Posted by admin on Feb 25, 2010 in Naples Homes Blog | 4 comments
Keeping Your Home Neat and Tidy
Keeping your home picked up at all times can make showings go better and selling it easier on you and your Realtor.
In today’s buyer’s market with tons of inventory for buyers to pick and choose from, your home must meet the cleanliness test. You want buyers to stick around as long as possible. This will not happen if you have a home that smells like dirty diapers and looks like a dorm room after mid-term exams.
Change your ways if you want to beat the competition and sell your home today. Not everyone makes his or her bed every day, but when selling a home it is recommended that you develop the habit. Pick up papers, keep soap and toothbrushes stored away, do not leave empty glasses in the family room and keep everything dusted and vacuumed. It’s even a good idea to remove all the shampoo bottles and used soap from your shower. Remember, less is always better when it comes to personal items a buyer sees.
The less “lived-in” your home looks the better. Try your best to have it look like a model home – a home with furniture but nobody lives there.
Mark C. Weber is a Naples Realtor, Broker & Owner of White Sands Realty in Naples, Florida. He is a 30+ year resident of Naples and specializes in finding people Naples homes on or near the beach and waterfront. If you are interested in Naples real estate or have a question about this article please contact him through
Email or by calling 239-417-1115.
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Posted by Naples Homes Center on Feb 25, 2010 in Naples Homes Blog | 0 comments
In today’s buyer’s real estate market, every detail counts when you want to sell your home. Here are four tips to make the best impression on home buyers who come to view your property.
- Lighting – Turn on All the lights! When preparing for a home showing, turn on all the indoor and outdoor lights – even during the day. At night, a lit house gives a “homey” impression when viewed from the street. During the daytime, turning on the lights prevents harsh shadows from sunlight and it brightens up any dim areas. Your house looks more cheerful with the lights on. A light, bright home will sell over a dark one any day.
- Fragrances – Do not use scented sprays or plug-in air fresheners. Many people find the smells of those sprays offensive, not to mention that some may be allergic. If you want to have a pleasant aroma in your house, have a potpourri pot simmering or light a vanilla scented candle. A quick fix to stale air is to turn on a stove burner for a moment and put a drop of vanilla extract on it. It will smell like you have been baking something delicious.
- Pet Control - If possible, all pets should be removed from a home when showing. Even dog bowls should be put away out of sight. If you have pets, make sure your Realtor puts a notice in the MLS. The last thing you want is to have your pet running out the front door and getting lost. Putting pets in crates often created barking and noise that distracts buyers and makes them want to rush through your home. You want people to stay as long as possible so that they develop a good feel for your home. If you can’t remove pets, you are better off putting pets in the backyard if possible. Of course, the best choice is to take them with you or have a friend keep them until the showing is over.
- The Kitchen Trash – Like you mom always told you, “take out the trash!” Make sure you empty the garbage every time someone comes to look at your home – even if your trash can is kept under the kitchen sink. You want to send a positive, clean image about every aspect of your home. The odor (eve if it is slight and unnoticeable to you) of kitchen trash does not send a positive message. You may go through more garbage bags than usual, but when the sale goes through it will all be worth it.
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Posted by admin on Feb 25, 2010 in Naples Homes Blog | 0 comments
If you are home when a showing is scheduled for your home, potential home buyers will feel like uncomfortable intruders. They will spend less time looking and more time worrying about invading your space.
To put them at ease and keep them around long enough to fall in love with your home, take a walk around the neighborhood, go to your local Starbucks or take the kids to the park. If you absolutely cannot leave, try to remain in an out of the way area of the house and do not move from room to room. Stay away from the buyers tour and do not volunteer any information. Try to answer any questions the showing agent has and direct your responses to them. If you feel uncomfortable, just ask the agent to contact your Realtor with a list of questions.
Mark C. Weber is a Naples Realtor, Broker & Owner of White Sands Realty in Naples, Florida. He is a 30+ year resident of Naples and specializes in finding people Naples homes on or near the beach and waterfront. If you are interested in Naples real estate or have a question about this article please contact him through
Email or by calling 239-417-1115.
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Posted by Naples Homes Center on Feb 25, 2010 in Naples Homes Blog | 0 comments
Your house should always be available for show, even though it may occasionally be inconvenient for you. Let your listing agent put a lock box in a convenient place, to make it easy for other agents to show your home to homebuyers. Otherwise, agents will have to schedule appointments, which is an inconvenience. Most will just skip your home to show the house of someone else who is more cooperative.
Most agents will call and give you at least a couple of hours notice before showing your property. If you refuse to let them show it at that time, they will just skip your house. Even if they come back another time, it will probably be with different buyers and you may have just lost a chance to sell your home.
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Posted by Naples Homes Center on Feb 25, 2010 in Naples Homes Blog | 0 comments
Open Houses
An open house when your property is first placed on the market can be very important, but not for the reasons most homeowners think. Just like with advertising, most visitors to open houses rarely buy the house they come to look at. They may not even know the price of your home when they stop by to visit – they probably just followed an “Open House” sign to your door.
An open house performs a similar function to the neighborhood announcements – it lets all of your neighbors know that your house is for sale, and it practically invites them to come “take a look.” Being generally nosy, a lot of your neighbors will take advantage of the invitation.
