“The key to selling your house for top dollar—even in a dismal market—is simple: Implement a broad-based advertising campaign to generate spirited buyer competition for your property.”
– House Selling for Dummies

Components of the Comprehensive Marketing Plan

• Determine buyer profile for property
• Price and position to maximize buyer and broker response
• Prepare property to maximize number of showings and quality of offers
• Professional real estate photography
• Gorgeous promotional materials
• Traditional media advertising
• Direct mail and email campaign
• Targeted community marketing
• Extensive Internet marketing
• Marketing to the broker community
• Orchestrated schedule of open houses, broker tours and individual showings

First Steps

• Pricing walk-through by selected agents, as applicable
• Staging consultant review
• Landscaping review
• Prepare property-preparation punch list
• Professional photo-shoot
• Order architectural and floor-plan renderings, as appropriate
• Order pre-sale inspections
• Complete Seller and agent disclosures
• Order Natural Hazard Disclosure Report
• Order County Bldg Dept. report
• Order transferable Home Warranty, as appropriate
• Prepare newspaper advertisements
• Prepare magazine advertisements
• Develop color property statement and brochure
• Create Property-Tour Slideshow and Virtual Tour (if appropriate)
• Develop Property-Showcase website with description, multiple photos, slideshow, showing dates, neighborhood information, loan calculator, etc.

Prior to First Showing

• Update comparative market analysis: check for new competitive listings, recent comparable sales or changes in market conditions
• Pre-sale inspection reports received and reviewed
• Post property on the San Francisco Multiple Listing Service and affiliated website with multiple photos, detailed description and initial showing dates
• Post enhanced-showcase listing on Realtor.com
• Post property on over 90 of the most important local and national real-estate listing web sites—including those of the San Francisco Chronicle, The NY Times, Trulia, Zillow, YouTube, Luxury Real Estate ($1.5m+) and Google Base
• Property is posted on hundreds of Bay Area broker and agent websites for maximum exposure to prospective buyers working with other local agents
• Post listing and showing information on Craigslist
• Mail “Just Listed” postcards to 250+ households within the neighborhood
• Mail (or hand-deliver) neighbor invitations to first Open House
• Distribute property flyers to major brokerages announcing first Brokers’ Tour and Sunday Open House
• Outreach to neighborhood businesses and organizations: invitations to open houses, posting of property brochure
• Email listing announcement, website address and slideshow to selected agents
• Install “For Sale” sign with website rider, and brochure box, if appropriate
• Order loan scenario handouts for open houses
• Finalize comprehensive disclosure package for interested agents and buyers
• Arrange catering for first Brokers’ Tour and Preview Open House
• Complete final preparations of property to show in best possible light

On Market: Week One

• Consider preview Open House or Twilight Tour for neighbors, friends and selected brokers invited by personal invitation
• First Brokers’ Tour
• First Saturday Open House, if appropriate
• First Sunday Open House
• Individual showings to interested agents and prospective buyers
• Follow-up with attendees of Brokers’ Tours, Sunday Open Houses and private showings
• Review market response and re-strategize as necessary
• Prepare new advertisements; mailings; MLS, Craigslist and website updates

On Market: Week Two

• Revise ads and website postings to reflect new showing information
• Second Brokers’ Tour
• Second Sunday Open House
• Individual showings to interested agents and prospective buyers
• Follow-up with attendees of Brokers’ Tours, Sunday Open Houses and private showings
• Distribution of comprehensive disclosure packages to interested parties

On Market: Week Three

• Review market response and feedback, Internet website traffic reports, changes in market conditions, and new data on competitive properties and comparable sales
• Review and revise marketing plan & pricing strategy, as needed

Subsequent to offer acceptance, marketing campaign shall continue until all contingencies of sale have been removed.

The Listing Presentation Agenda:

• Your priorities, preferences, requirements & timeline for selling your home: how I can be of most help and service to you.
• My qualifications and resources to achieve your goals.
• The likely buyer profile how to position your home accordingly
• Our marketing plan to comprehensively reach every potential buyer, and every broker who might have a buyer—wherever they might be located.
• Options for preparing your property to show in its best possible light.
• Current market conditions and the comparative market analysis—to price your home so as to maximize market response and final sales price.
• An overview of how the entire listing, sales & escrow process will work.
• Typical costs of sale and a calculation of your estimated proceeds.
• The state agency disclosure & the standard listing contract.
• Is there anything else you’d like to cover?

My Commitment to You

As your agent and fiduciary representative, I will always serve and protect your interests above all others to the very best of my ability.

