The real estate housing market in the Dallas area is still very good with home sales prices up in almost every Metroplex city. The down market for us has been mainly slower home sales which I’d take any day over a dramatic drop in sales prices. With slower sales, what can you do to help drive traffic to your home increasing your chances at finding the right home buyer to sell your home quickly?
This is where technology can really help! Today, over 80% of home buyers begin their home search online. While home buyers are viewing homes online, they are spending the majority of their time looking at a home’s pictures. Pictures speak a thousand words… especially when you only have a few hundred words available for an MLS listing description.
It absolutely amazes me that a Realtor would bother listing a home online without posting a photo with it immediately. Tens of Thousands of potential home buyers receive “just listed” properties emailed to them each month from our website, TexasHomeCentral.com. If an agent fails to post that home with at least a few pictures, most of those home buyers will not give that property a second look.
So, what is step one? Get your home picture ready and have quality photos available before the home is listed on the MLS!!!
Here are 3 more ways to use technology to capture more home buyer traffic.
- Photo Slideshows. This is a great way to add additional photos to your home’s listing and keep home buyers engaged. Every additional photo increases your homes potential to capture the right buyer. This is the best option if your budget is tight or you’d rather do it yourself. The cost can be free if you take the pictures yourself and host the images on a free site like Google’s Picasa
- Virtual Tours. For under $125, you can hire a professional company to come out to your home and capture a virtual tour of your home. Usually, they can also provide you with high-quality still photos of your home. Virtual Tours not only capture the buyer’s attention but also keep them engaged as they can move the camera around to see the home at their pace. Many virtual tour companies like Matrix Tours or Tour Factory will include a photo slideshow as part of the virtual tour package. Virtual Tours are my favorite option unless the home is a very high-end home in which case I would opt for door number 3.
- Video Tour. A video tour is a professional video shoot of a home with a voice over describing the home in detail. The cost can range between $150 (yes, it can be that inexpensive) and up to $3,000 for the highest quality video crew and voice talent. This is a wonderful option if the home has numerous upgrades and refined touches. The cost can be high but the results are fantastic if your budget allows.
Using the newest technology can be complicated if you are unexperienced but a good Real Estate Agent can and should make some of these tools available to you for free as part of their marketing package. Unfortunately, most agents do not have a marketing budget and merely list your home on the MLS which is good but hardly ideal or worth their commission.
Contact me at 800.326.9011 or via email if you have questions about using the technology described above or others you have heard about to help sell your home faster. I am always happy to help and my advice is always free!
This entry was posted on Thursday, December 27th, 2007 at 6:57 pm and is filed under Home Seller, Real Estate, Tips for Sellers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.