What Sort of Marketing Costs Should I Expect When Selling a Home?

With the sea of competition in today’s competitive housing market, creating a solid marketing strategy is important. Once you have determined that now is the right time to put your property on the market, you’ll want to ensure that it’s visible to the widest potential range of buyers. This will involve sitting down with a licensed real estate agent and deciding on a marketing program to most effectively sell your home.

To this end, as you start to compare different real estate agents using free tools like the dashboard at LocalAgentFinder, you’ll want to look at their experience as well as their marketing options. Register now to start this comparison process and start examining different marketing options.

Every real estate agency will offer several different plans to choose from. Some of the most basic marketing plans will be free of charge, but more elaborate options will cost more. Marketing costs are important to work into your budget, because they are calculated separately from the regular commission rate that you have negotiated. Generally speaking, the more you pay, the more advertising opportunities will be available.

Choosing the Right Marketing Strategy

In today’s multifaceted real estate environment, a good marketing plan will include numerous forms of advertising. The end goal should to yield the highest possible offer on your property. For rental properties, this would refer to the weekly rental price, while those selling property would look for a high sale price.

To achieve this goal, there are many different outlets that you can choose from. Marketing plans could include some combination of any of the following methods:

• Online Marketing: This could include online listings on real estate websites, Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, lead capture forms, RSS feeds, blogging, niche real estate forums, and social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
• Print Media: Traditional print media forms of advertising include advertisements in dedicated property magazines, listings in local newspapers, flyers, letters, postcards, promotional articles, and colour photography.
• Word of Mouth: Further forms of marketing include strategies like office presentations or seminars, referrals, and signboards.

These are just a few examples of the numerous ways to expose your home to the widest possible audience of buyers or renters! Our article, Video tips that help when selling your home” can also provide more information. Choosing the right marketing strategy is particularly important if you have decided to sell your home via auction. You need to make as many potential buyers as possible aware of the date of the auction, to guarantee a good turnout and high sale price.

As you start to decide which of these various marketing plans will be most effective for you, your real estate agent should break down the costs of each marketing item. You’ll also need to sign an Advertising Schedule with your real estate agent. This document shows the marketing methods that you have agreed upon, and will specify the cost that you have agreed to pay. If your real estate agent isn’t open to a form of marketing that you are interested in, such as the use of social media, you’ll want to find an agent who is more knowledgeable using the comparison dashboard available at LocalAgentFinder.

Be sure to find out in advance what type of marketing service your agency is offering. Some agencies won’t require any payment until the house is sold, but others will charge you for marketing costs no matter what. You should also think about the return on investment, or ROI, as you are calculating these costs. The fee for marketing may seem steep, but if utilising more extensive media channels leads to a larger payoff, then the investment will have been well worth it.

The Cost of Marketing

Essentially, the cost of marketing will depend on the channels that you use. Most sellers will want to use the Internet as one of their main channels of marketing, for example. Each major real estate website will charge different amounts for their listings privileges. For example, domain.com.au is one of the most visited real estate sites in Australia. They charge a fee of $499 for a 28-day listing, although the specific price may vary depending on your property’s suburb.

Some of these website portals offer discounts to real estate agents, so this is something to find out. A good real estate agent will help pass along these savings to their clients. Be sure to find out in advance how much each form of advertising will cost, so that you can work it into your budget and determine which strategy will be both effective and affordable.

There is a general rule shared by some real estate agents that sellers spend approximately 1% of the total anticipated sale price of their property on marketing. This will vary depending on your local market and the type of property you are selling. It’s important to remember that no matter what type of property you are selling, some amount of marketing will be required. In many cases, traditional print advertising is the most expensive type of marketing. Newspaper classifieds cost more than internet listings, and they drive the least amount of buyer interest in return. Online marketing tends to offer the highest ROI, but print marketing may be worth taking a look at as well. If the buyer who ends up purchasing your home found out about it from the property section of the newspaper, then your strategy was a success.

What’s next?

In any case, you’ll get the most for your money if you choose a marketing plan that emphasises high quality advertising techniques. You’ll want to discuss which types of media will be most effective in your particular market with an experienced real estate agent. By choosing a real estate agent with skill and expertise you can help improve your chances of maximising your profit. Get started by registering your details at LocalAgentFinder. You can start receiving agent proposals immediately, to find those that offer both a competitive marketing price and a thorough advertising strategy.