Selling Your Lake Forest Home: Beyond Marketing

Selling your Lake Forest home takes marketing, of course. Highlighting its features—the

specific details that the Lake Forest MLS lists for every property—is only the beginning. The

number of bedrooms, square footage, lot size—even the architectural style—all help buyers

eliminate offerings that won’t satisfy their housing requirements.

These are quantitative marketing specifics that qualify a residence. Most have numbers

attached. They’re also the basis for the “comps” that the bank or other mortgage lender will use to

estimate your property’s market value. But they are only the first step in selling your Lake Forest

home. They can (hopefully, will) interest buyers—but they don’t do much more than that.

What’s missing is emotion. A point of view. A brand.

For instance, say yours is one of the oldest homes in your Lake Forest neighborhood. Was it

built before 1917? Then it’s out of the ordinary: a genuine antique! It’s historic. In fact, Turn of the

Century craftsmanship can be experienced throughout—so the listing blurb will include that kind

of language.

So far, so good. But now all we need is that one more thing that assures that your Lake

Forest home will be the one that sticks in prospective buyers’ memories. We need a brand!

Often, a memorable name does the job handily. If your house really is antique, but whose

only identity is its street address, naming it could be long past due! 416 Plover Drive might benefit

from becoming “Plover House” or “the 416 House” or if the back yard overlooks a bucolic copse,

“Oakview House.”

Naming is only one way to make branding an integral element in selling your Lake Forest

home. For a residences that are less distinctive, branding may touch on some external aspect that

make living there desirable. A condominium with club facilities and a particularly lively social

scene could be championed as “More Than a Condo: a Lifestyle.” If the location is eminently

convenient, its brand could be “Life in the Middle of Everything!” If the opposite is true, the

property may well be your own “Private Retreat.”

Branding is a creative exercise, so it’s hard to describe exactly what makes it work best. But

there are two qualities that mark successful branding. First, it should emblemize an out-of-the-
ordinary facet that resonates emotionally (the intellectual appeal has already been covered in the

listing details). The other key ingredient is truth. The brand makes a promise that must be kept.

Being memorable is only useful in selling a home when the memory is positive—and that means

the brand has to ring true.

Putting in the extra creative effort that adds a brand to your home’s marketing blitz is just

one of many ways I bring my clients success in selling their Lake Forest home. Another one of the

reasons to give me a call!