What?
How? Are you kidding? It is no surprise that considering the
housing market today, the majority would answer “yes” to all of these
questions. One would have to be living literally under a rock down by the
river not to realize that the economy has negatively impacted a homeowners
ability to sell ones home. Homes are staying on the market longer.
People are being forced to re-locate as a result of loosing jobs & of
course the eventuality of some having to foreclose on their home and even
declare bankruptcy. Sadly, some may begin feeling that selling their home
may be impossible.
Or
is it?
Check these stats out:
During
April 2009 all markets except Portland, San Francisco and Salt Lake City had a
median days-on-market of 100+. By far, the market with the
slowest rate of inventory turnover was again Miami, now at a median of 246 days-on-market
or more than eight
months. Miami experienced the slowest
market turnover in every month since September 2007. Portland experienced the
fastest rate of inventory turnover at a median of 82 days-on-market, followed
by San Francisco at 96 days.
Obviously,
more is needed to supplement traditional selling in today’s changed market,
world and economy. Just using traditional ("old") ways of doing business are proving
to be less and less effective and more is needed to reach targeted buyers. How?
Well, that's where my experience comes in. Selling my house this past week will hopefully help you expand your efforts using social elements and assist you in selling your property.
Now, the
juicy part of this is, as a social media consultant, I figured why don't I put
my "money where my mouth is" and instead of the usual "hype and hot air" we hear about, I decided to use the real methods I practice and teach my students and corporations. So, I came up with a campaign to sell my house using social n
etworking and out myself under a time limit of 72 hours.
I ended up selling it, for profit, in only 50
hours – NOT days. I did not use a real estate agent for this
experiment, because I believe in the power of the social collective, white hat
methodologies and if used properly, I believe anything is possible via social media.
Ok, Ok,
how did I do it. Well, I will share a few (I said “few” not “all”) tips
or principles here for you to get greater interest in your property or
properties. These principles apply whether you are a real estate owner, an
agent, franchisee, or even in another field all together. It's about
engaging your social network. (I will be speaking on this topic soon and
going step by step through this in fine detail.)
- You have to already have a well
established and trusted online reputation AND a number of quality trusted
friends in your social networks. (NOTE: If you do not use
Twitter, or have never heard of Facebook or FreindFeed, do not read any
further. You cannot do this alone. You have to have the help of all
your friends on your social networks)
- Before you start
engaging others socially about this, DO THE WORK! Take pictures or
video of the property, good, bad and ugly. You have to be
honest. Organize these photo's with captions explaining in
simple terms what specifically it is a potential buyer is seeing.
- Place all of these photo's and/or
video's in a single placeholder. (site or something as simple as
Craigslist.) Your placeholder will be your anchor during this buzz
campaign, pointing everyone to this established location. Most of their
questions can be answered and visually they can see all they want here, so that
IF they have some interest, they will be stimulated to initiate contact
with you.
- Begin your social buzz (not SALES)
campaign. This is what I will be speaking about. (more on that,
where and when later)
Obviously,
this is a reproducable model that can be used by anyone for any item or service. At the same
time, following these steps with a poor reputation online as a spammer or using
MLM techniques will limit your effectiveness dramatically.
Enjoy my
expierience for what it is, now get out there and make your own great
expierience! I look forward to hearing your ideas and success stories as well,
we all need good news in this struggling economy.
With every
good wish....
@TimMoore
sayitsocial.com