And they may tell their friends about your house, creating more “word of mouth” advertising.
Of course, there are other reasons for holding open houses, too. Listing agents who “farm” a particular neighborhood use them as an opportunity to meet with other local homeowners who will someday be selling their home. Your agent may hope to list their homes in the future.
Open houses held after your home has been on the market awhile do not usually serve a useful purpose in selling your home. Most of the neighbors already know your house is for sale and open house visitors rarely buy the homes they visit.
However, if you really want more open houses, your listing agent may allow other agents to hold it open. Open houses attract prospective homebuyers and agents hope to convince some of those homebuyers to become their clients.
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Posted by admin on Feb 25, 2010 in Naples Homes Blog | 0 comments
Neighborhood Announcements
When you first list your home many real estate agents send “announcements” to all of the other houses in your neighborhood. This can be done in the form of postcards, a letter, or flyers left hanging on the front door. The postcard may read “New Listing” or “Just Listed.” These are important because your neighbors might have friends who are looking to buy a house.
These type of announcements create “word of mouth” advertising, which is the best kind.
Mark C. Weber is a Naples Realtor, Broker & Owner of White Sands Realty in Naples, Florida. He is a 30+ year resident of Naples and specializes in finding people Naples homes on or near the beach and waterfront. If you are interested in Naples real estate or have a question about this article please contact him through
Email or by calling 239-417-1115.
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Posted by Naples Homes Center on Feb 25, 2010 in Naples Homes Blog | 4 comments
Individual Agent Advertising
Individual agents may advertise your home for the same reasons as companies do. They usually advertise in classified ads or in specialty magazines featuring houses available for sale.
As in other types of advertising, these ads rarely sell your home. Once again, the main goals of advertising are to accumulate homebuyers as clients and to impress you and future home sellers with how well they market their listings. Some agents actually do sell their own listings, but it’s not the norm.
It is much more productive and beneficial if your listing agent directs most of his or her marketing efforts toward other agents. Since this is “behind the scenes” marketing that you don’t actually see, it is often difficult for you to measure how hard the agent is working for you.
It is a mistake to measure your agent’s effectiveness solely by counting the number of newspaper and magazine ads featuring a certain property or your own.
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Posted by admin on Feb 25, 2010 in Naples Homes Blog | 0 comments
Real Estate Office Advertising
As mentioned previously, advertising your home in newspapers and magazines rarely sells your home directly. Most buyers begin their search for real estate online these days. Buyers are more likely to see your home on Realtor.com, Trulia.com or Zillow.com than they are in a local newspaper.
You still want to be certain the real estate company selling your house runs some ads, whether they feature your house or not. Ads do generate interest from home buyers. Those buyers may go online to see more pictures or bring the ad to their buyer’s agent. Or you could be one of the lucky ones – someone calling on your house may actually end up buying it.
You should also realize that when a company advertises the homes they have for sale, there is more than one objective. Sure, the real estate office wants to generate phone calls and sell those houses, but the truth is print advertising also shows home sellers how effectively they market properties.
The advertising brings in more listings, which generate more ad calls, which produces more buyers….and that is how real estate advertising really works.
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Posted by Naples Homes Center on Feb 25, 2010 in Naples Homes Blog | 3 comments
Every home seller likes to be assured that their listing agent or the real estate company will run ads featuring their home. Newspaper ads could be large display ads with lots of listings or small classified ads featuring just your property. Ads may also appear in local real estate magazines and, most importantly, on the Internet.
Of course the agents and companies will run ads featuring your house, but not for the reasons you expect.
You see, the main job of advertising is not to sell your house directly. Advertising creates emails and phone call inquiries. Some of those callers become clients of the agents answering the calls. This builds up a pool of homebuyers looking for property in general, all represented by real estate agents. Multiply this by all the agents and companies who also advertise homes, and this creates a large pool of home buyers in the market at any given time – all of whom are represented by local real estate agents.
The agents representing those home buyers should know about your home because it is listed in the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and has had a broker open house or flyers sent to all the local real estate offices.
The agents match up their clients with appropriate available homes, one of which may be yours. Then they show the homes to their clients, who eventually make an offer. That is how your house gets sold.
In recap, ads create a pool of clients, one of which buys your home. Ads do not usually sell your house directly.
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Posted by admin on Feb 25, 2010 in Naples Homes Blog | 0 comments
Your agent probably belongs to a local association of Real Estate Professionals and they often have meetings once a month. At these meetings there is often a “marketing session” where some agents stand up and tell about their listings and other agents stand up and tell about their buyers. Your listing agent has an opportunity to “pitch” your house at these marketing sessions.
At the same time, these sessions may not be as effective as they were in the past. One reason is that they are often more social occasions than serious business meetings. Another reason is that, as technology has expanded, local associations have tended to merge and create larger Multiple Listing Services and Associations. Local meetings have become poorly attended gatherings.
Mark C. Weber is a Naples Realtor, Broker & Owner of White Sands Realty in Naples, Florida. He is a 30+ year resident of Naples and specializes in finding people Naples homes on or near the beach and waterfront. If you are interested in Naples real estate or have a question about this article please contact him through
Email or by calling 239-417-1115.
read more
