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How to Handle Hard to Answer Questions at Your Open House

Be Prepared to Field These Hard to Answer Questions at an Open House

Real estate marketing can sometimes leave you feeling a little hot under the collar – especially during open houses when negative aspects of a home are brought to light with a few creatively formulated (or intelligently devised) questions. How well-prepared are you for your showings?

How you handle these questions could make or break a sale:

How much interest have you seen?
Here, buyers may want to take part in (or avoid wasting time) on a home that could potentially undergo a bidding war, or be fishing for leverage. Longstanding listings offer a better chance at price negotiations, whereas a home with an offer (or multiples) indicates fierce competition and a need to act fast.

Any recent improvements?
Those fishing for improvement info or ‘the shape’ of the home are attempting to foretell potentially expensive maintenance and improvement needs. Keep in mind that some aspects of building condition will be part of disclosures and due-diligence, but buyers may use this as a litmus test for your ethics.

Could you tell me more?
Be careful what you mention first. Always keep in mind that what’s NOT said can indicate weaknesses. (Are you harping on a magnificent location to mask home condition?)

When do the sellers need to close?
A major sticking point in the buying process, you need to know this information. There’s no ‘right’ answer – but you need the honest truth.

What do utilities run?
Essential to avoiding budgeting pitfalls, this information can only be provided by the owner. If the numbers are good, bill copies (sans personal information) may be a great tool.

How’s the neighborhood?
The Fair Housing Act, prohibits discrimination based-on race, religion, sex, or family/economic status, making this one especially tricky. Point buyers to trusted realty search engines to decide if the home meets their personal demographic essentials.

Feeling the heat? Chill with some of the best real estate marketing tips in the business from PropertiesOnline.

Promotional Videos Can Go a Long Way to Boost Business!

How to Create Your Own First Personal Promotion Video

Fill your website and online marketing venues with content that drives customers to your door with video usage in real estate marketing. A fast and effective way to make those emotional connections that cinch sales, personal promotional videos are a terrific way to break into video, showing potential clients why you rise above the competition.

Camera-Shy? Don’t Sweat It
You can be the star of the show with only a minor appearance, and here’s how:

Jot-down a quick story-board or outline
Expect to pop-up near the beginning, in a few quick shots throughout, and again at the end. Plan for your video to be 2-3 minutes (no longer). A lot can be said in a short-time with a well-planned video. Use these tips:

Look elsewhere
A person talking to the camera for 2 minutes is rarely engaging. Showcase your market (sights, neighborhoods, homes), giving insight into the values that set you apart from competitors and describing your ideal client. Be authentic – if you’re funny (or driven), let your personality shine.

Take a unique approach:

  • Start with a question or observation about your marketplace, such as why your clients love to call this area ‘home.’ Then introduce yourself after you’ve engaged the viewer with interesting/beautiful imagery.
  • Open with a montage of client testimonials, “I’m Jane Agent with Realty 101, and happy clients are what I love the most about my real estate business.”

Take great shots
No selfies please! Poor imagery deters potential clients and showings – hire help if you have to!

Call it!
Include a quick call-to-action at the end with a ‘thanks for watching,’ and you’re all set.

Make it Super Simple
Input your content into our new, fully-customizable video builder tool, free with any Properties Online product, cranking-out and syndicating high-quality video content in just minutes, and boosting the likelihood of page 1 Google rankings with video usage in real estate marketing. Discover more from Properties Online today.

Tips for Putting Together Marketing Videos

Top Marketing Videos to Do For Every Listing

Video usage in real estate marketing is exploding, and surprisingly enough to many agents, it involves more than listing videos. Are you missing out on the benefits that these essential real estate marketing videos can deliver?

Look Beyond Listing Videos to these Prime Video Marketing Solutions:

  • Informational Videos
    Provide value to buyers and sellers alike with short, educational videos on common real estate topics and questions (and lighten your to-do load).
  • Agent/Office Promotional Videos
    What makes you/your office stand out? From awards to finding foreclosures for flipping, tout it in a short promo.
  • Interview Videos
    Generate new leads by interviewing past clients on their first-person experience working with you. Interviews with respected figures in the community, as well as colleagues in the industry (lenders, inspectors, attorneys) will boost your video marketing currency.
  • Profile Videos
    Help potential sellers and buyers better understand what you have to offer with a brief “about me” video, highlighting your family, hobbies, successes, and even funny stories or anecdotes.
  • Neighborhood & Community Videos
    Capture special community events like annual festivals and parades, hone-in on area amenities, shopping and dining hotspots, beautiful scenery and more with a short, informational video to offer a deep and unique community perspective.
  • Local Business Reviews
    Area restaurant, retail store, or business win an award, or simply have a strong community following? Feature these shining venues.
  • Client Testimonials
    Quick, short videos of happy, satisfied clients are among the best video currency.
  • How-To Videos
    Provide potential customers with information on everything from how sellers should prep their home for showings, to how buyers can speed up the perusal process.

