It is important to understand the distinction between selling and marketing.
Marketing your house or business is the exposure and advertising of your property. Marketing is everything involved in the attempt to find an interested buyer. There are hundreds of possible venues in which to market your home. Newspaper ads, "For sale by owner" web sites, local brochures in your grocery store and many more. You could easily spend thousands on the marketing of your home.
Selling is what takes place when an interested buyer visits the home.
The problem with the majority of traditional marketing venues is you are severely restricted to the amount of information you may list. Newspaper ads charge per word or line and most FSBO web sites and even the MLS have image (4-8 pictures or less) and text restrictions. This leaves buyers with only basic details, which may or may not compel them to view your home. If you are lucky enough to have them view your home, you or your agent may encounter many objections regarding features of the home of which the buyer was unaware. This is not a problem for an agent as they have several other homes to show. As a private seller you do not have that luxury.
When marketing our own properties we always have created a dedicated website that lists EVERYTHING about the home and the neighbourhood. We usually have from 50-100 pictures, tax rates, pictures of shops in the area, sometimes even pictures of the neighbours! This way when the time comes for the buyer to call you they have already been "sold".....they have been pre qualified by your virtual salesperson....your internet website.
So unlike showing 1 grainy picture in a newspaper, and then showing the home to multiple mildly interested buyers who ultimately "don't like the layout" or "wanted a finished basement" you save time and money by only dealing with people who love everything about your home.
So you don't have to worry about hard selling anyone, handling objections or dropping your price because the house isnt exactly what they were looking for.
It has been our experience that if the marketing has been done properly and full details and disclosure have been listed up front, the home has already sold itself. Instead of trying to "sell" your home to a limited number of lukewarm browsers, your own web site will pre qualify from thousands of parties to find that perfect fit. No time wasted physically showing your home and no surprises when your buyers view your home. Of our seven properties sold, we never had more than two showing before receiving an offer.
