Step 8 To Selling a Home: Let's Talk About Pre-Marketing

One thing that is very important to us with every home that we list for sale is that, from the first moment a home is available to be seen by a possible buyer it is presented in its best possible light. We do not market a home with just one (or no) photos; we don't market a home with an incomplete listing. It's a disservice to you and your investment to go into the process without the full power of our marketing plan.

However, there are some things that we can do to "pre-market" your home, especially if you need a little while to get the home ready for the market.

You may have heard of "Coming Soon" listings or "pocket listings" -- let me explain what those are, as they are two very different things:

A "pocket listing" is a homes that is only being marketed to a small group of people, say for example, only the agents in the listing agent's office or only a small group of agents and brokers in a Facebook group. This limits the amount of exposure that listing gets and ultimately may have a negative impact on the sale of the home, possibly resulting in a lower sale price or meaning the seller doesn't have the same opportunity to receive multiple offers. We don't recommend marketing a home as a pocket listing because we want our seller clients to have the most opportunities to sell and the most eyes on the home as possible.(NOTE: Our MLS has actually outlawed pocket listings now, and they require that, within one day of being offered for sale to any consumer, the property be listed in the MLS, so pocket listings have been widely recognized within our industry to put sellers at a possible disadvantage.)

"Coming Soon" listings, however, are different: when a listing is Coming Soon, it means that the seller isn't quite ready to have buyers in their home yet (perhaps they are doing some final repairs, getting a room painted, or have had an ill family member). We have a "Coming Soon" status in our MLS that we can use for up to 21 days -- with this status, the property is only marketed to agents (meaning the listing is not publicized to the general public until it is officially "Active") in order to let those agents know that the property is soon to hit the market and to generate buzz about the home within the agent community. Sometimes, Coming Soon listings may only have one or a few photos, as perhaps even the professional photos haven't even been taken yet. Once the listing is changed to Active status, it shows as a brand new listing to all consumers, just as any other listing does, so the impact of being brand new to the market is not changed.  

If you need a little extra time to get your home ready for market -- either before or after the professional photos have been taken, we can utilize the Coming Soon status. By the time the photos are taken, though, our clients are usually ready to go to market, so it's rare we utilize that MLS feature. We do know that things come up, however -- a family member may get sick, a tree may fall in the yard, a bathtub might spring a leak -- there may be any number of reasons, big or small, that make us put on the brakes for a couple of days (or weeks), and we can be "Coming Soon" in those circumstances.

Keep in mind: we want the launch of your listing to be exciting; we want you to be the hot new listing in your neighborhood, so exposure and impact are important. For that reason, we will carefully choreograph your listing debut and we will discuss all of those details with you as we get closer to the launch date!

Questions? Call us at 404-994-2181 or email us at Maura(at)BuySellLiveAtlanta(dot)com.