The importance of effective advertising to sell your home in 2013

You have decided to sell your home in early 2013. You have decided on an agent, the house has been cleaned within an inch of its life (you’re actually considering submitting a few pics to House and Garden),and you are so ready to sell you have one foot out the door. Then comes the recommended marketing and advertising campaign – and the price tag attached to it. 

Agents are often met with objections to advertising spend. More times than not, however, the seller comes to understand that the greater the exposure a property has to the market, the greater the number of buyers who are aware of the listing. So if you’re mentally wrestling with the dollar spend of advertising your property, here are a few reasons why it is  a worthwhile investment when selling your property. 

Alexandra Rutherford from Brisbane agency Place New Farm says that effectively marketed homes are selling in a shorter amount of time and often for a higher price. 

“The price that is achieved on average is between 2% and 5% higher with marketing in both [print] and internet sites due to a larger exposure to the market,” she says. 

“Buyers sometimes will not consider an area but will connect with images and then view the home and decided it is ideal for them even if it is not in an area that they would have considered.” 

David Powell from Dowling and Neylan Real Estate in Noosa believes that it’s all about creating a presence around the property. 

“A cheap sign and amateur photos tell a potential buyer one thing – this property is cheap, whereas on the other hand, big print ads with professional photography, smart copy and a highlighted internet listing have the ability to alter the way a buyer perceives the property, and the value of that property,” he says. 

Creating the right campaign for your property

REIQ-accredited agents are encouraged to create a campaign that will achieve the highest possible price for the seller. There are a range of options that may appear on this list – signboards, open houses, local and interstate newspapers, property websites such as reiq.com or dedicated property magazines. 

However, before an agent can legally market or promote a property for sale the vendor (seller) must be given an itemised marketing and advertising campaign and agree to the campaign prior to any marketing commencing. 

The REIQ buyer and seller behaviour report identified that signage, newspaper advertisements and real estate websites rate in the top five methods that buyers use to source property. With this in mind, a campaign should be a collection of advertising options that cater to the research behaviours of buyers. 

Every area is different, so be aware that a marketing campaign is likely targeted according to your property’s geographic location. In fact, the report also found that initial awareness of a property came through real estate websites in the Brisbane region however coastal towns and cities saw newspaper advertising as the most popular. 

Then there are the finer details such as professional photography. The imagery associated with the sale of a property is often overlooked as a non-essential ingredient to the marketing mix. Well, I’m sorry to say that a few Instagram pics are not going to do the trick when it comes to attracting buyers. The report found that photos of the property had the strongest advertising influence. 

So what happens if you don’t commit to advertising spend? 

Well, I’ll put this in context the best way I know how – shopping. You have shopped incessantly, found the perfect outfit, invented the necessary budget justifications to then sentence it to a life behind cupboard doors? To not effectively showcase your property to the marketplace is like stashing away a new dress for no one to see. 

The shift in the market has now made it imperative that agents have all the tools necessary to market and sell a property within the shortest time possible. Without this marketing mix your property may fight an uphill battle to compete with other properties on the market. 

Your property has one chance to make a first impression – make sure it’s a good one!