Marketing Your Home
The key to achieving the best net price for our vendors is to have buyers competing with each other to buy their property.
Buyer Enquiry
Aim to get your price guide and expectations correct. Buyer enquiry will be at its highest when your property is first introduced onto the market. If your price guide and expectation appears to be above the current level for similar properties buyers could take it off their list without visiting.
You may think this will not matter as perhaps one or two buyers who can afford the price will visit and you anticipate being able to negotiate with them. However if their first impression is that other properties they have seen are better value you will have set your property up as a “pinball listing” one which bounces the buyers back to other properties perceived as better value. You will have helped sell your neighbours’ property rather than get a better price for your own.
Salespeople keen to get you to list with them may “buy the listing” by suggesting a price above the current market saying you can “always come down”. But why would you want to do that? Overpriced listings help them sell other properties in the area. So many times we see overpriced listing site on the market for months, getting stale in the eyes of buyers and end up selling lower or at the same level as they could have achieved months ago. Aim to get your price guide and expectations correct 1st time around then together with a well managed marketing plan buyers with compete with each other at the deadline. This saves wasting valuable advertising costs, a longer then hoped for marketing campaign which cuts down your stress considerably..
Bait marketing where buyers are enticed through using wide price bands or unrealistic starting numbers associated with phrases like, Bidding from …. , Buyer enquiry over…., sets out to attract the wrong buyers for the property. These are buyers who cannot afford it. This might benefit the agents who may be able to direct enquiry to other properties but can inconvenience buyers. Worse there could be a continuous source of negative market feedback from visitors (who can’t afford your property) which would be used as a conditioning lever to encourage you to accept a low price.
Time on the market is a critical consideration. The longer your property remains on the market the more negotiating power shifts to the buyers. However you need some time on the market to get the property introduced to the buyers it will appeal to.
You may think this will not matter as perhaps one or two buyers who can afford the price will visit and you anticipate being able to negotiate with them. However if their first impression is that other properties they have seen are better value you will have set your property up as a “pinball listing” one which bounces the buyers back to other properties perceived as better value. You will have helped sell your neighbours’ property rather than get a better price for your own.
Salespeople keen to get you to list with them may “buy the listing” by suggesting a price above the current market saying you can “always come down”. But why would you want to do that? Overpriced listings help them sell other properties in the area. So many times we see overpriced listing site on the market for months, getting stale in the eyes of buyers and end up selling lower or at the same level as they could have achieved months ago. Aim to get your price guide and expectations correct 1st time around then together with a well managed marketing plan buyers with compete with each other at the deadline. This saves wasting valuable advertising costs, a longer then hoped for marketing campaign which cuts down your stress considerably..
Bait marketing where buyers are enticed through using wide price bands or unrealistic starting numbers associated with phrases like, Bidding from …. , Buyer enquiry over…., sets out to attract the wrong buyers for the property. These are buyers who cannot afford it. This might benefit the agents who may be able to direct enquiry to other properties but can inconvenience buyers. Worse there could be a continuous source of negative market feedback from visitors (who can’t afford your property) which would be used as a conditioning lever to encourage you to accept a low price.
Time on the market is a critical consideration. The longer your property remains on the market the more negotiating power shifts to the buyers. However you need some time on the market to get the property introduced to the buyers it will appeal to.
Re-active Marketing?
Reactive marketing is slow and expensive. Some agencies rely on advertising to spark enquiry together with phone calls after checking past diaries and recent memory for possible purchasers. This process can take many weeks and if you receive early offers you will have a risky choice to make, whether to accept or reject them, without knowing all possible buyers have been reached.
Agencies dependant on the reactive approach use strategies which are risky if not managed well and require more time and promotional cost than modern methods. If the best buyers are not reached this way or don’t respond to the advertising campaign all the pressure goes back on their vendors.
You however are in luck. If you are reading this you have discovered an agency that has proactive database systems in place to provide quick contact with all their potential buyers who would be interested in your property. They will have back up systems to get in touch with others active in the market place who could know of buyers. So many times we have emailed new listings to our database and those buyers who not be interested in that particular property for some reason but have emailed the link onto someone else who could have been interested.
At time of writing this Lorraine has 900 potential buyers on their database who they email your property details out to the day it comes on the market.
Their systems will also enable them to link interested buyers to your property and use email or phone calls to encourage them to view and advise them when an offers are being present to the vendor to ensure all potential buyers have a chance to compete with each other.
Agencies dependant on the reactive approach use strategies which are risky if not managed well and require more time and promotional cost than modern methods. If the best buyers are not reached this way or don’t respond to the advertising campaign all the pressure goes back on their vendors.
