Your Situation
Lake Arrowhead is an established community going through some exciting new changes. At the time of writing of this article (June 2007), there are 279 active listings in the subdivision. How do you compete effectively with what is out there, and how do you get a buyer for your specific home in this community?

Agent Knowledge
Having an agent that is thoroughly familiar with Lake Arrowhead list your home is important. You want your agent to know the community well enough to be familiar with the key selling points like the amenities, schools, recreation, nearby medical facilities, community activities and more. When your agent brings a buyer in, they need to sell them not just on your home, but also on the surrounding environment that they will live in.

I am very familiar with Lake Arrowhead and spent many days driving around the subdivision visiting the club house, reading newsletters of the community, meeting builders in the community, knowing the scoop on the amenities and the changes currently in progress, looking over the community maps and the proposed new developments, physically viewing almost every home under construction, viewing listed homes, reading the CC&R's and in general spending the time that it takes to be thoroughly familiar and in tune with the pulse of Lake Arrowhead.

Buyer Marketing For Lake Arrowhead
Most agents will take your listing, put a sign in the yard, run newspaper ads and enter the listing into the MLS. I go several steps further. I actively market Lake Arrowhead to buyers, whether I have a listing there or not. Have a look at www.LakeArrowheadWaleska.com. This web page is marketed nationally, and most of the buyers that I bring to Lake Arrowhead are relocating from out of state. They are already excited about the lake and the community before I even bring them here. Your listing will be showcased as a featured listing on this site so buyers will notice your listing first. Wouldn't you want your listing agent to solicit buyers for homes in Lake Arrowhead in addition to marketing their own listings?

Use of Technology
85% of home buyers start their search on the internet. Shouldn't your agent be web savvy? Most people will look at homes online to see what they can get for their budget, and what is available in their area of interest before they ever get in a car or call an agent. They will often have a short list of properties of interest before they even contact an agent.

How I use technology to sell your home
In a prior career I worked as a management consultant to Fortune 500 companies and advised them on their internet strategies. You get 12 years worth of Fortune 500 technology experience to work on selling your home. If the executives of those companies were happy with what I provided, just think of what it can do for you. The internet alone is not enough to sell a home in a tough market however. Here is a subset of what I do to get your home sold:

• Talking home -  People will drive around subdivisions after they located them online and look at homes for sale. They often take a flyer to get more information. Here is the problem. They take the flyer, and they leave! Neither you or your agent knows who they are or what they are looking for. I use an 800 number with a free recorded message instead of flyers. Why? People can call the 800 number 24/7 knowing that they will get a recording (they don't want to talk to sales people yet, they want information). The technology I use captures their phone number when they listen to the recording. Even if they have caller id disabled! I then call them up to see how I can help them. This approach captures that buyer instead of having them drive off and never coming back
  
  
• Marketing for buyers - Most agents take listings knowing that they will get buyers from it. I do it the other way around. I market to get buyers, then take them to my listings first. Because of my internet marketing experience, I capture hundreds of buyer leads every month that are looking for homes online. When I talk to you about listing your home, I will show you my email inbox of buyer leads - no one I know of can compare. Here are some of my lead generation sites: www.PremierHomesOfAtlanta.com , www.Cobb-Homes.com ,  www.SavannahRiverClub.com , www.LakeArrowheadWaleska.com etc ....
  
  
• Internet marketing - All realtors will get you on the MLS and realtor.com. That is what we call table stakes. You have to have that to be in the game, but it does not give you an advantage. The website you are on right now are linked to over 1,000 other agents via what is called a handshake agreement. When I list your property on my site, your listing gets pushed to their websites for display as well. Now you have approximately 1,000 agents ACTIVELY marketing your home as they are all spending dollars to market their own websites.
  
  I push your listing to other high traffic sites as well for MASSIVE exposure. Here is a short list of where it gets shown:
  - Yahoo Classifieds (Yahoo's real estate section)
  - Google Base (Google's real estate listing engine)
  - Oodle.com (A classifieds search engine with over 75,000 listings used by major companies)
  - Trulia.com (A real estate search engine that helps consumers find neighborhood information)
  - Livedeal.com (Top 10 most visited in the US classifieds search engine)
  - Propsmart.com (A real estate search engine with over 1,000,000 listings)
  - RealEstateAdvisor.com (A real estate search engine)
  - TheHousingPages.com (A resource for consumers looking to buy or sell a home)
  - videohomes.com
  - House.com
  - Propbot.com
  - Craigslist.com
  - Backpage.com
  - And many, many more
  
  
• Excellent Photography - Since people search for homes online, they make up a short list of properties of interest based solely on the pictures of the home they saw online. I had one of my buyers select homes based on whether the interior walkways had wrought iron railings. Doesn't it make sense to have pictures that REALLY show your home in it's best light? I am a professionaly trained photographer, and also use Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom to enhance my pictures so that your home shows at it's absolute best online. Look at my pictures on the websites mentioned above in the "Marketing for Buyers" section and judge for yourself. I also put at least 20 pictures of your home on my site, and the maximum allowed by the MLS's since I know that buyers select homes based on what they see in the pictures.
  
  
• Newspaper - Although I do put your home in the newspaper, I have found these ads to be less and less effective as people migrate to using the internet. When an agent tells you how much they spend on their news paper ads, they are spending money in the wrong place. It still produces some traffic, but is absolutely not a primary or even secondary sales tool.

My marketing has produced a buyer. How does YOUR home sell to him/her?

Proper Pricing
With the advent of the internet, buyers are pretty savvy about what homes are worth since they researched it online before looking. Pricing your home too high will have the current buyer pool pass you by and your listing will stagnate, even if you lower the price afterwards. Pricing your home too low will costs you thousands of dollars. Pricing your home exactly right the first time will encourage buyers to visit, view your home and make offers. Let me prepare a free comparable market analysis for you to understand what other homes in your area sold for, and let's together decide on a price for your home to maximize your profit and get the fastest sale. I have access to tools and information the general public does not have to help you and me decide on the best price for your home.

Proper Staging
Finding and correcting issues before your home is listed will help it sell faster. Have my unbiased eye look over your home and recommend appropriate staging for the fastest possible sale. Remember, people buy homes based on emotion, and we want to maximize the impact your home will make on how people feel about it. I also want to capture the staged look in the photography I use to market your home. This alone will make your home stand out from the thousands of others. 

Good Negotiation Strategies
Having an experienced negotiator in your camp can really help to maximize your outcome. Knowing how to structure the deal where the buyer feels they are being treated fair, yet still have you get the highest possible price is an art. As a management consultant my company spent tens of thousands of dollars in formal training on me to learn how to negotiate multi million dollar consulting engagements with Fortune 500 CxO's effectively. The same principles apply in negotiating the sale of a home. In me you get a highly trained and experienced negotiator.

Finally...
When you are ready to sell your home, let me come and have a conversation with you. I am not a pushy sales person that will make empty promises. Let me also say this: I don't work with everybody. Selling your home is a team effort. It requires your cooperation and my expertise. If I feel that we are not going to be successful as a team to sell your home, I would be doing you a disservice by taking your listing. I am interested in selling your home, not just taking another listing. And it goes the other way too. If you feel that I am not the right person to market your home, my feelings will not be hurt if you tell me so. Call me today.

Sincerely,

John Visser
 
770-265-0444