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MARKETING YOUR REAL ESTATE IN INCLINE VILLAGE
HOW TO CREATE A HIGH LEVEL OF DEMAND WHEN SELLING YOUR PROPERTY

Summer at Lake Tahoe is the peak season for real estate sales. With more properties coming on the market in June and July than any other time of year, how do you generate interest and excitement when there is intense competition at every price point under $2 million?

I think it is important to take a multi-faceted approach to marketing my new listings. Just putting a new listing on the MLS and having an open house on the Tuesday morning tour is not enough to get the other agents in town excited about bringing buyers to your property. It takes a lot of creativity, planning and hard work to build a strong marketing program showcasing your property.

I have a reputation for selling my listings in less time and for a higher percentage of the asking price than any other agent in Incline Village. My listings go into escrow in just 14 days on average, while most properties languish on the market for months at a time. Pricing your property in line with current market conditions is only part of the equation. My aggressive marketing program that takes a multi-faceted approach to promoting a new listing is the key to selling properties quickly and for the highest possible price.

As soon as a listing agreement is signed, I take photos of the property and enter the information and pictures on the MLS. Then I immediately send an e-mail to every agent who is a member of our local real estate board and a fax to every broker. Since many agents do not check the MLS each day, this is the only way to ensure that every agent in the village is aware that your property is for sale within 24 hours of signing a listing agreement.

The next step is to broadcast an e-mail to all of the prospective buyers in my data base, along with other real estate agents, financial planners, investment advisors and other referral sources outside the Lake Tahoe Basin. By expanding the geographic market, I am able to notify literally hundreds of people outside the immediate area who may have an interest in purchasing your property.

Open houses are an important tool for marketing properties here at the lake, especially on weekends in the off season and everyday during the busy summer and holiday periods. By advertising open houses in advance and using lots of extra signs to direct traffic from many different directions, I am able to increase the amount of visitors to any particular property.

Print advertising is also used to support the overall marketing effort. I prefer to use a half-page stand-alone ad in the weekly Bonanza Real Estate Section to draw attention to a new listing. Most agents use several tiny pictures in a full or half page ad, so your property gets lost in all the other information. A dedicated half page ad featuring just your property, is the best way to show agents and buyers the unique attributes of your property. It also tends to grab the attention of readers since the format is completely different than virtually all of the other ads appearing in the same Real Estate Section.

The Internet also plays a role in helping to generate interest for a new listing. I post all new listings on both the Lakeshore Realty and Inside Incline web sites to achieve maximum exposure. Realtor.com also picks up the new listings directly from the MLS and this makes your property information readily available to anyone in the world with an Internet connection. A virtual tour can be added to the web sites, so that a prospect can see every part of the interior and exterior of your property.

But the single most important factor in creating high demand for your property is to price it right and roll out the marketing campaign in a well planned manner. In order to ensure that you get the best price possible, I recommend that you not look at offers until the property has been on the weekly MLS tour and you have also had at least one weekend of open houses. Only then will you have had enough exposure to the public to ensure that you are getting the best price for your property.

Here is an 11-day action plan that can help generate the greatest number of buyer prospects and also help you get the highest price in the shortest time for your property:

List your property on the MLS on Thursday.
Hold open houses on Saturday and Sunday.
Have the property on the MLS tour on the next Tuesday.
Hold open houses again on Saturday and Sunday.
Open offers on Sunday night after the last open house.

I recommend that you have the property on the MLS tour followed by a weekend of open houses in order to make sure that every agent in the village has a chance to contact their buyers and bring them up to Incline Village to see your property. Failing to do this will reduce the number of potential buyers and could result in no offers or lower priced offers. By not accepting any offers until after the MLS tour and one or two weekends of open houses, you can create stronger demand from a larger pool of enthusiastic buyers.

The vast majority of buyers in Incline Village do not live here full time, so they need some advance notice in order to make a trip up to see the property. Trying to sell a property in a few days is a nice goal, but it usually precludes having the greatest number of prospects view your property. Don't shortchange yourself, a little patience and a few extra days of showings can mean a difference of tens of thousands of dollars in your pocket.

Remember, the market always dictates the final selling price. I can help you create more demand for your property by implementing a marketing plan that brings in the greatest numbers of buyers to see your property in the shortest amount of time. When there are a lot of buyers walking through a particular property at the same time, it creates a level of excitement that no amount of advertising can ever hope to match. It is this type of excitement that brings in the serious buyer at the highest possible price with the best terms for you as a seller.

Creating a feeding frenzy for your property is what makes my marketing program different from the other agents in the village. I use a multi-faceted approach to get the word out about your property and to generate enthusiasm among the agents in our community. For almost every property there is a willing and able buyer just waiting to purchase it. My aggressive marketing program means that more people will see your property in a shorter amount of time resulting in a quicker sale!

For a free, no-obligation comparative market analysis please call Don Kanare at Lakeshore Realty at: 775-831-7000 or 775-745-5820 or send Don an e-mail.

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