Guest Post by HomeLight

A person’s average attention span is eight seconds — that’s how long you have to convince a potential buyer to take an interest in your home.

Poor marketing is considered to be one of the main reasons that homes don’t sell, which means you should examine your agent’s real estate marketing plan in advance.

If you find that your agent fails to help you to avoid any of these real estate marketing mistakes, or if you have a hard time booking showings, it might be time to find someone else to sell your home.

Here are 5 real estate marketing mistakes to avoid as a seller:

 

1. Forgetting about decluttering and staging

Before you begin marketing your house, you need to prepare its best face. You want anyone who sees it in real estate images or in person to feel at home and to do that, you’ll need to deep clean, declutter, and schedule a home staging.

 

2.  DIY listing photos

One of the first rules of successfully marketing your home is to hire a real estate photographer.

You may be tempted to try and get away with DIY real estate photos, but blurry images or anything that shows your home as anything less than its best is a mistake that will cost you more money (and time) than you’d initially save.

 

3. Unpersuasive listing descriptions filled with errors

After you capture a potential buyer’s attention with professional photos, the listing description (ideally 50-100 words) is where you can tell your home’s story. This description needs to be concise while highlighting your home’s best features. A few important points are to be sure that this text is free of grammatical errors and misspellings.

You also don’t want to waste this limited space by repeating basic information about your home like the number of rooms or square footage. The emphasis should be on standout details like a rainfall showerhead, or the Koi pond that you have maintained for two decades.

 

4. Not using social media

The average person spends 116 minutes a day on social media and not using this to your advantage is a huge mistake when selling your home. Your agent, or their real estate group, should have social media profiles on Facebook and Instagram, where they can post about your home.

As a seller, you can share that your home is for sale on your own social media accounts. The easiest and most efficient way to promote your home is with a dedicated landing page.

 

5. Overpricing your home

As part of the listing process, an appraiser will visit your home and estimate its value. You can get an approximation of what your home’s value is with HomeLight’s online home value estimator tool but the appraiser will give you the most accurate estimation.

Your agent will use all of this information and an evaluation of the market when recommending a list price. The price your agent suggests might be lower than you had hoped for. Don’t fall into the trap of overpricing — that approach may lose you money in the long run, making it more difficult to market and sell your home.

 

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