Sellers

Seller Articles and Advice

The Purpose of Advertising in General

Every seller likes to be assured that their listing agent or the real estate company will run ads featuring their property. Newspaper ads could be large display ads with lots of listings or small classified ads featuring just your property. Ads may also appear in local real estate magazines and your listing will also show up on the Internet.

Of course the agents and companies will run ads featuring your condo, but not for the reasons you expect.

You see, the main job of advertising is not to sell your house directly. Advertising creates phone calls and some of those callers become clients of the agents answering the calls. This builds up a pool of homebuyers looking for property in general, all represented by selling agents. Multiply this by all the agents and companies who also advertise properties, and there is a large pool of homebuyers in the market at any given time – all of whom are represented by selling agents.

The agents representing those buyers know about your condo because it is listed in the Multiple Listing Service, has been on office and broker preview, and because your agent may have also sent flyers to all the local real estate offices.

The agents match up their clients with available properties, one of which may be yours. Then they show the properties to their clients, who eventually make an offer on one.  That is how your condo gets sold. Ads create a pool of clients, one of which buys your condo. Ads do not usually sell your property directly.

Real Estate Company Advertising

As mentioned previously, advertising your condo in newspapers and magazines rarely sells your condo directly. More likely than not, the buyer who eventually purchases your condo will have called on a totally different property. The same thing happens with buyers who call on your condo. They will probably buy something else.

You still want to be certain the real estate company selling your house runs ads in the local and major newspapers, whether they feature your condo or not. The ads generate phone calls to the real estate office, and if those agents viewed your condo on the office preview, they will be familiar with it. This is how your property is sold.

Or you could be one of the lucky ones – someone calling on your condo may actually end up buying it.

You should also realize that when a company advertises the properties they have for sale, there is more than one objective. Sure, the real estate office wants to generate phone calls and sell houses, but the advertising also shows sellers how effectively they market properties. This impresses not only you, but others who may be thinking of selling their property.

The advertising brings in more listings, which generate more ad calls, which produces more buyers….and that is how real estate advertising really works.

Individual Agent Advertising

Individual agents may advertise your condo for the same reasons as companies do. They usually advertise in classified ads or in specialty magazines featuring houses and condos available for sale.

As in other types of advertising, these ads rarely sell your home. Once again, the main goals of advertising are to accumulate homebuyers as clients, and to impress you and future home sellers with how well they market their listings. Some agents actually do sell their own listings, but not that often.

It is much more productive and beneficial if your listing agent directs most of his or her marketing efforts toward other agents. Since this is "behind the scenes" marketing that you don’t actually see, it is often difficult for you to measure how hard the agent is working for you.

It is a mistake to measure your agent’s effectiveness solely by counting the number of newspaper and magazine ads featuring your property.

Neighborhood Announcements

When you first list your condo many agents send "announcements" to all of the other condos in your building and neighborhood. This can be done in the form of postcards, a letter, or flyers left hanging on the front door. These are important because your neighbors might have friends who are looking to buy a condo.

The announcements create "word of mouth" advertising, which is the best kind.

Open Houses

An open house when your property is first placed on the market can be very important, but not for the reasons most homeowners think. Just like with advertising, most visitors to open houses rarely buy the house or condo they come to look at. They may not even know the price of your condo when they stop by to visit – they probably just followed an "Open House" sign to your door.

An open house performs a similar function to the neighborhood announcements – it lets all of your neighbors know that your condo is for sale, and it practically invites them to come "take a look." Being generally nosy, a lot of your neighbors will take advantage of the invitation.

And they may tell their friends about your condo, creating more "word of mouth" advertising.

Of course, there are other reasons for holding open houses, too. Listing agents who "farm" a particular neighborhood or building use them as an opportunity to meet with other local condo owners who will someday be selling their condo. Your agent may hope to list their condos in the future.

Open houses held after your condo has been on the market awhile do not usually serve a useful purpose in selling your condo. Most of the neighbors already know your condo is for sale and open house visitors rarely buy the properties they visit.

However, if you really want more open houses, your listing agent may allow other agents to hold it open. Open houses attract prospective homebuyers and agents hope to convince some of those homebuyers to become their clients.