Selling Your Home - Part II

Thank you for visiting GoHsv.com and my Real Estate blog. If you have any questions or have a topic for a future blog, email me at mike@gohsv.com.

OK, now in the 2nd part of "Selling Your Home" we are going to take a more in depth look at marketing your home. It is extremely important to get your home out there, and in front of as many buyers as possible. By doing this you are greatly increasing your chances of selling your home faster, for more money, and creating such a buzz to even get multiple offers (hopefully).

There are a number of different avenues you can take to market your home. Here are the major categories:

Print Media

Of course you have newspapers. But, there are also specialty magazines that increase exposure like Homes & Land, Homes for Today, and FSBO magazines, just to name a few. Print advertising is still a very good way to advertise your home. Personally I advertise my listings with my team "Team Sheffield" of Rise Real Estate in Homes & Land magazine, and I advertise my "Open Houses" in the Huntsville Times.

TV

My company, Rise Real Estate, has a Homes Show every Sunday @ 9:00a.m. called "The Rise Tour of Homes Show" on WAAY-TV 31. It is a very popular homes show here in Huntsville, Alabama. We have a Channel 31 camera crew come in and show the best features of your home. This a service I provide to my clients as needed.

Virtual Tours

A virtual tour is a slide show of your home online created by either a video or digital camera. It lets a prospective buyer tour your home on their computer. It is great for a seller because it helps weed out buyers that are just curious, and the ones that are really interested will want to make an appointment to see your home and take a 2nd look. It gives the buyers more information which is what they want, and makes it easier for the sellers to have more serious buyers touring their home.

The Internet

The Internet is probably one of the most important forms of advertising you can use to sell your home. 80% of buyers start searching for a home online. That is actually a pretty conservative number, I would not be surprised if it was even higher than that. Of course there are alot of sites to search for homes.

Personally, I give each one of my listings their own web address, to make it easier for people to find your home. Such as my listing on 113 Coldsprings Dr in Harvest, AL, it's address is http://gohsv.com/236180. 236180 is the homes MLS number, so it can be easily referenced by buyers and Realtors.

I put all my listings on my "Real Estate" page on GoHsv.com. They also go on MichaelBelviy.com, among other sites such as: Realtor.com, Valleymls.com, huntsvillehomefinder.com, RiseRealEstate.com etc. I try to make it so if someone is looking for a home like yours online, it won't be very hard to find yours.

Yard Sign

People might overlook it, but the yard sign is the top form of advertising you can do. Alot of people just drive around subdivisions that they like, and a yard sign is how they know the home is "For Sale." You can also put up flyer's in a box right by the yard sign. Personally, I do not like to put up "Flyer Boxes." I would rather a prospective buyer call me so we can get them in to see your home, not just take a flyer and keep on going to the next house. But, I leave this up to the owner, if they want flyer's out in front, I am more than happy to do it.

MLS

The MLS stands for the "Multiple Listing Service" which is a big database of homes that Realtors have, to see what homes are for sale. A Realtor, working with a buyer, will take the information the buyer gives them, search the MLS and then show the buyer the kind of homes they are looking for. It is very important to have your home in the MLS so everyone knows your home is "For Sale" and Realtors will show them to their clients. For Sale By Owner (FSBO) homes are not in the MLS. That is a major disadvantage to not using a Realtor. Buyers can search the Huntsville MLS on my "Real Estate" page on GoHsv.com.

There are alot of different ways to advertise your home as you can see. I incorporate all forms to get my clients homes out in front of people as much as possible. Thank you very much for taking the time to read my blog. Again if you have any questions or comments just email me at mike@gohsv.com. Have a great day.