Real Estate Website Design - Intagent

Top 10 Ways to Make Home Buyers Hate Your House

Jan 28, 2013

1.) Leave the stench

Don’t clean the litter box. you cleaned it yesterday, right? It doesn’t smell that bad.
Here’s a tip:  Give your house the “sniff test.” Nothing is more off-putting to a prospective buyer than a house that smells stale … or worse. Often, you become so inured to the smell of your own home that you don’t notice scents that might offend visitors. Empty the garbage, load dirty clothes into the washing machine, run a lemon rind through the disposal, give wood furniture a quick polish, and for goodness sake, clean the litter box.  Want a tip? Bake something right before your open house, it’ll keep people wishing this was their home!

2.) Indulge yourself with your creativity

Indulge your creative side with vividly painted walls and furniture. Paint an accent wall a bright color. I’m sure it will look great and its fun to do!
Here’s a tip: Maybe just tone it down. Make your house a place that anyone could imagine living in. This means removing most evidence of your personal taste.  Store your collections in a safe place for the duration of the selling process. Remember, you want prospective buyers to look at the space, not get distracted by your stuffed animal collection.

3.) Just leave things where they were.

Stash your dirty magazines and movies in your oven or drawers! No one will ever look there
Here’s a tip: Get rid of everything you wouldn’t want your mother to see. Prospective buyers will open the oven, investigate drawers for function and capacity, and study your closets and medicine cabinet. Part of preparing your house to sell is a ruthless purging of all these places and a thoughtful review of potentially embarrassing items.

4.) Don’t bother cleaning the lawn

You don’t have to clean the yard, after all it’s just the house you are selling.
Here’s a tip: See your yard as an extension of the house. Trim unruly bushes, pull weeds, spread fresh and keep it mowed. Your yard sets expectations of the buyers , its the first thing they see when they step in

5.) Distracting Doggie

Leave your dog in his crate while people look at your house. He won’t bother anyone.
Here’s a tip:  He may not be so well-behaved when you’re not there. A barking dog is extremely distracting when prospects are trying to get a detailed look at your house. Take him with you if you can, or drop him off at a pet-friendly neighbor’s house and repay her with house-sitting or a similar fave

6.) Pile of dirty dishes

Don’t worry about the dishes in the sink. People will  understand you were in a rush to get out the door that morning.
Here’s a tip: They’ll think you’re a slob who couldn’t be bothered     to put the dishes in the dishwasher — and probably hasn’t taken     very good care of the house. If it means you have to take your family out to breakfast, make sure to leave your kitchen pristine.

7.) Leave  as is

Let the buyers fix the hole in the wall and the broken light fixture. Who knows? They may want to choose their own!
Here’s a tip: Be prepared to lose a sale over the poor condition of your house. Everything in your home must be in good working order before you put it on the market. This process can take a couple of months, but you need to fix all broken fixtures, change all burned-out light bulbs, repair any flaws in the walls and refresh any paint that needs it.

8.) This is me

Leave out your pictures, magazines, books and knickknacks. You want prospective buyers to feel as if they know you, right?

Here’s a tip: You want buyers to immediately begin imagining themselves living in your house, and they’ll have a hard time seeing beyond the pictures of your family at Beaver Creek and the old issues of Garden & Gun. So clear every surface, every side table, every coffee table, the sideboard, the desk and the dining room table.

9.) Pack it in

Leave your furniture arranged just as you like it. That way people can see how many lovely pieces you own!
Here’s a tip: Remove extra furniture that clutters the space — side tables, footstools and magazine racks — and takes up more space than a fixed chair. Create simple arrangements with maximum impact. place a sofa facing the fireplace, and flank it with two chairs and coffee table in between. This will create visual depth and an inviting vignette.

10.) Team Loyalties

Make sure buyers know which team you cheer for. And don’t forget to fly that Red Sox flag!
Here’s a tip: Put your fan-of-the-year behavior on hold for a while, and stash your team merchandise in the attic. What if your best prospect is a Yankees fan? You don’t want to lose a buyer over a foam finger. The same goes for religious paraphernalia, although that may actually be less of a deal breaker.

 

 

 

The key to absorb these tips is good common sense. To sum it all up, you have to clean out your home  and know how to show  it to prospective buyers.  If you want to market your own house without an agent and decide to go FSBO,  look for a Real estate website design company that can give you the web tools needed to create powerful presence on the internet. This can  assure your best chances of selling your house for the best price, in the shortest period of time.

Habits of Highly Effective Real Estate Agents

Jan 11, 2013

 

Habit#1: Have Patience

Real estate agents need patience. Patience in dealing with other agents, with lenders, with title companies, with inspectors, with appraisers, with banks, and yes, even with their clients. Let’s be honest, some of your client types are not the easiest people to work with. The patient real estate agent, is the one that can shrug off the inconsequential and zero in with laser focus on the crisis of the moment,is the agent that closes those transactions that can slip away from the less patient

Habit#2: Communication Skills

You don’t have to be Oprah or Martin Luther King Jr. Communication involves speaking, writing and even listening skills. You must be able to communicate effectively and not speaking in real estate terms that people outside the real estate space may not understand. Timeliness of communication is critical as well. Sometimes, even if there is no change in the transaction, reaching out to your client and letting them know that its just as important as talking to them when a big matter is at hand.

