Have You Seen Your House Listing Lately?
It’s kind of shocking.
I was going through the San Antonio MLS (Multiple Listing Service) this morning, looking at houses when I started looking at expired listings. When you list your home for sale, you and your Realtor® will sign a document giving the agent the permission to list your house for sale. You and your agent will decide a start date and a finish date for the agreement. Here in Texas we are not allowed to make them indefinite, so when you sign a listing agreement, there is always an end to them. When listings have expired, they are no longer on the market.
(Back to the story.) As I looked through the expired listings, I noticed something about a good many of the houses. Something that bugs me. Lack of detail or description. I’m not here to bash my fellow agents, but I seriously was a bit shocked at just how many of the homes had few photos, one-line descriptions, or a lack of details about the home in the various sections helping give additional information about the home. The house’s listing details are one of the most important parts of any marketing plan. Every ounce of marketing is related to this source. Especially internet marketing and we all know how important that has become for selling homes. When your house’s listing is syndicated to sites like Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow, or a million other sites out there, it is the original listing data that is displayed to the public. Most of the big sites pull in photos and what we call the “remarks” section here in San Antonio. The remarks section is your agent’s chance to describe your house, tell the world the interesting facts about it, and draw buyers to come view it.
Not every agent is a gifted writer and photographer and many employ people to do this for them for that reason alone. Even if your agent isn’t the greatest writer or photographer, they should still be striving to give your listing the most detail and the best look it can possibly have. Instead, I see homes with four photos (we allow sixteen in San Antonio). Instead I see homes with details that read like this: “3BR/2BA in nice community. You will love this home and all it has to offer.” (I wrote that myself for illustration purposes only.) That’s it. No details, no reasons to investigate further. With that kind of lack of detail it might as well read “House for sale.”
Detailed information will make your house stand out.
What can you do to make sure you’re getting the best listing? Well, I’d be crazy if I didn’t say “hire me,” but in all seriousness, no matter who you select as your agent and even if you go it alone, make sure your listing contains as much info as possible. Buyers want to know the details before they get in their car and make an appointment to see your house…don’t let them click on a link to look at the next house. Ask your agent to show you what they’ve entered into the MLS, google your property address (you’d be amazed how many people do this to find additional info on homes), look at your agent’s website – look where the buyers are looking. Think like a buyer and take a look at your listing. Would you want to investigate further and potentially go see the house? If the answer is no, then there’s work to be done.
photo courtesy of daveynin
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Comments
Matt I think you are going a little overboard wanting agents to actually work for their pay check. Don’t you know how busy we are? Not everyone can live a rock star life style and have all that extra time. Besides when you go to type in a something to google and search for houses dont you type in “house in nice community with lots to offer”?
/sarcasm
Good post, keep the pressure up. I just wish it was easier for us to take those listings while still active and drive over to the sellers house and say look at this, is this acceptable to you?
.-= Dean Ouellette´s last blog ..Arizona Short Sales Sellers Advisory – Good and the bad =-.
Posting all that info would take time and energy, aka. work. Real estate sales was supposed to be easy and require only a little amount of work, wasn’t it? TIC
Ok – great post, though. It is pretty sad that so many agents have shirked so badly on their responsibilities . . . I think the roaring 2000′s brought us a batch of “professionals” who didn’t need to do anything to sell their listings . . . hopefully, those do-nothing agents will soon be weeded out!
.-= Joshua Dorkin´s last blog ..Not Seeing The Foreclosed Forest From The Trees =-.
I found a home for a client last year in Clifton, Virginia because the agent had incorrectly added information (darn keyboards)… and, knowing the neighborhood, I knew it was incorrect.
She had no idea why no one was looking at the place. Yeah, I’m a pro!
.-= Doug Francis´s last blog ..The real estate market catches a hint of Spring 2010 =-.
I love the sarcasm dripping from the comments here.
It’s a real shame some of the incorrect or missing data found in listings. Builders and short sale/foreclosures can often be some of the worst.
Doug makes a great point – knowing the neighborhoods makes all the difference.
.-= rerockstar´s last blog ..281 Superstreet Project Moves Closer To Reality =-.
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