Home Staging for Sales
Home staging, a proven way for home-owners to sell their home more quickly, brings the best features of your home’s interior to light. On average, home-staging brings in an additional 6% to 20% when compared to homes that are not staged. The following information will help you prepare your real estate for the market.
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Clutter
The first step is to conquer the clutter. When you purchase a new item and bring it into your home, discard or donate an old item. Look for opportunities to de-clutter – such as setting out your unwanted things for a charity to pick up, taking part in a neighborhood yard sale, or dropping items in a free-standing donations container while running errands around town.
Clutter isn’t caused simply by having too many little things; it is also caused by having too many large things, like pieces of furniture. To open up space and make a room look larger, professional home stagers often remove up to half of the owner’s furnishings. Of course, that is a bit drastic for most; simply use a critical eye to determine if you can do without that ottoman or end table. If possible, visit model homes to see how pleasing open space can be.
Another reason to clean up clutter and personal items before showing your home is to depersonalize the living space. Once your home is listed, you want prospective buyers to see a house that they can imagine themselves living in, not your home. For faster sales, make the property as inviting to as many people as possible.
Clean, Repair, Update
After removing the excess from your home, clean thoroughly with attention to detail. Make knobs, appliances, windows, and other surfaces shine. Don’t forget the floors, either. Grind a lemon in the garbage disposal for a light, fresh scent.
Give the home a fresh coat of neutral-colored paint; you will be amazed at what a difference it can make. Replace dated plastic plants with real greenery, fix running toilets, and scratch off those lingering items on your honey-do list.
When all else fails, call in a professional home-stager for help.
Hottest Mobile Marketing Tools for Real Estate Sales
Realtors who use today’s hottest mobile marketing tools will see results in sales. The following is a brief description of three ways to use technology to boost your real estate business.
QR Codes
Imagine one of your home-buying clients driving around, looking at prospective properties to purchase. Suddenly he sees his dream home. He pulls over, gets out and looks around. He wants to check out the interior immediately, but no one is available. He will have to settle for peering into windows and checking for an unlocked door. But wait . . . what is that strange, black-and-white square on the For Sale sign? If your client is tech-savvy, he will recognize it as a QR code.
QR codes (Quick Response codes), while just coming in to the American public’s awareness, have been used extensively in Japan since 1994, where they were invented. QR codes were first used by Denso-Wave, a subsidiary of Toyota. Today, it is one of the most popular two-dimensional barcodes, holding much more information than a UPC code, which most of us are familiar with.
Here’s how a QR code works: your client takes out his mobile phone and uses an application to scan the QR code. The code is interpreted and his screen displays information, such as a web link to a virtual gallery of the interior of the property. What an amazing marketing tool! Re/Max International uses QR codes to give prospective clients information about houses, neighborhoods, and local schools.
Google Services
More than 56% of all Internet searches on “real estate” and related terms are conducted on Google and partner sites. The giant that is the Google Network reaches over 80% of Internet users. For realtors, Google offers some free and some paid services to help you achieve real estate sales.
Start by providing your real estate listings to Google (a free service); doing so will broaden your distribution. Through organic search results, your website will naturally receive more traffic and leads.
Google Maps will display real estate search results, helping the user quickly locate available properties.
Google Earth, a paid service, will zoom your clients from space to the sidewalk outside of the front door with satellite images. Incredible . . . this is one technology you have to see to believe.
Google tools for realtors can be found here
Optimize Your Website for Mobile Devices
Make sure that your real estate website is compatible with and displays properly on mobile phones. More and more users are accessing the Internet on the go; searching for addresses, businesses, restaurants, and real estate . . . you name it. How can your website best succeed in this new arena?
Begin by taking note of the type of phones your potential clients are using. Because mobile phones have different sizes of screens and resolution, your website is likely to look different on other mobile phones. Common screen resolutions include 128 x 128, 128 x 160, 240 x 320, and 320 x 480.
Keep your website’s layout simple. With mobile phones, a single column is works best. Be sure to avoid horizontal scrolling, which is never a good idea by website design standards. Use large navigation links to direct users.
Additional information about mobile web optimization
There are many other tools and technologies for real estate agents to use for mobile marketing. The difficult thing is keeping up with the latest and greatest.
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