Recently the quality of listings that I have visited seems to be trending lower and lower. Perhaps the recent corresponding surge in Realtors has something to do with it? (Recent numbers pegged membership at TREB nearing 29,000. Only four years ago it was 21,000) But I digress…
Let me give you an example. This spring/summer I worked with 4 individual buyers looking for condo's in the centre of Mississauga. Between the four of them we saw upwards of 60 properties. Within the price range of $160,000 and $260,000 there were no less than 250 properties available for sale!!! This is fierce competition. I was stunned to find that of all the properties we saw none yes ZERO were staged or had feature sheets. Some did not have online photos; few had video/visual tours.
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Fortunately the late spring/early summer market was relatively good; Properties we're selling 'anyway' so I could see why some agents may not have seen the value in promotional materials. Just Dump it on the market it will sell …………….. eventually.
I recently toured many of the same buildings and condos and I can tell you that inventory is even higher now, and sales are down. But guess what… still no promotion or extra marketing! What is the rational now?
Would you consider selling your car without first detailing and cleaning it? I liken some properties out there like placing your minivan for sale after getting home from a week long road trip with the family, without bothering to clean it up. Stick a for sale sign on it and dump it on the auto trader. Yikes!
The reality is to succeed in today's market you not only need to price properly, but you need to stand out above every other property that has been properly priced.
Our instinct when faced with smaller margins is to save money: Less bottom line means less money to pay agents and less money to promote the property. Unfortunately this strategy is probably the worse thing you can possibly do in times of increased competition.
It is important that together with your Realtor you work out an effective and cost efficient promotion and marketing regimen. I know that both myself and members of my team have been firm believers in promotion and marketing of our properties. Even in the best of times we used
- Staging
- professionally photography and virtual tours
- professional feature sheets
- professional signage, directional signs
- employed handymen and painters
- extensive web presence (facebook, kijiji, craigslist, websites: personal, company and corporate, mls.ca, stratus, matrix [Oakville/Milton], mlxchange [Hamilton/Burlington]
We did this knowing that it would sell anyway because we wanted to cast the property in its best light and give it the best opportunity to achieve maximum market value. Now in less favourable times when these steps are needed more than ever we can cost effectively offer these to our clients. Also professional means professional - not your agent's best shot at using their new digital camera, microsoft word and printing it at home!
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