To sell your house first we need to define our terms; Marketing is the process associated with promotion for sale of goods or services. Merchandising means maximizing merchandise sales using product design, selection, packaging, pricing, and display that stimulates consumers to spend more. This is a very powerful quote by Paco Underhill in his book "WHY WE BUY" "We live in a tactile-deprived society, and shopping is one of our few chances to freely experience the material world firsthand. Almost all unplanned buying is a result of touching, hearing, smelling or tasting something on the premise of a store-- which is why merchandising can more more powerful than marketing, why the Internet, catalogs and home shopping on TV will complement but never seriously challenge real live stores." Paco Underhill's book is written for retail sales. House sales follows the same basic principles. There are two parts to selling your house Merchandising and Marketing. Follow my 3 easy steps to merchandise your Salt Spring Island house.
Step 1 We help you in gathering the information for the buyers...
Gather all the relevant information on your house. We live in the information age and buyers want any and all relevant information on the house they are thinking about buying. If you do not fill in all the blanks and thus leave doubts they will not buy. The buying decision is easier if all the facts are known. This is the type of information the buyers would like; building plans, building permits, title, easements, floor plans, surveys, appliance receipts, septic tank pumping receipts, telephone bills, cable bill, electric bills, Internet bills, tax notices, fire insurance docs, water bills, propane rental tank contract, home warranty documents and any strata documents.
You can go the extra mile and hire a few experts such as; - House inspector to do a house inspection and then if there are any big problems you can fix them prior to putting your house on the market. In British Columbia full disclosure is the law. Hide nothing!!!! Disclose all...
- Septic inspection company to send a high tech camera down into your septic field. With septic systems costing so much, due to the new provincial regulations, a non-serviceable system could cost you the sale. Fields can be cleaned out with powerful high pressure water.
Have a water testing company do a water test. - Surveyor to flag the property boundaries.
- Hire a energy auditor to do a household energy audit and get your EnerGiude rating for your house.
- Hire an appraiser to tell you what your house is worth.
Step 2 We help you set up the house to sell (Merchandise your house) ...
Rent a storage locker and fill it. Removing 25% - 30% of the contents of your house will make it look 50% - 60% bigger. You're planning to move anyhow, so might as well get packing. Stage your house to sell. You are not selling your home you are selling your house. Your home is all your possessions and you will be moving them to your next place you call home. A stager will make you house look and feel like a gorgeous show home. Hire a pro photographer and have them shoot a minimum of 20 incredible photos. Create a Brag book. A Brag book is a book which is left out during showing and has all the information on your house in it. About 70% of houses are shown by other agents, not the listing agent. A Brag book will give the buyers every scrap of information so they can make a buying decision. It should be able to answer every question about the house. If there is doubt or unanswered questions the buyers will hesitate. No one buys if there is doubt.
Step 3 We help you with a "showings strategy" that works. Set the stage to sell...
Put yourself in the shoes of the buyers. Chances are they have traveled a great distance to get here, they are not sleeping well, the winding roads have made them feel woozy, they are not in their comfort zone.
Most agent set up showings at 45 minute intervals. That includes travel time between houses. If they spend 30 minutes at your house it is critical that you make it count. If you have guests come over it is polite to offer coffee and cookies / muffins. The buyers have been run off their feet and chances are they are tired. Once they come into your house you want them to feel at home. Most buyers head for the center of the house first, which is the kitchen. This is where you have the coffee waiting for them, with a sign that says cream is in the fridge. When they open the fridge they feel like they are at home (did you get that "at their new home"). A simple muffin and coffee makes them stop and relax. What do you think you could put right there in the kitchen? The Brag book, Brochures and a suggestion box for feedback. The buyers will be more relaxed, in a better mood and happy. Very few if any sellers do this. This is so simple and powerful. With the Brag book out, property flagged and the house staged, the buyers will see your house at its best. They will be feeling better with a coffee in them and a snack and they'll have a color brochure in hand that highlights your house. They will be sitting in their B&B that night analyzing all the houses and your house will stand out. There is a high probability that if you do all the above, the buyers will love your house and write you an offer at close to asking price. This is how to Merchandise a house to sell. Now let's look at marketing a house to sell. My 3 Steps to Marketing your house to the buyers. Who are the buyers? There are a few different buyer types; The typical buyer moving to Salt Spring is usually a couple or single, 55 to 60 year old, usually semi-retired or retired professionals or business owners, with a net worth between 500k and 1mil. Their net worth might be supplemented in the form of a government pension, annuity, rental income, proceeds from a business they may have sold or they may continue to work part time via the net. They are from an urban city, have extremely high taste, are well traveled, well read and are very focused on themselves, their family and friends. They want it all, they want it now and they know what they want. Lets face it, Salt Spring is not low end, Salt Spring attracts buyers with discerning tastes. Your house has to appeal to these buyers if you want to sell for top dollar. The typical, on-island buyer, is either single or a couple who is doing an on-island vertical move either up-market, downsizing or moving close to town. Usually they work at a local business such as; school district, hospital, ferries and or private business. The on-island buyer will know the island very well and be focusing on location and quality, not necessarily the look of the place. The last group of buyers represents less than 5% of the buyers. They are the handy person looking for the house to fix up either to live in or flip. This is a very small buying group. They are looking for a deal on the home that has been well worn. They buy on price, price and price. To make it work for them they have to buy at a low market price. They have to buy a home in a great location that can be fixed up and sold for more without the market moving up in price. So there are a few of the basic types of buyers. What about the marketing? How did it work? When I bought my first home, the MLS® was in book form, there was no on-line shopping. I could only look at the book at my agent's office or in her car. She would not give me a copy of the MLS® book. She had all the information. I spent hours at her office going over listings. About 10 years ago the MLS® went on-line. The buyers have complete access. This has been a paradigm shift and some agents have resisted. They were used to having all the information and hoarding it. They could direct the buyers to look at the properties they wanted the buyers to see. Today the buyers see what they want to see. 
Today approximately 90% - 98% of the buyers are searching for real estate on line. They search while sitting at their desks, at home, in the coffee shops (probably reading this). How many go to real estate offices and look? The days of the real estate office are numbered. Here is a picture of closed one on Vancouver Island. See what happened in Phoenix to 14 Remax offices.   So if the buyers are searching on-line how do we get them to buy your house? What do the buyers want to see? Why will they look at your house?
Buyers want to see gorgeous photos of your house. This clip below shows what it takes to get great photos.
Step 1 Assuming I have 36-50 wide angle (28mm) photos of your home and perhaps a video clip, it is time to start to pull all the listing information together and to make a dynamic listing presentation of your house. With all the information that is in the Brag book and the photos I make a powerful, on-line presentation of your house. 
Look at an example of our Virtual tour. Buyers want to see rich listing details with all the information about the houses they are looking at. The days of 6 photos of a house are gone. We will make a dynamite, interactive listing for your house that is put on the MLS® and has a link off the MLS® to your own web page.
Once the buyers click on the view multimedia link they come right to your own virtual site. Like this link to a listing. Also, on a 24/7 basis, full colour brochures of your house are available on-line in a down-loadable format for the buyers. With your permission I can also shoot a video clip of your place and put it on Youtube, like this one.
Step 2 Syndication of your listing with my top ranked Point2 Agent web site; My site is linked with 100's of other web sites and blogs. Your listing will be shot out over the Internet. Not just on the MLS® but on to hundreds of relevant real estate sites. 
|