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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.

The Internet plays a major 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 is added to these web sites, so that a prospect can see every part of the interior and exterior of your property.

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 order a virtual tour to be shot professionally. I als take high resolution 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 no longer an important tool for marketing properties here at the lake, except during the busy summer. 90% of all buyers do their searching on the Internet, the rest rely on their agents to find them properties. Buyers don't want to spend their precious vacation time running around looking at open houses when they can see virtual tours on the Internet. It's rare that an open house actually results in a sale, I know of only 1 case in 2009 in Incline Village where this occurred and that's out of 186 sales.

Print advertising is also used to support the overall marketing effort, but this too is being replaced with Internet marketing. I publish my own quarterly newspaper called Inside Incline. It contains original articles about the Incline Village real estate market and has pictures and info on all of my listings. 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 local Real Estate Section.

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.

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.

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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