Well, the news is out! The market has started to slow down. We are blessed in this area that the impact has been minimal compared to other areas. Starter homes are still very much in demand, although even those are taking a bit longer, on average, to sell. Pricier homes are definitely sitting on the market longer (as much as 9-12 months in some peninsula areas) and price reductions are not uncommon.
So, what does it take to sell a house? Well, there is a long answer and a short answer. I will skip the long answer here, except to say that it almost always takes a lot of hard work. The short answer is summed up in two words, price and exposure. Price is obvious. An overpriced house may not sell, even in the most heated markets. But once the market softens and buyers begin to realize they might not have to compete for the house they want, they will look long and hard at the price. It has to be reasonable or they will pass. (Also, even if a high priced house sells, it may not appraise at the purchase price.)
Exposure is another story. The more buyers are exposed to your house, the more likely it is to sell. And there is so much to choose from in the way of advertising! There is the traditional ad in the newspaper, there are websites, too numerous to mention, and there is the Multiple Listing Service used by professional real estate agents. Historically the MLS was used so agents could advertise their listings specifically to other agents. This system was a “win-win” for everybody. There may be thousands of buyers out there, but many of them relied entirely on their agent to find homes for them to look at. Naturally, the more agents who knew about your own listing, the more likely it was to sell (… the numbers game.) Advertising in the newspaper might bring some other buyers who had not yet associated with an agent, but that was just the tip of the iceberg, and an agent who relied exclusively on newspaper advertising was probably missing the bulk of the buyers.
Then, along came the internet. With very few exceptions, all those MLS listings were now available online for everybody and anybody to see. Some sellers mistakenly draw the conclusion that they can bypass their agent and advertise as effectively on the internet by themselves. But that may be a false assumption. The reason is that many of the most popular internet sites are open only to real estate agents. Realtor.com, the #1 real estate website in the country, where over 70% of today's home buyers start their real estate searches, only shows homes that are listed on various MLS services around the country. Many search engine sites such as yahoo real estate and others download their listings from Realtor.com, so once again, the hose has to be listed on a MLS to be included.
If you use almost any search engive to look for homes for sale in your local area, almost all of the hits will be large companies who have been able to buy top spots on that search engine. There are millions, maybe billions of dollars being spent by real estate companies on the internet for just this. It is BIG business! If you want to be on page one, or even page two of a potential buyer’s search, you have the best chance by listing with an agent who knows how to advertise on the internet and who has access to MLS driven websites.
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