Habit#3: Understand the real estate market

Local knowledge is important for helping a home buyer find that perfect home. “Local knowledge” doesn’t just mean memorizing the number of homes listed for sale and the median sales price, it means understanding the schools, shopping, medical facilities,rules and regulations and anything else a potential buyer may need to know in order to make educated decisions on where to buy. For sellers, understanding the real estate market is critical in being able to properly prepare and  price a home for sale.

 Habit#4: Understand the Real Estate Contract and Supporting Document

An effective agent should understand the real estate contracts  and forms such as, Late Payment forms, Lease Options, Purchase Agreements, Rental Addendum , Rental Agreements  as well as other forms like Credit Dispute Forms to Property tax reports which are supplementary. You should review them before you make or consider an offer on a home. The documents are drawn up by legal types and are often worded in ways only those people can manage. A good agent should be able to explain every line of the contract to you in plain English. Needless to say, an understanding of the terms and terminology of the contracts are necessary before a satisfactory explanation can be achieved.

Habit #5: Understand the Client

Every individual is different. You need to understand what your client’s needs are. What is their motivation for buying / selling? Identifying needs versus wants is crucial in moving the sale . It will save you time in zeroing in on the right product.

Habit #6: Technological Skills

No, you don’t have to understand how to write computer programs or solder a component on a motherboard. But you need to at least have some basic knowledge of how and why people go to websites. The internet is where your clients can access you. Having your own personalized  website is a must in the real estate business or any business for that  matter. Your website should be easy to access, quick on information and helpful to you and your clients. It should  contain features such as SEO tools, List Syndication and MLS integration which are excellent tools to assist you with editing your website.

Habit #7 : Be Likeable

People pick a real estate agent because they like them. Real estate sales is not rocket science. It doesn’t take years of formal education and training to be a good real estate agent. What separates any given agent from another is a razor-thin margin. Home buyers and sellers often select agent because of their personality over how much they know of a specific area.  Remember to be yourself!

Why you need a real estate video for your website

Nov 13, 2012

 

Online video has proven to be an effective tool for real estate agents. If pictures can show off an available home better than text alone, then imagine how powerful video can be to the prospective buyer. It gives them the feeling of actually touring the property–outside of them visiting the house in person, there’s no better way for them to truly experience it.

Videos are social by nature. Just as you learned in kindergarten, it’s important to share – and now it’s fun! And every marketer knows social media is all about sharing, whether it’s on twitter, facebook, pinterest etc.  Videos stand out. At one time, virtual tours gave agents an advantage over those who offered photography alone. A full motion, narrated, video tour lets agents show clients that they are using the latest technology to market their property to get maximum exposure. It’s all about enhancing your marketing strategy, to set yourself apart from the competition.

 

A perfect  example  of a good real estate video  is from one of our clients here at Intagent, Tanya Osman. She has projected a simple yet  a very informative video that shows the details of her listings such as the number of  bedrooms, bathrooms and  the square meters.

By using this strategy, you will be able to quickly build trust and rapport, because you will make your marketing a lot more personal. This works far better than being the man behind the curtain. Yet, so many times people can go about producing their video content in the wrong way. A lot of us don’t like to be in front of the camera, so when that little light turns on we tend to freeze. I think one of the main reasons that this can occur with real estate video marketing is that we are trying to be too perfect and professional. Instead, your goal should be to establish a bond with your audience and just show them that you’re real. Pretend as if you are speaking to one of your best friends when you turn on that camera. The more relaxed and confident you are, the easier your viewers will be able to relate to you.

 

  Real Estate Video Marketing Facts

  • 52% of all web traffic is video (according to industry watchdog eMarketer)
  • 38% of Google Universal Search results included video (Comscore)
  • More than 70% of all web visitors watch online video (NY Times)
  • The average YouTube visitor spends 27 minutes per day watching video
  • Because video is so popular, video links and clips often show up before other content
  • Search engines visit video sites every few minutes, so your  videos will appear in Google after you submit, not days or weeks as is the case using conventional SEO/SEM tactics.

Here at Intagent, want to make things better and easier for our clients because we know how tough this industry can be and we have seen the struggle that comes with it.  We are here to help them market themselves and create a presence, from creating more attractive templates to adding videos to your homepage. As part of wanting to serve our clients better we have assigned them their own personal support consultant, making sure that they get all the help that they need.

To start a website with us,you can click on the link below:

http://www.intagent.com/website.php

For more details, you can contact us at  800-209-0740