Kyle Hislop

Currently in Chilliwack we have 290 real estate agents.  Many of us offer similar service, experience and dedication.  Some even drive around with their face all over their car ~weirdo's~.  Anyway, I want to take a moment and explain why I think you should list your home with me because believe it or not...we are not all the same.

There are 2 main reasons you hire a REALTOR®.  One is for our negotiating skills, our ability to get the maximum amount for your home.  Two is advertising your home and finding a qualified buyer.  In this post I want to talk about the latter, advertising.  Most local agents will take your listing, put a sign in your front yard, post your property on REALTOR.ca, and place an ad in the local real estate paper.  But is that enough?  Let's take a moment and consider a few things:

1.  Which office should you choose?  For that, let's look at what percentage of the market each office has.  The stats below are taken from May 2011.  It's pretty obvious, RE/MAX agents sell more homes than anyone else...in this case over 34%.  In other words, 1 out of every 3 houses is sold by a RE/MAX agent.  So by listing your home with me, right off the bat you are increasing your odds of selling.

 

 

2.  What type of advertising is being offered?  This is an important question to discuss with someone who may be listing your home.  Why?  Because most agents post your listing on REALTOR.ca, slap an ad in the paper and feel like they are done.  I actually have stopped using the paper, and let me explain why.  The Chilliwack real estate paper at maximum power can only advertise to 80,000 people.  It usually incorporates 1 exterior photo which could be black and white or sometimes colour and some simple text.  I, on the other hand, focus my attention on online marketing.  Looking at the chart above again, my office holds 34% of the sales in Chilliwack and second are out of town agents with 24%.  With 24% of sales coming from out of town why would I not want to capture those potential buyers?  Especially since there are 2.5 million of them.  They won't be reading the local real estate paper...but they will be reading my blogs and other online marketing material.  By listing your home with me, you harvest 58% of all buyers...more than all the other offices in Chilliwack combined.

3.  How do I market your home online?  I use 3 different websites for starters.  www.kylehislop.com - www.wackrealestate.com -www.kylehislopremax.wordpress.com.  The plan is, if you live on a particular street, when you list with me and someone does an online search, your home will pop up on the first page of google.  I also take digitally enhanced photos.  Every photo I take goes through photoshop and made perfect...much better than a washed out exterior photo in the paper.  I was the first to bring video tours to Chilliwack and still provide the same service today.  Google mapping.  Exposure on Facebook, Twitter, wordpress, YouTube, craigslist, kijiji, Flickr and much more.

So when you are ready to sell your home make sure you pick an agent who can market your home to the masses, not just locally.  I've said it before in other blog posts and I'll say it again.  Whenever you decide to sell, please choose at least 3 agents to do a presentation.  I am more than happy to compete for your business, and I'm sure when I'm done I can show you the benefits of my marketing.

Kyle Hislop

RE/MAX