Dude, where’s my value?

The most important consideration when marketing a property is getting it in front of the most (actual) home buyers as possible.
This wide marketing exposure is usually accomplished rather easily through the local MLS system and its sydication of broker and consumer websites. Either through a traditonal brokerage or a flat fee service provider. Once you have your marketing “vehicle” in place, the entire focus should be on your message, or, as a mildly dorky MBA student might say, “your value proposition”.

The value proposition (I, myself, am mildly dorky so I am comfortable using the phrase) is made up of three components.

1. The Price
2. The property description
3. Images of the property, -static photos, virtual tours, or video

Buyers today do the bulk of their searching, and more importantly, their excluding, of properties on the internet. Our goal is to not get excluded.
If there are 25 properties in a certain area that meet the basic criteria of a buyer,  it is likely that they will narrow that list down to maybe half a dozen that they will actually go and visit. The buyer is including or excluding properties from their list based upon their perceptions of the value proposition of each property as presented in the listing.

We will leave price determination for another article but you may want to refer to this posting for some things to consider.

The key in pricing is to be in the right range. Lets say you have a general idea that your house should be priced in the upper $200k area.
Buyers tend to search in fairly wide price ranges, like $250k to $300K. Within their chosen price range they may view properties at the edges of the range with a certain amount of skepticism. A home at $299,900 may be viewed as either overpriced or as too much of a reach for the buyer.  A home priced at $250,000 may be viewed with caution, with buyers saying to themselves “I wonder whats wrong with it?”, or simply thinking, “We can afford something a little nicer”.  The middle of their range is where buyers feel the most comfortable and they may gravitate toward the homes, in our example, priced between say $257,000 to $293,000.

Now comes the sales pitch.   The combination of the description and the photos is where we create our value proposition relative to the price.  We are not only going to relate in words what our wonderful home has to offer but we are going to prove it through our beautiful photos.  The Madison MLS allows for 512 total characters in the description of the property. This is not much text and must therefore be used wisely.  I write almost all of the descriptions for the properties listed with our flat fee mls service (that’s over 1800 descriptions) and have become accustomed to prioritizing the appealing features of a home.  We focus on the things that not listed elsewhere in the listing. We do not want to say “3 bdrm, 2 ba, 2 story” as that information is available in the details of the listing,  and likely already known by the buyer before they read the description.  

The buyer wants to know where the value is in this property and we need to get straight to the answer.  For example, “Super charming 1940’s Bungalow stylishly updated for modern living with bright, open, living spaces and on beautiful corner lot in ideal Madison neighborhood with easy access to UW and downtown.”  That’s a good answer.  We can then expound on the features mentioned in this single sentence and give more details as to the updates, the yard, and the location. 

Now we need to back up all our fancy talk with some good pictures.  I always recommend that the main exterior photo of the front of the house be “seasonally appropriate”.  We can inadvertently send a negative message by having a “snow photo’ in a listing that is being viewed by a buyer in mid-June.  The knee-jerk reaction is “how long has this been for sale?”  For the other photos it is not as important. If you do in fact have a beautful yard there is nothing wrong with having a summer photo included with a listing you are starting in January.  All photos should be bright and clear.  Sometimes a room will simply not lend itself to a good photo due to dark flooring and walls, or outdated furnishings and interior design.  If the photo is not backing up what we have said in the description then we should not use it. 

Static photos are still the best way to back up your marketing message. Over the years we seen various alternatives get attention and then fade away.  360 degree virtual tours shot with a fisheye lens were a novelty but caused too much distortion.  Video has repeatly threatened to become a force in real estate marketing but has not yet gained traction. Most buyers do not need or want movement in the images.

Create a powerful value proposition and keep in mind that the value offered in your listing is dynamic and relative to the other properties that are currently for sale in your area and price range.  Whatever marketing “vehicle” you choose be sure to keep the listing fresh with updated exterior photos if you happen to shift from move season to the next without a sale.

Please comment or email with any questions or if I can be of service.