When you are thinking about listing your property for sale having a proper marketing plan is not always the primary thing on people’s list of things to do.  The truth is that most real estate marketing stops at listing on the Multiple Listing Service or MLS.  This is often a fatal mistake that can cost you both time and money since your property will most likely be competing with many others on the market.

The first stage of your marketing plan is to do some research.  Take a look at the selling, not asking, price of comparable homes in your area over the past few months.  Arriving at your property’s price on asking prices in your neighborhood is a frequent misstep of many sellers.  But you may end up asking too much thus making the sale of your property take longer.  Your real estate professional can assist in providing you with selling prices so you can make a better decision.

Once you have a better picture of property values in your area you need to find out what the housing market is doing.  Are prices increasing or falling each month and by how much?  Be sure to narrow your focus on your immediate area.  Particular pockets of a larger city may be dealing with a modest rise is home prices despite the fact that the city, on average, is in a decline.  For instance, in the greater region of Durham, Pickering real estate may have particular economic factors that is causing it to rise slightly despite the fact that the average price of Durham region real estate is decline from month to month.

With your asking price determined you can now move on to reviewing your property from a purchaser’s perspective.  What are some aspects of your home that might cause a purchaser to offer you less or discourage them from making an offer at all. This is quite possibly the most difficult part.  Your property is very personal to you and it is often hard to find and deal with it’s problems.  This can be valuable in that you will be able to understand the purchaser’s reasons for their offer price.  In any successful negotiation, if you can identify with the other party’s motives you have a better chance of reaching a deal that benefits both sides.

Once you list your property for sale the advertising phase begins.  Making every ad dollar counts is essential but it can be tough to find out which of the various forms of marketing will have the best results.  In other words where are the potential buyers?

Real estate newspapers and magazines are still used by a lot of buyers but the majority look on-line for homes at some point.  Advertising your property on-line also awards the advantage of being able to provide potential purchasers with much more detail than a newspaper can.  You can quite easily add multiple pictures, videos, virtual tours and go into more detail.  All of this will not only allow your listing to stand out from your competition but can also assist in bringing you more qualified purchasers.

At the end of the day you want your property sold for the highest possible price and in the quickest period of time.  You can stand to have the largest chance of success by doing a little homework and implementing a proper marketing plan.