``I don't use brochures because my listings often sell in less than a week!``
So, this is going to sound funny coming from a company that designs marketing for real estate, but listing brochures aren’t actually designed to sell the PROPERTY. The fact is your listing will likely sell simply because it’s been uploaded to the MLS, and syndicated via IDX to thousands of real estate sites on the internet. If the property shows well, and your photos are good, and the property description is well-written and inviting, your listing will pretty much sell all by itself.
The brochure is designed to sell YOU, not the property!
We have a client in Temecula, California who had received a referral for a listing in Riverside (about 30 miles away). She had obviously never farmed there as it wasn’t in her market area, and this was the first time she’d ever listed a home in that community. Since we always do her listing brochures, we of course did one for her on that property. The price of that home was $1,800,000.
On our advice, she ordered extra brochures and mailed 100 to the surrounding homeowners along with a letter of introduction. This was an enclave of 1.5 to 2.5 million dollar homes, so she thought she’d take advantage of the fact that she just took a listing there and see if anyone else was in the market to sell. Within three weeks, she received a call from a neighbor on the same street and was asked to come out and list their home, which she did ($1,700,000). Impressive! Needless to say, another 100 brochures went out again to the surrounding homeowners. This time, it was within only a week that she took her third listing in that neighborhood ($2,100,000). Guess what she did? Yes, of COURSE she again mailed 100 brochures, and two months later, got ANOTHER listing for $1,750,000. In three months, she listed (and sold) 4 luxury homes for a total of over $7,000,000 (with one transaction double-ended)…all in an area she’d never done business in before. Initially, no one had any idea who she was…and she was competing against agents who had farmed that neighborhood for years.
Did the brochures do their job? Yes, but better!
Three of the properties above sold because the buyers’ agents found the properties on the MLS. The fourth one Karen sold herself after showing it to one of her buyers. So the question is…did the brochures actually sell those homes??
Well, no…but they introduced and “sold” Karen to the surrounding homeowners. Other agents who normally marketed in that area sent out typical market update postcards and similar pieces pitching themselves and their achievements. But Karen’s brochures showed homeowners exactly how she’d market THEIR homes if they listed with her.
None of the other agents were doing that, and most felt that their listings sold too quickly to even warrant a brochure. Tunnel vision. If truth be told, most of the other agents didn’t do brochures or flyers even when their properties didn’t sell quickly. And their marketing focused on telling homeowners how successful they were…instead of what they’d do for the sellers. Meanwhile, Karen made over $200,000 inside of three months in an area she had never set foot in.
We think that’s pretty cool.