You however are in luck. If you are reading this you have discovered an agency that has proactive database systems in place to provide quick contact with all their potential buyers who would be interested in your property. They will have back up systems to get in touch with others active in the market place who could know of buyers. So many times we have emailed new listings to our database and those buyers who not be interested in that particular property for some reason but have emailed the link onto someone else who could have been interested.
At time of writing this Lorraine has 900 potential buyers on their database who they email your property details out to the day it comes on the market.
Their systems will also enable them to link interested buyers to your property and use email or phone calls to encourage them to view and advise them when an offers are being present to the vendor to ensure all potential buyers have a chance to compete with each other.
How do you assess a proposed marketing plan?
We assume by now you will have rejected a General or Open Listing – you will have rejected commissioning salespeople to work against each other and for their buyer against you.
And you will have rejected Private Sale – you will have rejected avoiding most buyers who want the convenience of dealing through an agency and attracting the most independent, experienced and determined negotiators from the remaining minority. Consumer protection is another good reason to use a Licensed Real Estate Salesperson.
And you will have rejected Private Sale – you will have rejected avoiding most buyers who want the convenience of dealing through an agency and attracting the most independent, experienced and determined negotiators from the remaining minority. Consumer protection is another good reason to use a Licensed Real Estate Salesperson.
This leaves exclusive agency with or without a price.
No Price Marketing
No price marketing (usually Auction, Tender or for sale by negotiation usually with a deadline ) are currently promoted as a way to have buyers emotionally involved with your property without price as a barrier. Lorraine can point to past and current successes using these methods.. The continuing debate among the experts about which method is best should encourage you to have reservations that any particular system will automatically be right for your property. Lorraine will advise what seems to be working best in the current market in the Hutt Valley for your particular type of home.
Auction
For an Auction plan to work well on the auction day, there needs to be 2 or more buyers willing and able to pay cash for your property at a level higher than your reserve. For your protection that reserve needs to be close to the price a current market guide indicated your property would be worth when you first put your property up for sale. This is obviously not easy to achieve for all properties but works exceptionally well for some.
Tenders
Tenders attract considered offers where buyers are influenced by their advisors, valuers and lenders without the stimulus of direct competition with others willing to buy the property. The range of prices in a tender may be very large indicating the gaps between viewing the property as an investment or as a desirable home attracting a premium price. However many buyers who “just miss” in a tender later report they would have gone higher if only they had known how close they were. Graham and Lorraine are very experienced in encouraging every buyer to get themselves into a good position of making their best possible Tender if the buyer really wants the property.
The Beauty of Auctions and Tenders are:
The Beauty of Auctions and Tenders are:
- The buyers have a timeline to work to - a date that they must have their offers in by. They have time to do their 'Due Diligence' on the property.
- The buyers realise they will probably be in competition and may miss out if they don't put their 'best' offer in rather than try to negotiate the vendor down to their figure.
- The deadline is also great for the vendor as well. They can make plans for the Tender/Auction date rather than having offers spring on them at a time that they may find them difficult to focus on. Vendors are also able to make their future plans with a date to work with.
Do we Publish an asking price?
Historically Graham and Lorraine tried to publish a price on all of their properties for sale and would really have liked to continue to do this as it helps buyers to come into the mix. However the market has changed considerable since to beginning of 2016 and now, because of the shortage of housing stock and the ease of borrowing money especially for 1st home buyers with Kiwi Saver it has become much more difficult to foresee what premium may be out there for any particular property. We would not want to put a cap on a premium which could be available for any particular house.
Choose as your agency the one that has the best strategy to achieve the best net price. It is clear that the marketing strategy that will achieve the best net price for you will depend on a wide range of factors including:
- The state of the market
- The uniqueness and presentation of your property. - (you have consider engaging a home-stager if you want to attract buyers who are younger than yourself and be drawn it by the trendy furniture home-stagers use to give a house a more up to date appearance) - we can help you with this if you wish)
- The time you have available to achieve a satisfactory sale
- The level of promotional support you want to apply
- The negotiating skills of your marketing team
- The acceptance of different methods by buyers in your area. (Luckily most buyers in the market out there are now accepting of the "Deadline Sale approach" and having to get their due diligence dealt with before the deadline closes) We spend considerable time helping buyers with this.
- The financial capability of buyers attracted to your location and type of home.
All of these can be reflected in market demand and will be assessed by our marketing team after your 1st open home. Armed with the feedback from this approach we can determine if we are on the right track with our price expectations and encourage buyers to put their best foot forward at the deadline for offers to achieve a great result for you.