• I have a proven expertise to prepare my clients’ properties to show in their best possible light and generate the highest market response—in order to attain the highest achievable sales price.
• I implement a marketing plan of the highest quality and effectiveness in order to seize the attention and maximize the response of the buyer and broker communities.
• I will rigorously qualify prospective buyers.
• I will expertly and aggressively negotiate the purchase contract on your behalf in order to maximize your proceeds of sale.
• I will coordinate and manage every aspect of the sale transaction to minimize unpleasant surprises, delays in close of escrow, buyer attempts to renegotiate, and any and all future liability once the escrow is closed.
• In everything I do, I shall work to minimize your stress, time and effort during the listing and sale processes, and bring everything to a successful conclusion.
• I have superb client references.

Our job is to look out for your best interests. First we listen. Then we develop a strategic plan to achieve your individual goals.

Agent Fiduciary

Their home is usually one of my clients’ biggest financial assets. Its sale is typically one of the largest, most complicated and most emotional financial transactions of their lives. I take that responsibility very seriously.

As your agent, I have a fiduciary responsibility to protect your interests to the best of my ability.

I have a fiduciary obligation to put your interests above all others:

• To achieve the best attainable sales price and terms within the timeframe you delineate.
• To make the process as easy and straightforward as possible, with a minimum of time, effort and stress on your part.
• To protect you, as best I can, from any and all future liability.

I don’t get paid until the sale of your home closes for a price you deem acceptable.

Internet Marketing Plan

80% of home buyers in the United States now begin their search on the Internet.

25% buy a home they first see on the Internet.

All listings feature photography by a professional real estate photographer. The slideshow allows buyers to walk through the home from anywhere in the world.

Listings are posted to hundreds of real estate listing websites – local, national, international – to maximize exposure to prospective buyers everywhere. Here are some of the most important sites:

The New York Times

• The San Francisco Chronicle
• Realtor.com: Showcase Listing
• Trulia: Premium Listing
• Zillow: Featured Listing
• Google
• YouTube
• Craigslist
• S.F. Association of Realtors
• SF Open Home (Open Houses)
• LuxuryRealEstate.com (Over $1.5m)
• MSN Real Estate
• WorldProperties.com
• TheStreet.com
• Clean Offer

Consumers are now more than 1000% more likely to find the home they purchase on the Internet than in a newspaper or magazine.

What You Can and Can’t Control

What You Can’t Control

• The past: what you paid for your home at purchase
• The size, location and general amenities of your home
• General economic circumstances
• Local market conditions

What You Can Control

• Timing as to when to put the property on the market
• Preparing the home, inside and out, to show at its best
• Marketing the property to reach every potential buyer and every agent
• who might have a buyer
• Pre-sale inspections and disclosure management
• Pricing as close to fair market value as can be rationally ascertained
• Buyer qualifying to ascertain financial capability
• Contract negotiation to achieve the best achievable sales price and terms
• Liability management at every step of the process (in a highly litigious state)
• Transaction management to close the sale as quickly and smoothly as possible

The quality of the agent working on your behalf—his or her competence, integrity, work ethic and commitment to your interests—can make an enormous difference in the outcome of your home purchase or sale in money, stress, time, in future happiness.

The Dangers of Over-Pricing

“One crucial aspect of selling a house is correctly establishing its initial asking price. If a seller prices a house near its fair market value, the house usually sells quickly for top dollar. If, on the other hand, a seller grossly overprices a property, it tends to linger on the market…Ironically, instead of getting more money… [Over-pricing] usually stigmatizes a property and reduces the eventual sale price to less than it would have been with more realistic pricing.”

– House Selling for Dummies

1. The basic truth: the vast majority of serious buyers and their agents simply will not make offers on properties they consider significantly overpriced.
2. Overpricing wastes the optimum moment of Buyer/Broker interest in the property—when it’s brand new on the market and the marketing plan is in full implementation.
3. Sitting on the market, the property becomes “stale.”

• Killing the “sense of urgency” in buyers’ minds that they must act quickly with a strong, clean offer. It is this sense of urgency that typically leads to the highest sales price—either through a competitive-bidding multiple-offer situation, or the perceived threat of the seller receiving other offers.
• Dramatically reducing the perceived value of the property because buyers assume there must be something wrong with the property. Just as competitive offers enhance value in buyers’ minds, an apparent lack of interest deeply reduces value.

4. Overpricing helps sell competitive properties—as they stand out as a good value in comparison.
5. Overpricing usually results with the property selling for less money than if the property had been properly priced to begin with.

Buying the Listing

In order to win the listing, some agents suggest a list price considerably higher than market conditions and comparable sales justify—because these agents believe this is what the seller wants to hear.

This is called “buying the listing.”

Because of the factors mentioned above, this is a huge disservice to their clients. My practice is based upon telling my clients the truth.