Selling a Home in 2020

The clean, classic design of our sign is instantly recognized by home buyers. The focus is on your beautiful home.

If you have decided that it is time to move, then it is essential to put a contemporary real estate marketing plan in place to help get the highest price for your home, where the primary focus is on featuring your home.

Smart and competitively priced… Doug was very responsive.

It is safe to say that 97% of today’s home buyers start their search for a home while sitting in front of the TV looking at homes on the Internet. Photos, school information, and other descriptions need to be clear, concise and reader-friendly.

As a long time agent and digital marketing strategist, I will show you my essential ideas for helping you get the most money out of your home sale with a real estate marketing plan to help you be competitive in the Northern Virginia real estate market.

Prepare for the Internet to find today’s home buyers

photography
staging
preparation
pricing

Having professional photography isn’t an option just for million-dollar homes anymore. Today’s buyers often make buying decisions based on photos especially when the inventory is limited.

Although I have always loved photography, I now hire a firm that uses multiple image/exposure photography which is layered into a perfect image each time. What this does is eliminates flash photography to deliver a magazine quality look.

I include a home stager/designer to make recommendations

Designer Hilary Farr

Although staging sounds like an HGTV-ism, we have always had a focused effort helped clients present their homes. Today, I hire a local design consultant to walk the home with you (and me) giving immediate insight into your home from a designer’s perspective. Most of my clients have excellent taste, but having a designer make tweaks and recommendations that will help your home sell is critically important.

Doug became a trusted advisor, educates you, and connects you to a community of high-quality contacts.

Preparation has always been the key to success. Preparation is going to be unique for you simply because there are many factors involved. Expect to spend 30 days getting prepared before hitting the market.

Preparation can mean cleaning, storing things, painting, re-carpeting, landscaping, or all of those things.

Since each home is unique, pricing is determined using current market conditions, recent home sales and updates you have made to your home.

A ten-year-old kitchen isn’t going to be as valuable as a new kitchen, and a freshly painted home will be more valuable than one with flowery wallpaper.

Market knowledge and professional interpretation of comparable sales is essential especially since instant home valuation reports available across the Internet can be as much as 10% off.

Once we met Doug, he was the clear choice to sell my father’s Vienna home.

The Next Step

Having a personalized action plan in place will enable you to take the next step.

What I need to know from you, either in an email or when we meet in person, is:

when do you want to move?
how long have you lived in the house?
any updates in the last ten years?
what you love about your house or location (top 10 things)

My focus is on marketing and getting your beautiful home in front of today’s home buyers.

Here is a sample home marketing page too

When I started as a real estate agent long ago, the Sunday Washington Post was where everyone placed a tiny ad hoping to catch a reader’s interest. (Just typing that makes me feel ancient!) As you can see here, I embraced the Internet long ago sharing my experiences in blog posts and marketing client’s homes effectively.

To set up a meeting, send me an email now telling me about your specific situation doug@dougfrancis.com or give me call at 703-304-6827 during the day.

There is more about me here on my About Me Page.