Selling a home today is not like it used to be back in the middle of this decade. Quite honestly when you needed to sell a home back then it was as easy as selling an ice cream cone to a kid on a warm Summer day. Boy has the landscape changed!
Back then the 3 P's of marketing always worked...Put a sign in the yard, put it in MLS and pray:)
When you are selling a home today in Massachusetts you better be darn sure you do your homework on who will be representing you. Selecting a great Realtor to market your home should be one of your 1st considerations.
As someone who has been selling Real Estate for the last twenty four years, I can tell you with certainty that the agent you select will have the greatest bearing on whether you will be happy and successful. In Real Estate there are some very good agents and some that are not so good.
In my eyes there are three traits that you should looking for when selecting a Realtor. These traits include the ability to price a home properly, a well designed marketing plan, and someone with effective communication skills.
Lets face it we all want our homes to sell for the most money. It is human nature. We all think our home is better than the guy that just sold down the street. Many home owners make the biggest mistake by going with the agent that gives them the highest price.
Guess what...there are unprofessional agents that know some people make decisions based on emotion 
and not logic. They tell you what you want to hear to get your business. Once they have you under contract and the home has been on the market for a while they start to badger you for price reductions or worse say nothing. You may be thinking what is the point of having an overpriced home? Some agents just don't care because they are drawing calls from buyers that could be making them sales elsewhere.
So how do you avoid making a poor decision picking a Realtor? Here are three tips:
- Ask good Real Estate interview questions. Look for a Realtor that has a good track record. Past success is usually a good indicator of future success. Ask for references from the agent. I would suggest asking for some of their most recent sales and not from some hand picked list that you know is going to give them glowing reviews.
- Look over the market evaluation very closely. Do the comparable sales look similar to your home? Remember you need to be looking at this information through the eyes of a buyer. If a similar home down the street had a brand new top of the line kitchen and your home does not, don't expect to be getting the same price.
- Picking a Realtor based on the price they give you is really double trouble because more often than not you are stuck with a lousy agent and an overpriced home. Even an outstanding agent will have difficulty selling an improperly priced home. See why Massachusetts homes expire.
The 2nd trait that most good Realtors have is the ability to market well. Today this includes the ability to market on-line. The days of people finding homes by looking in the classifieds and the local magazine rack are over! Almost 90% of all buyers find their homes by doing some kind of on-line search.
As a home seller you should be looking for a agent that has a very strong web presence. By web presence I don't mean putting it into the Multiple listing service (on-line) and Realtor.com. While these things are important they are what every Realtor does.
The Realtor you select should have their own website and it should come up in local Real Estate searches. The ability for the site to come up in searches is of the utmost importance. An agent can have the most gorgeous website out there but if it does not come up in searches it will not help YOU sell your home.
For example if I am a buyer and I am going to be looking for homes or condos on-line, I am probably going to go to Google and punch in something like:
- Hopkinton MA Real Estate
- Holliston MA homes for sale
- Westboro MA homes
or something similar. An agent that can come up on the 1st page of Google for these terms knows what they are doing, as these are the most competitive terms to rank for.
When doing these kind of searches today you will also notice that the agents that really know their way
around the web 2.0 have started a Real Estate blog to market their properties. Google loves blogs because they are not static like websites. The best blogs are updated on a weekly basis and because of this get quite a bit of "Google juice". Besides this blog, here is what one of my other Massachusetts Real Estate blogs looks like.
Besides a website and a blog you want to make sure that your home is found in the places where the most consumers visit. One of the things I am most proud of as an agent is my ability to have my clients homes or condos all over the place on-line. Here is a list of the most visited Massachusetts Real Estate sites for selling a home or condo.
Of course the Realtor is going to need your cooperation as well. In a competitive market you want to make sure your home stands out from the competition. Homes that are in less than ideal condition will take a much bigger beating in a buyers market. At the very least you want to be making sure the place is clean and uncluttered.
Lastly, you want a Realtor who communicates with you on a consistent basis. Most sellers want to know what is going on with the process of selling their home. Who wouldn't! Make sure the agent has a plan to keep you informed. Does your Realtor call every agent after the home is shown to see what are the agents/buyers thoughts?
How is this information relayed back to you? One of the things I do for my clients which they really appreciate is a feedback report that can be viewed on-line. We give the client a password to the site and they are the only ones besides us that can see it. It keeps them in the loop on what buyers are saying and they just love it! The feedback helps us as well because if we see a pattern in the comments we can make suggestions to address the issue.
In conclusion, I am going to leave you with a compilation of the top ten tips for selling a Massachusetts home. What you will be reading is a list of things to consider that I have already mentioned here, along with others that are expounded upon in much greater detail.
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About the Author: The above Real Estate information on Selling a Massachusetts home starts by picking a top Realtor was provided by Bill
Gassett, a Nationally recognized leader in his field. Bill can be reached via email at billgassett@remaxexec.com or by phone at 508-435-5356.
Have a home to sell in Metrowest Mass? I have a passion for Real Estate and love to share my marketing expertise!
For Metrowest Massachusetts Real Estate and homes see Massachusetts Real Estate. Want to have MLS access to beat other buyers to your dream home? Sign up with no obligation at my MLS Property Finder Site.
I service the following towns in Metrowest Massachusetts: Hopkinton, Milford, Southboro, Westboro, Ashland, Holliston, Franklin, Framingham, Mendon, Upton, Hopedale, Medway, Grafton, Northbridge, Uxbridge, and Douglas MA.
Click here to view Bill Gassett's Real Estate profile.
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