January 14, 2010 by donna.

Many of you would be surprised how many people move from one Sabino Mountain home to another. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to post a brochure box on your “For Sale” sign that gives detailed information on the price, and features of your home; if you have a floorplan that should be attached to the brochure. Good photos bring people in to see your home for sale; multiple listing service allows for more than 20 photos. It makes no sense to take photos that do not accentuate the positive features of the house. Most window treatments need to be open; few people want to buy a dark home and when there is a great view, it hardly makes sense to close the blinds. A good agent calls every agent that shows the house and gets feedback of not only the showing agent’s opinion, but the buyer’s opinion. The best way to handle this is not through email, unless after first try you can not get the agent via phone. Many times you can give the other agent positive information that they may have missed had you not spoken to the agent personally. The house needs to be very clean and smell good; Crabtree and Everyln have a vast varieity of great fragrances. If you have a good sound system, turn on the light classic or new-age music. Leave some lights on and better yet, put them all on. The listing agent needs to check a vacant house at least once a week to make sure all the doors are locked and nothing is amiss; when temperatures fall below freezing the house needs to be checked more. If there is too much furniture and accessories, you should rent a storage place and get some of your stuff out so the house shows more spaciously. Whenever a new listing comes on the market that is in competition with your home, your agent should pre-view it and tell you how it impacts the sale of your house at the price it is listed at. A good agent gives you a very detailed analysis of homes that have sold in the last three months before the home is listed. The list price is determined by what has sold. Typically a good list price is within 5% of the final sales price of the recently sold comparables. The house should be held open a minimum of once a month. Of the last 5 listings I have sold at Sabino Mountain, 2 were sold right after the buyers walked into my open houses. Of course, I am very knowledgeable of Sabino Mountain and no one can point out the features of the house better than the listing agent. Having the listing featured on the agent’s personal website brings many more buyers to the home. An agents’ blog reminding buyers of open houses helps, too. The house should be listed on Realtor.com with extended listing coverage (costs more than the standard listing and the listing stands out more), on Zillow.com and on Trulia.com. Long Realty and Tucson Board of Realtors have extended listing and Open House Information on their websites too. Long Realty offers a virtual tour on all its listings should the agent desire to utilize that feature. There is a long list of things listing agents should do to market homes; yet in many cases the agents are not utilizing” tried and true” methods to sell a home.