HOW TO MARKET YOUR HOME - WHAT WORKS BEST

MLS
MLS (Multiple Listing Service) is the network that Realtors belong to that gives them access to show and sell each others listings, and comprises 90% all homes on the market nationally. The Realtor commission, most often 6%, is split between the agent who lists a property and the one who sells it. Only licensed Realtors have access to MLS. (See How to avoid the 6% commission.)

Realtor.com
Realtor.com allows the general public access to see all the MLS listings. It has revolutionized the home search process, because homebuyers are no longer at the mercy of Realtors to see what homes are available on MLS. 90% of all homes for sale nationwide are on Realtor.com, because MLS is 90% of the market.

Buyers use Realtor.com because it has the best selection, it's easy to use, and it has lots of other useful information, too. For example, go to Realtor.com, enter your search parameters, and pick any listing. Click on "See listing details", and scroll down and select "Get neighborhood information". Then click on some of the other options to see all the information available. You can get everything from the average prices and ages of homes in the neighborhood, to crime statistics and average SAT scores of students enrolled at the local high school.
 

Online Shoppers

The internet has become the primary search tool for most homebuyers today, and more than half of them use Realtor.com. Of all online shoppers, 98% use MLS information websites, predominantly Realtor.com

Where Online Home-Shoppers Do Most of their Searching for Homes

Realtor.com's dominance in the market makes it an essential ingredient of any home marketing campaign. It is the single most effective marketing tool available. This is why we stress having a noteworthy presence on Realtor.com with an attractive Showcase Home listing that includes up to 24 digital photos, a comprehensive description (up to 2500 character spaces), and a border headline. The Showcase Home is included in all listing packages.

Where Recent Homebuyers First Heard about the Home they Bought

Comparison of Marketing Alternatives

MLS & Realtor.com
The majority of buyers still use real estate agents when buying a home, and 99.99% of all real estate agents use MLS. What is changing is that more than half of all buyers today are finding houses on Realtor.com and other MLS websites, and telling their agents about them, instead of the agent solely making selections from MLS. The agent then shows the buyer the houses that the buyer has selected. The bottom line is that whether a buyer comes to look at your house because his agent found it on MLS or because the buyer found it on Realtor.com, it is still the result of an MLS listing, and you must have an MLS listing to be on Realtor.com.

Yard Signs
A simple sign on the front lawn is a cheap and effective advertising tool, and should be part of any home marketing plan. If you have time and are patient enough, you can sell your home eventually by doing nothing more than putting a sign in the yard. The average time period for a house to sell using only a yard sign is 6-9 months, and will vary based the amount of traffic on the street and the price of the home.

Newspaper Ads
Newspaper ads can get expensive, and sellers who are not interested in owner financing will have to weed out unqualified buyers. The majority of homes sold with newspaper ads are by professional investors. Newspaper classified ad columns tend to be filled with investor ads with headings like "$0 down", "Owner financing", "Lease Option", "Bad credit ok", "$3000 down, $900/mo.", etc. Investors typically inflate the home prices and give the buyer/tenant (who can't qualify for a loan) a lease option. Credit challenged buyers gravitate towards newspapers because of the prevalence of these kinds of ads, and because they know they would be expected to qualify for a loan if they dealt in the MLS/Realtor.com market.

Open House
The value of holding an open house is vastly over-rated. People who go to open houses are typically just looking, and any serious lookers would have seen the yard sign and called the phone number anyway. Realtors love to hold open houses because they have a chance to meet prospective buyers who may be in the market to buy at some point in the future, and prospective sellers from the neighborhood who are planning to put their house on the market. Holding an open house is also a great way for Realtors to give their clients the impression that they are actively marketing the home, whereas the main outcome is promoting their own business.

Free Real Estate Magazines
Commonly found on racks in supermarkets and convenience stores, these publications exist to either promote a real estate company or sell advertising. They contain very little useful information for buyers, and due to the time lag between printing to actually being picked up and read (minimum 6 weeks), the listings are already out of date before they are ever seen.

FSBO Websites
For-Sale-By-Owner websites get an insignificant amount of traffic from buyers. Buyers who do take a look get discouraged quickly by the limited selection and from the lack of a response from sellers when they try to make contact. Many of the ads are outdated and the homes are off the market, so sellers often don't respond.

Miscellaneous
There are various things Realtors will tell potential listing clients to get a listing. Some of these things sound good, but accomplish nothing more than promote the real estate company. Example: "We'll send out 300 mail pieces to all the homes in your neighborhood!" This is a way for the real estate company to advertise their company and generate listings. Neighbors are more likely to become sellers than buyers, and if a neighbor or somebody they knew were interested in buying your home, the yard sign would let them know.

Another unproductive method some agents like to tell their clients about (as though it had value) is mass emails to agents informing them of a house for sale. Agents have access to MLS, and don't need to be spammed with such information; it's just an annoyance. The first thing the typical agent does when checking emails is delete the "House for sale" spam emails from other agents.