8 Modern Home-Selling Tips You Can Use Today

Selling a home in the 21^st century is a different kettle of fish. Even though the purpose of marketing efforts have not changed – this is still to sell the home quickly at the best possible price – the marketing efforts themselves do certainly look a little different today to what they did just a few years ago.

Do you feel flummoxed by the range of online tools available to home sellers and buyers today? Read on.

1. Use Data to Price Your Property Correctly

Pricing your property should never be a thumb-sucking affair, or you could risk setting a price that is either too high (which might cause your home to sit on the market for too long and become overlooked by potential buyers) or too low (leading to a loss of potential profits).

This is why real estate agents allow themselves to be led by the prevailing market factors in a city or suburb, including basing home prices on what comparable properties sell for. To do this, agents utilise big data as guidelines.

As the name suggests, big data refers to large volumes of information and data that is difficult to keep track of by using only conventional methods. The modern era has ushered in the use of a number of new reporting tools that can be used to understand and analyse big data, thereby making it more accessible for use with other clients. Using big data as a guideline for home pricing is convenient, easy, and takes no effort on the seller’s behalf if they are using a real estate agent to help them sell their property.

2. Optimise Your Online Real Estate Listing

The internet has made it easier than ever to start searching for the perfect home which ticks all the buyer’s boxes. In fact, going online to search for property has become the first step for most homebuyers today. Especially during a time when homebuyers cannot simply attend open houses all the time, the internet is an indispensable marketing tool that should be used to its full potential.

When it comes to they information that should be included in an online listing, sellers should make sure they include the following: the listing price and location of the home, its proximity to amenities, schools and other facilities, a description of the property and its features, both indoor and outside, and amenities and features of the home.

As people tend to react more viscerally to visual aids like photographs, the pictures that are included in your online listing are exceptionally important. Use a professional property photographer to snap a few pictures of your home – these experts know exactly how to cast the property in its best light, while also highlighting its most important features.

3. Show Up in the Home Buying Mobile Apps

Most online home listing platforms have also opted to create mobile apps that serve the same purpose as their desktop internet sites. Confirm with your real estate agent that they will ensure that your property listing also features on the most prominent of these apps, or on the apps their agency uses for marketing purposes.

In this regard, you should also make sure that your listing appears correctly on apps and websites on mobile phones. As most Australians browse the web using their mobile devices, it certainly won’t bode well if your listing is unsupported on mobile phones, tablets and other mobile devices.

4. Take Advantage of free Advertising on Facebook

Your real estate agent will probably include Facebook ads in their overall marketing strategy (remember to ask which marketing platforms will be used, and how they will be used), but sellers shouldn’t forget to also take advantage of their personal profiles in the marketing efforts of their home. Share the listings your agent posts and make sure to also let your own virtual circle of friends know that your home is on the market.

Facebook offers paid advertising, but when sharing these posts, individuals are able to advertise for free. The power of social media has become even more pronounced over the past few years, and it would be irresponsible to not take advantage of the many benefits this sphere offers to Joe Public.

5. Offer Virtual Tours

It goes without saying that open houses the way we know them will not be on the cards for some time. The Covid-19 outbreak has forced most industries online in an effort to promote social distancing and stop the spread of the virus, and the world of real estate has also not been left untouched by this virtual revolution.

Virtual property tours have been gaining ground over the past few years anyway, but this novel way of showing a home to potential buyers is truly coming into its own in the midst of the current health crisis. You can almost be sure that virtual home tours will form part and parcel of your real estate agent’s marketing strategy during the pandemic.

Virtual property tours may be conducted in a number of ways. One of the simplest of these is for the agent to use video-calling or conferencing tools like WhatsApp, FaceTime, Skype or Zoom to showcase the property in real time. 3D tours, which utilise 3D cameras to capture a property and allow interested buyers to view the property in three dimensions, are another option. Virtual staging gives sellers a lot more freedom in terms of the ways in which the home can be presented to property prospectors looking for their next purchase.

6. Switch Regular Light Bulbs with Smart Ones

Turning a property into a smart home is in line with current trends in the realm of real estate, and will almost certainly add value to your home, especially as millennials enter the property market. This new generation is increasingly using smart virtual assistants to organise their lives and their homes, and the capabilities of devices like Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri and the Google Home Assistant have expanded to include services related to smart homes. While you might think an entire overhaul of the home is necessary to make it compatible with smart devices, you’ll already make an impression on young buyers by simply replacing the regular light bulbs in the home with smart light bulbs. These nifty little numbers allow lighting to be controlled, customised and scheduled remotely, because they are capable of connecting to the internet.

Smart light bulbs are just one of many products and fittings that form a part of the Internet of Things (IoT). Ask your real estate agent what other cost-effective devices that add value to the property can be installed in your home.

7. Promote Your Home’s Sustainability

Another thing that younger generations are keenly aware of is their carbon footprint. As climate change is one of the biggest threats facing civilisation today, it stands to reason that buyers won’t be interested in a property that is not sustainable in the long run. But how does one make a property more sustainable?

In colder parts of the country, glazed windows are a far better way of conserving heat than other, combustion-based methods of heating. Solar panels provide a great alternative in terms of electricity supply, while rainwater tanks that capture rainwater for use in the home or garden will also make a property far more sustainable than it would be otherwise.

Speaking of the garden: let an expert advise you on which plant species in your garden are indigenous species, and which are invasive. Get rid of the alien plants in your garden, and if you’d like to go even further, plant a few drought-resistant, low maintenance species in their place. This will put buyers’ minds at ease about the amount of water they’ll have to use to keep the garden in good shape.

8. Research and Hire a Top Real Estate Agent Online

While the 21^st century has seen numerous changes and improvements in the real estate industry, and many tools have become available that have changed this landscape forever, one mainstay has remained. Even in the modern era, where home sellers have a myriad of platforms, gadgets and devices at their disposal, the value that a seasoned and qualified real estate agent adds when a home is on the market can never be overstated.

What makes an actual real estate agent different from the range of virtual helpers available to home sellers today is their experience and knowledge of the property market’s inner workings. Real estate agents know how to take advantage of the reporting tools that lay out big data for use in marketing. They realise the power that social media marketing can have in getting the word about property out. They know what improvements make an impression, and are able to handle real-life negotiation with potential buyers like the pros they are.

Conclusion

While some aspects of the property industry have gone significant change over the past few years, providing additional marketing tools and strategies that might have been unimaginable a year or ten ago, some things have definitely stayed the same. Real estate agents are still crucial to selling at the right price. Still haven’t found an agent that understands your needs? Use Perfect Agent’s convenient online agent finder to find your perfect match.