Strategcially Marketing Your Home

Angela's strategic marketing solutions and considerations will include advertising, showing the property, how long the house has been on the market and whether you're buying another home. Your home will be listed, through the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service (ARMLS) and promoted through her network of real estate professionals. "A well marketed home has much better chance of getting prospective buyers into your home..."

Advertising and Promotion - A New Perspective on Traditional Efforts

Angela's advertising and promotion efforts are a combination of in print, in person and online promotions. Properties are advertised through real estate agent Web sites, Internet home search/listing services, classified ads and display ads in real estate guides and journals. Many of the printed publications are distributed free through grocery stores around the valley and have great online components. Promotion efforts through the Desert Dwellers Realty (DDR) office and home tours are good ways of getting other buyer agents to view your home and share it with the buyers they are working with. Angela also leverages the latest technology and marketing techniques using phone message systems, online virtual tours, landing pages and social media.

With all these advertising and technology avenues, the "For Sale" signs on front lawns are still remarkably effective. Angela's signage system includes DDR's highly visable sign, in-home signage drawing attention to special aspects and flier boxes with professionally designed flyers outlining the features and benefits of your home. These fliers also indicate the domain address for an online "Feature Home" landing page that's developed for each client that lists their home with Angela.  These "Feature Home" landing pages include photos, virtual tours and information highlighting
your property.

When appropriate, and with your permission, Angela may send a mailing about your property to neighbors and surrounding areas. Sometimes one of them has a friend or relative who always wanted to live near them. You never know how far reaching the benefits of word-of-mouth advertising by friends, relatives and neighbors can be.

Feature Home Landing Pages - Only with Angela Barney

The "Feature Home" landing pages on AngelaBarney.com are individually developed to outline the unique features of Angela's listings.  Each page is marketed using the latest Search Engine Marketing (SEM) techniques and is designed and written with the latest in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques. These pages contain virtual reality tours, professional photography, and information outlining the features of your Arizona home. In addition to the "Feature Home" landing pages, Angela also uses feature listing pages on Realtor.com, pages in Facebook.com, and others...leveraging these online resources also get's your property listed on many other online home buyer resources.

Showings and Open Houses - Getting Additional Traffic

To prepare your home for viewing, make it as bright, clean, cheerful and serene as possible. Always look at your home from the buyer's point of view. Angela suggests that you be absent while the house is being shown to prospective buyers, because your presence will inhibit their actions and conversations. Buyers won’t feel free to open closets and cabinets, test out the plumbing and discuss their observations objectively as they walk through the house. It goes without saying that your children and pets should not be on the premises either.

During open houses, you will want to notify your neighbors, and assure them that they are welcome and envite any friends that may be interested. Usuallym they'll jump at the chance to poke around in your house, and sometimes they can turn up a buyer among their friends.

Quick tips for showings and open houses:

1. Clean or replace dirty or worn carpets.
2. Open all curtains and blinds.
3. Replace any burned out light bulbs and turn on all lights.
4. Clear all clutter.
5. Clear all countertops.
6. Wash and put away any dirty dishes.
7. Set the dining room or kitchen table if you have particularly nice linen or china.
8. Simmer a few drops of vanilla on the stove.
9. Put on soft music.
10. Burn wood in the fireplace on cold days, otherwise, clean the fireplace.
11. Put fresh towels in the bathroom.
12. Take any laundry out of the washer and dryer.
13. Leave the house so your REALTOR^® is free to deal with prospective buyers in a professional manner.
14. Put pets in cages or take them to a neighbor.

How Long Has Your House Been on the Market?

Professional appraisers sum up their entire body of knowledge in three words: "buyers make value." Your home is worth as much as a buyer will pay for it.

If your home has been on the market for months, it’s a clear message that the property may not be worth what you're asking for it. This is particularly true if there haven't been many prospects coming to see it. What you do at that point depends on whether you really need to sell, and whether you're working with a time limit. There's more information regarding the listing price in "How to Set a List Price".

If you're not really motivated to move soon, you can always wait - years if necessary - and hope inflation will catch up with the price you want. The problem is that in that time, your home begins to feel shopworn. Buyers become suspicious of a house that's been for sale for a long time and the time on the market is in the MLS information buyers get from their agents.

Angela will discuss a schedule for setting and then gradually dropping your price until you find a level that attracts buyers. There's no point in saying, "We simply can't sell our house." Anything will sell if the price is right.

If You’re Buying Another Home

You may wonder what will happen when you're selling one home and buying another – how will all the details work out? This is a common situation and Angela has a solid network of Arizona real estate professionals with plenty of experience in arranging contracts and loans so that the two transactions dovetail smoothly.

And should you sell your home first then buy or buy first then sell? Ideally, it’s best to find a home you like and make an offer contingent on selling your current home. This generally works in a normal market. However, in a some markets sellers will not accept a “contingent” offer. Angela can walk ou through what the market is aggreable to in your current situation.

If you find that you need to buy the next house before you've received the proceeds from the present one, some lenders can provide a short-term "bridge" loan to tide you over between the two transactions. Make sure you fully understand the exposure and emotional investment before proceeding with this type of loan.