is the best way to make a great first impression and entice buyers to click "Get more info" instead of "See more homes."
6. Video
Your home tour video will be a great way to give potential buyers a good look at your home. Promoting the right video the right way will get your home in front of as many potential buyers as possible and help compel them to make an appointment.
7. Internet Marketing
Just about every home buyer is searching online for homes, so you'll want to make sure that your marketing strategy is heavily focused on targeting home buyers online. Of course, your home should be listed on the Multiple Listing Service so that all of the agents in the area will see it so they can show it to their buyer clients. Having your listing syndicated to as many sites as possible is the next step in being found online.
The more potential buyers that see your home, the greater your chances of a sale. Multiple blog articles about your home and neighborhood on sites like ActiveRain.com (with the paid upgrade which shows up in search engines) and on WordPress.com blogs like www.jonmillerhomes.com can be great for telling the story of your home and showing off your great photos and video tour, but only when there is a strategy to drive traffic to the site, while it's easy to build a site for your home getting traffic can be another story. When used effectively, these tools can be a powerful tool for getting your home listing seen by as many people as possible.
In addition to these, your comprehensive marketing strategy should incorporate . . .
- Multiple paid and free ads that are designed to specifically target people who are looking for a home like yours
- Search engine optimized landing pages that bring traffic from buyers who are looking in your area and for homes like yours such as this page for Roxborough, your specific community like this page for Kingsley Court, or your type of home like this page for Townhomes for Sale in Andorra.
- And, of course, a social media strategy will help get the word out about your Roxborough home for sale (when used effectively).
9. The Open House Event
It might seem like an open house isn't even necessary when you've got a great internet marketing strategy, but it's important to keep in mind that real estate transactions are still from person to person and few home purchases happen without the buyer seeing your home. An open house is a great way to let people come by and see your home. An OPEN HOUSE EVENT is a great way to bring people in who are interested in buying your home.
What's the difference between an open house and an OPEN HOUSE EVENT? An open house is putting up a sign in front of your house, maybe advertising it on Craigslist, and possibly listing it on the MLS for publication. An OPEN HOUSE EVENT is when there are 5-10 directional signs with balloons or spinners pointing passersby to your home, your event is advertised on multiple channels including in the listing syndication and manually entered into big sites that don't pull the syndicated open house, and it's posted on the MLS so agents with interested buyers see that they can bring or send them to see your house. For a well-priced home in the right location, this can be a great tool.
10. Traditional Marketing
Even when you're marketing strategy is geared towards internet marketing, you'll still benefit from traditional marketing as well. A sign out front lets neighbors know that you're home is for sale and since the people who live in the community are often the best advocates, they may know someone who they'd like to have as their new neighbor. It's also a great idea to have a professionally designed Sell Sheet as a take-away for visitors as a reminder of your home for when they go home and decide on which home they want to make an offer.
When a well-priced home has a comprehensive and effective marketing plan that covers both internet and traditional tactics, the chance of being the home that sells increase dramatically.
Thank you for reading Roxborough Real Estate: 10 Steps to List & Sell Your Home. For an online estimate of your home's value, please click the link. If you're ready to list your home for sale, call Jon Miller for more information about how to market your home successfully. Jon can be reached at 215-839-6034 or by email at jon@jonmillerhomes.com.
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