Health & Fitness
Selling a Home Takes More Than the MLS
One of the first steps a real estate agent takes when listing a home for sale is entering it into the MLS. But in a challenging real estate market, listing a home in the MLS isn't enough.
One of the first steps a real estate agent takes when listing a home for sale is entering it into the MLS. This makes it accessible to other real estate agents across the region, as well as any home buyers with access to the MLS. MLS listings also get syndicated to popular house hunting sites like Realtor.com and Trulia.
But in a challenging real estate market, listing a home in the MLS isn’t enough. There’s very limited room allotted in MLS listings to highlight the features of the home and community.
If we’re listing a home for sale in Sherborn, for example, we’ll want to build an individual property website to highlight what makes this community special. We’ll share videos of Farm Pond, provide the and how much Sherborn residents invest in our highly regarded public school system, highlight all the great they can join, give them maps of Sherborn’s extensive trails, and more. We’d want home buyers to know. After all, when we’re selling real estate, we’re selling a community as well as a home.
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Moreover, home buyers also want to know things like:
- What updates have the current owners made to the home?
- Will the layout of the home work for my family?
- What’s the neighborhood like?
- What shops, restaurants, schools, and amenities are nearby?
- What are my commuting options?
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Creating an individual property website is a great way to share this information. However that's just the start. The listing agent’s next goal is to reach the right buyers; those people who would be most apt to respond favorably to that home. That’s where targeted marketing comes into play. Fortunately there are many resources that listing agents can use today to reach the right audience, and customize a message just for them.
From Facebook ads to decision analytics software, listing agents have many tools at their disposal to make real estate marketing much more effective. As marketers, we have access to in-depth insights about prospective buyers in a way that helps to sell homes faster. We just need to leverage these resources to our sellers’ advantage.
About this column: Sherborn resident Kyle Mann is a realtor with Hallmark Sotheby’s International Realty.