How to Choose a Listing Agent for an Investment Property

You own an investment property or a second home in a beach town, mountains, or ski resort. Now you are thinking of selling. Before you list your home, read the rest of this article. Not all listing agents are alike, and being educated before you sign an agreement will help you sell your home in the shortest amount of time for the most amount of money.

Every real estate company and Realtor® brags that they are the best. Many spend a small fortune on advertising and from that advertising get many listings, which helps them convince even more people to list with them. They do very little though to get those properties sold. Most agents will put your property in their local MLS, which automatically then lists your property on Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, Homes.com, etc (something they will brag that they are doing for you even though it is automated), and if you are lucky, an add in a local newspaper or real estate magazine. While these marketing tactics do help sell many homes, none of them are property specific marketing techniques aimed to sell your unique property!

Consider, yours is a home in a resort area, or a rental property, or some other type of investment property. Why would it make sense to market it the same way as a homeowners primary residence? Yet in most cases, that is exactly what the listing agent does.

Consider this example: 

A home in Ocean City, NJ is listed for $750,000. The agent puts this home in the South Jersey Shore Regional MLS and waits for sites like Zillow and Trulia to bring them leads. This agent never bothers to consider the local demographics and markets the property the same way as they would a $200,000 home in nearby Somers Point. While the agent may get leads from this, they are missing out on a substantial number of additional leads that could be generated by marketing this specialty property in a way that targets more likely, and more qualified buyers.

The more qualified buyers that see a home equals the more chances that a seller will not only sell their home, but sell it for a higher price. If a seller only receives a few offers on a property, they are more likely to accept a lower offer than they would be if there were many people touring their home and making offers. That is what happens when the property is marketing properly.

How should your property be marketed?

Realtor® Background

The first step in the process is to understand the background of your Realtor®. Many Realtors® will brag about how many listings they have, how long they have been in the business, or how good their company is. None of these items really tell you how well they will do selling your particular property. In addition to asking the normal real estate questions, ask questions about their educational background and marketing experience. Ask what they do different from their competition, then ask for a tangible example of their work.

Pricing Your Home

Pricing your home correctly can make the difference between getting traffic through your door or hearing crickets chirp. A good Realtor® will provide you with 3 prices. The first price is one he knows he can sell it for quickly. The second is a fair asking price for the property. The third is a stretch price for the seller that wants top dollar for the property.

One thing to remember here is that you must choose if getting your price is more important than getting your house sold. No Realtor®, regardless of how talented they are, can sell a home that is overpriced. Make the decision before meeting with a potential Realtor® of what is more important, getting your price or getting your property sold. If it is getting your price, ask yourself how important getting the property sold is and move forward from there.

Demographics
Where do other property owners in your area come from? In many shore towns in New Jersey, property owners come from other parts of the state, Pennsylvania, New York, Florida, and more. Your Realtor® should know this information and use it when planning where they will target their marketing efforts. Most investment properties at the Jersey Shore are out of the price range of the local residents, so marketing locally makes less sense than targeting affluent areas. In addition, targeting the areas where your properties neighbors are from makes your marketing efforts even more likely to be successful.

Marketing Campaigns

Marketing campaigns should be run in every area identified as a potential for buyers in the demographics. If buyers are in Florida, or Pennsylvania, or New York, the local MLS or real estate magazine will do little or nothing to alert these buyers of your property’s availability unless they seek it out. You want to be put in front of them, not make them find you!

Marketing Materials

Too many Realtors® do not take the extra time needed to properly market your property. They put one or two paragraphs of generic information about the property on the MLS and add a few pictures. Sadly, many times the pictures and descriptions of the property do not do your unique home justice. Every property has a story. Is your homes story able to be told with just a few pictures and a few paragraphs?

Marketing materials should be aimed to make everyone who sees them want to view the property. A thought out narrative explaining the unique features of the property and what makes this property stand out from all others should be written. In most cases, at least 25 targeted pictures should be taken and used on MLS, websites, and other marketing materials. A video of the property should be made and the narrative should be dubbed over the video to provide a truly virtual tour of the property.

Part of the success of the narrative is also describing the town. Not everyone may be familiar with what your town has to offer. Selling the potential buyer on the town before the home reinforces their desire even more to want to learn more about your property.

Online vs Traditional Marketing

These days, more potential buyers find your property on the internet via a computer, tablet, or smartphone than any other method. Your Realtor® should be on the cutting edge of technology using their website, social media sites, and search engines to spotlight your property and make it stand out above the competitions. Do they have a website that features only their listings? Do they have an active Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Google+, and other social media sites? Do they have many followers on them?

What traditional marketing methods do they use? Do they advertise locally and in remote areas where potential buyers for your
property are? Do they have property flyers or brochures that are handed out both at the property and in other targeted locations? Do they have a plan to let your neighbors know that your home is for sale? Many neighbors have friends or colleagues that may want to buy in the same neighborhood.

Ask about their Marketing Plan

What makes their marketing plan stand out above the competitions? Why will they be able to bring you more prospects than another Realtor®? In short, why are they different and better?

The My Town Gurus Difference

Official Real Estate Town Gurus implement all of the techniques listed above to ensure their clients have the best marketing possible to sell their property in the shortest amount of time at the lowest possible price. Every property is marketing by a local specialist that ensures the target demographic is identified, the marketing materials, pictures, and property videos are of a superior quality to that of any other in the industry, and each initiative contains a tracking tool to measure ROI and help identify areas to improve upon to find the right buyer for your property in the fastest amount of time.

Don’t leave selling your investment property to chance, call your local Guru today at 609-412-7235 and speak to an investment property specialist today!