There are a growing number of home owners who are selling houses themselves in an effort to save on real estate commission costs – which can add up to quite a lot depending on the sale price. Private home sellers create a big job for themselves, but if they do it correctly they can certainly benefit.
The main things that home sellers miss out on, when deciding not to use a real estate agent are:
- The Agent’s Database
- Their Marketing Contacts
- The Agent’s Negotiating Skills
It may seem like some big hurdles to jump, but we have worked with quite a few private home sellers and there are quite a few options out there.
The first thing that most people selling their own house do is use a service that helps them get on RealEstate.com.au. They are the biggest real estate website in Australia and a good listing will help generate enquiries. While you won’t have access to an agent’s database of potential buyers, your online listing if created properly – will be you main marketing method.
Marketing Tools for Private Home Sellers
All good real estate agents will have their own team of professionals to handle each aspect of their marketing plan.
This will include:
- Photographers
- Copy Writers
- Floor Plan Designers
- Videographers
They would have worked with them on many listings, and formed a team of who they believe are the best in their field.
We are proud to be an important part of marketing teams for multiple real estate agents!
How to Choose the Best Real Estate Floor Plan Designer
When you don’t have the luxury of selling houses consistently, you need to make sure you choose the right professionals first time, and there are a couple of ways to make sure you do.
While we are going to look at this from a marketing floor plans example, these steps can also be used for photographers, videographers and copy writers.
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Ask Friends & Family
This is the obvious first step. If you have had friend or family member sell their house recently, talk with them about how the process went. Find out who their agent used for the different marketing elements, and if they were happy with the result.
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Ask Real Estate Agents
Although it may seem a bit awkward asking a real estate agent who they use, when you are not going to use them. I have found this method quite effective – and it is actually how I personally choose the photographer for the sale of our previous house.
How this works, is you search RealEstate.com.au for listings in your area, visit the individual listings and if you like a specific marketing element (photos, floor plans or video). Email the agent, compliment the marketing element and ask if you could please have the contact details of the company that created them.
For floor plans, we actually include our website address on all of our real estate floor plans that we create – so if people search this way, they can contact us directly without needing to contact the listing agent.
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View the Companies Portfolio
Once you have found a photographer or company that creates floor plans for real estate that you like, make sure you head over to their website and view their portfolio of past work. What you want to look for is consistent quality of work over a range of projects.
Why Your Listing Needs a Real Estate Floor Plan
If you search through RealEstate.com.au listings, you will see that a lot of real estate agents have come to understand the value of floor plans for their listings – and for good reason!
We have written a whole article on why we think every real estate listing needs a floor plan, but a few key points are:
- Buyers less likely to enquire if a property has no floor plan*
- After ‘Number of Photos’ a Floor Plan is most important when looking for property*
- Real Estate.com.au highlights floor plans in their search listings
*From research conducted by Rightmove.co.uk
As private home sellers, you want to try and emulate the positive things that real estate agents are doing to sell their listings!