Extend Your Reach
Don’t just post these videos on your site, email them as part of your promotional marketing collateral, and more importantly, share them via social networking!

Put video use in real estate marketing to work for you with the latest addition to the Properties Online family. Learn more today!

These Accounting Tips Will Cut Back on Your Taxes.

Accounting Hacks to Help Small Firms Shrink Taxes

Small business owners, independent contractors, and micro-entrepreneurs, lend me your ears! Treat your real estate selling job right, and Uncle Sam may let you keep a few more of your hard-earned Benjamins.

Tax hacks to come; see and conquer this 2017:
By law, we at Properties Online cannot give tax advice, but we do have a few hacks for making your ridiculously complicated 1040-CRAZY journey a little less harrowing:

• Keep things separate.
Shared accounts create complications. Instead, pay every business expense and deposit all income in a separate business checking account. Big bills come before the big check? Use a business credit card, paying charges directly from your business checking account. Keeping all transactions electronic allows you to simply export data to a spreadsheet for taxes later.

• Harvest data more easily.
Ditch the shoebox from hell and stop mining for receipts under your car seat. Take an Evernote photo of every receipt (or screen shot of online purchases) as soon as the purchase is paid, for easy sorting and searching. Correspond social business purchases (lunch, parking, etc.) with a detailed calendar.

• Go the long haul.
Toss your daily calendar on the front seat, logging daily time, addresses, and events, and finally start taking advantage of mileage deductions. At the end of the month add them to Evernote. At the end of the period, you may be shocked to discover how much they add up to.

• Backup your backup.
Copy your calendar into Evernote each month, backing it up to the cloud.

• Know when to farm things out.
Paying a small company in your neighborhood to do all your tax prep work while you’re out selling real estate is likely a far better solution than you re-reading tax prep instructions ad nauseam and searching for loopholes on Google.

Tax headaches from real estate selling endeavors overinflating your calendar? Hack them down to size with the help of Properties Online.

How to Handle Hard to Answer Questions at Your Open House

Tips to Helping Your Sellers Focus on Selling a ” Product” Not a Home

What seller wouldn’t love to maximize the speed of selling their home, alongside the price? Putting a new look on an old battle could help them pull it off. Real estate selling tips looking at home sales from a different perspective – selling the home as a marketable “product” rather than a home – can achieve both these goals.

Drive real estate selling speed and pricing with these no-nonsense product marketing tips:

• Set the stage.
Drive-by shoppers WILL judge a book by its cover, making an instant determination to schedule a viewing with this simple act alone. Your front yard must look beautiful and maintenance-light. Don’t break the budget (new driveways/added garage) – a few new plants, grass, mulch, and a lot of lawn maintenance (raking, weeding, hedge trimming, pressure washing) will do the trick.

• Add a little sparkle and shine.
As opposed to major renovations, which can take a long time, focus instead on simple ways of creating a fresh look. The more “new” a home looks, the better the impression. The more “move-in ready,” the more buyers will pay. Deep clean every corner and crevice, particularly in the kitchen and bath, and reap big rewards. Neatly apply new trim and fresh paint. New moderately priced flooring, and you’ve got a trifecta of marketing potential at minimal cost.

• Move it or lose it.
Little stuff (clutter) prevents would-be buyers from visualizing themselves in the space. It also robs appeal, making spaces appear smaller.

• Make it look good.
Well planned, professional photographs (not amateurish phone snaps) equate to professional marketing materials. With the glut of online shopping, this is not someplace to scrimp.

• Go low to sell high.
Price just a bit low. This makes the home visible to more buyers, enhances your “product’s” bargain appeal, and entices multiple offers, competitive bidding, and a fast sale.

See real estate selling in a new light. Professionalize “product packaging” with PropertiesOnline today.

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