How To Get Your Home Found On The Internet By Potential Home Buyers
Buyers for real estate have become more tech / internet savvy and, according to most reports, over 85% of potential home buyers will look for property on the internet before contacting an agent. Will your home be easily found on the Internet?
Every agent will put a sign in your yard. Additionally, they may advertise your home in the newspaper or home magazine and hold open houses, or they will depend on their broker to pay for advertising your home. This alone will not attract the total pool of potential buyers for your home. Does print advertising really make sense today to attract home buyers to your home? With today’s educated internet buyers, it takes more than print media, open houses or a for sale sign to get your home sold for top dollar.
In fact, the ONLY thing that most agents will do is put your home on MLS (Multiple Listing Service), as that is where agents put their property listings. Don’t assume they know what they are doing when they list it there or that your home will be found there by other agents!
The MLS alone doesn't sell properties. The MLS only makes the information about your home available. An agent looking for property needs to be able to find your home among the thousands of homes for sale on any given day. Since many times a search is conducted using specific criteria (i.e.: school, area, minimum square footage, view, etc), an MLS listing is only as good as the information the agent puts into the MLS. If you choose an agent who doesn't fill EVERYTHING in, your home won't even be an option in many cases.
Do you want to put one of your biggest investments in the hands of an agent who doesn’t know that half of the homes listed on MLS may be missing information? Even if all the fields completed on the MLS, you may still get missed by an agent who pre-determines what homes to show.
Don't rely on just the MLS to sell your home! You need to put your home in front of every potential buyer in the marketplace every day until the day you sell.
The Benefits of Using a Tech Savvy Agent to Sell Your Home
So, what can a tech savvy agent do for you? If there are 3 buyers in the marketplace looking for a home just like yours, a tech savvy agent markets to find ALL 3 of them. They don’t depend on a sign in your yard or just holding an open house with the hopes that a buyer walks in and writes an offer. What happened to the other potential buyers that may be looking for a home likes yours? Is it possible that they would pay more?
Here are a few important things to consider about why you should use a proven tech savvy agent to market your home and what they will do for you:
- Inputs ALL your home data into the MLS and gives you a copy of what a realtor will actually see about your property.
- Puts multiple pictures and descriptions on the MLS so an agent can preview your home’s best features.
- Subscribes to and puts your home on Realtor.com for viewing as an “Enhanced” listing with extra descriptions and pictures for a potential buyer to view. By subscribing, an agent will get any email for additional information vs. another agent who may not know your home.
- Has multiple websites that are found on the search engines and has placement for key search terms.
- Are their website ranked by the search engines?
- Are they able to show you proof of where their websites are found?
- Are their websites found in top search positions on Google where over 50% of people looking for homes search?
- Being on page 10 of a search engine or only being found on MSN, Yahoo, or smaller search engines will not greatly help you in the marketing of your home.
- Shows you current website statistics on how many people visit their site, what pages are viewed, how many visitors area viewing your home, how they got there, etc. A good website is more than a Cyber Business Card.. it is where potential home buyers search for properties and will find your home. Having a "pretty" or "fancy" web site does not mean your property will be found by a potential home buyer.
- Promotes your home on their website(s) with a custom web page and/or custom designed, dedicated web site for your home with a specific URL for your address so your home is properly showcased and easily found on the search engines, ie: 795AvenidaSalvador.com, EagleHillsHomes.com or www.AvenidaGranada.com.
- Uses Pay Per Click on the internet search engines, if needed, so a potential buyer will find your home when searching for a home in your area, ie; Forster Ranch real estate, Forster Ranch homes for sale, San Clemente Real Estate, Featured Listings Orange County, Talega Condos For Sale, Luxury Homes in San Clemente, Cyprus Cove San Clemente, etc.
- Has a specific follow up system for all those who request any additional information about your home from their website.
- Uses email to highlight your home to all those who have registered for a home search on their site or to receive new listing information. A tech savvy agent will easily have 1,000’s of potential buyers in their database that they will broadcast your home to.
- Particpates in forums with the top web savvy agents nationwide who are at the top of the technology curve where the newest ideas are discussed. This allows them to remain ahead of the technology curve and continually learn how to optimize their web site(s) so they are found by the major search engines in top positions. This, in turn, allows you home to be easily found.
- Has been certified, by passing a test, as technology proficient, such as e-PRO (only 1% of realtors nationally) or E-Certified.
- They answer their phone to respond to potential home buyers and are proficient at using a PDA to be able to check email inquiries on a regular basis.
- They use email and rely on it as a principle marketing tool.
- Responds to email requests for information about your home immediately, while the interest is high and can send links for your home and/or virtual tours via email.
- Gets your home listed on some of the most popular real estate destinations on the web, including Harmon Homes, Yahoo Real Estate, MSN House & Homes, Homeseekers, HomeGain, Homes & Land, Trulia, Oodle, CraigsList, etc.
The benefits of using a Tech Savvy agent to sell your home will allow your home to be exposed to the maximum number of interested buyers. As a result of internet placement and a technology-driven approach that reaches more buyers in the shortest time you will get the highest possible price for your home with the best possible terms that fit your needs.
If you are interested in finding out more detailed information about how using today's technology will benefit you in the sale of your home, please contact us or call The Hartanov Team direct at (949) 481-3739.