Luxury Home Marketing takes Extra Effort

I recently sat down with a Twin Cities luxury home owner and discussed listing their property in the next few weeks. When it comes to selling a luxury home, I usually do what is called a "two-step" presentation. The first meeting is a chance to tour the home, listen to the homeowner's wants and needs, and get an overall idea on the scope of the property and its relationship to the market. Either the next day, or a few days later, I meet with the owners again, and give my presentation on the state of the market, my recommended listing price range, and the marketing plan I have developed specific to their home.

After I list the home, I come back into the home, without the owner present, and go over every detail, like a home inspector would, and find any flaws that a buyer might object to. I have found things like worn carpet, dirty walls, missing caulk, nail pops, broken drywall seams, etc. With an expensive home, these things really need to be repaired. If they aren't, a buyer could get so fixed on these small flaws, that they forget to see the bigger picture...the home.

Listing a high-end home takes time and is not something that happens over night. Here are a few things that take more than a day to process, and sometimes a few weeks to deliver:

• For one, I use a professional photographer and it could take, at a minimum, of five days from photo shoot to processing to get the finished product.
• It also takes time to write good ad copy. A successful luxury home ad will invite the reader in and turn a description of the home into an emotional experience which will make them WANT to see the property right away. Sadly, I cannot write these overnight, but need a few days of brainstorming to come up with something I deem worthy. It also helps to have the photos so I can get a good visual of what prospective buyers will see.
• Gathering information on the home takes time as well - Taking measurements, building a floor plan, getting various documents etc.
• Once everything is available, I then sit down and create a luxury website for the home. Pointing buyers to the website is a great way to cross market and give them all the information they need to make a decision. Affluent buyers can be quite picky, so putting everything in one place creates one less hassle during their home search. It also sets a seller's home apart from all the other high-end listings and shows how this home is special.

There are of course other details that go into marketing a luxury home, but I won't go into those here. The biggest thing to understand is that marketing a home in this category takes money. And that money comes out of the agent's pocket, upfront. So it is important to realize how much of a commitment a luxury home agent is making to you, their client. If they don't sell your home, they could be out thousands of dollars.

*Helpful Hint: if you interview an agent and through their marketing plan find a lack of high-end exposure, then you might want to rethink hiring that agent. Too often I find expensive homes for sale that have a lack-luster agent. One big clue is the agent taking the photos themselves. Luxury homes need luxury photography, not second rate shots. Many times I find that the photos themselves are the reason for no showings.

It definitely take time, energy, and money to work in the luxury market.

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To learn more about the Luxury Home Market in the Twin Cities, visit my outside blog.