Try this link to get free traffic - http://www.trafficwhirl.com/user.php?r=1150

(You will need a website first!)

Let me know how you make out. Good Luck!

Cheryl Supplee

Mark - speaking as an agent - I have all my properties in MLS, on Realtor.com as showcase homes, I advertise, I mass e-mail to agents - I open house - I do Trulia, Zillow, Lake Property.com......but one thing I can't do for the listings I have now, is advertise them as bank owned, foreclosure,or short sale, and my sellers are not in a position to lower the prices much more than they have. I get showings but not as many as I use to. Most buyers are looking for the deals of the Century, and if yours is not - it has to appear to be.

Hi Mark,
I do agree with you. Advertising is very important to generate more traffic to your home. Without printing or online advertising your home will be the "best kept secret" for buyers/agents in your area. Now, the best venue for the advertising depends on your area and it could be on the open house section of your paper or online on sites like trulia or realtor.com. I advertise on the open house section of our local paper every single weekend and i also advertise heavily online since i am great believer on both and i do generate a lot of traffic from both. You should communicate to your Realtor how you feel. I can not speak for him/her but sometimes the cost of putting and ad on a paper is a matter of less than twenty dollars and it should not stop him/her from doing so. In regards to FSBO i strongly believe in the use of reputable Realtors in your area where the exposure of your home will be a lot greater. Hope this helps.
Leonardo.
It is about Lifestyle!

Mark,
Your agent should be willing to market your home as much as possible. This includes making flyers, open houses, sending out postcards, prospecting to other agents in other offices, and putting your home on several sites to get your home out to the public. I know that statistics suggest that around 87% of people go to Realtor.com first to find a home before looking anywhere else. I do agree that print ads are becoming more obsolete but there is still that 13% that still look at newspapers, magazines etc.

I am with Jenny Pruitt & Associates and our company provides different programs for sellers as well to get more traffic such as our Preferred Mortgage Program. We put our listings on Realtor.com showcase. This means that if you put 25 pictures, a video, etc. that your listing will be at the top of the list compared with listings in the same price range and area.

I think as an agent representing the seller you should be a service to your clients. Usually if a home has been on the market for a while there are three things that are usually the problem:

1: Marketing
2: Condition
3: Price

You already stated that your home was competitively priced and I am sure your home is in wonderful condition so I am guessing the problem is marketing. Our company listings are on Realtor.com Showcase, MLS, and FMLS. To get more showings and traffic your home has got to be marketed correctly.

I would be more than happy to answer any other questions you may have and provide you with more information about our company if you do decide to consider another agent. You can reach me at:
andreasteele@jennypruitt.com.
You can view my web page at: http://www.andreasteele.jennypruitt.com.

I hope this helps and GOODLUCK!

Mark, I believe I just posted an answer to your other question, and by reading this question I just found the answer to mine (know I see that you are listed with an agent). In answer to your question, your agent is accurate in saying that Open Houses and Paper Ads are a waste of money because 84% of buyers are turning to the internet first to start their home search. So all over the internet is where you want your home to be. Try the google test on it, type in your homes address and see how many places show up that it is listed at on the world wide web. I've done that before at a listing appointment and compared one of my current listings to their home address (they were trying to sell w/ a discount brokerage) and when they say how many places my listings appeared they were eager to get the process started. Anyway, the answer to your question is, The Internet is where you want your home to be advertised and with many photos, GOOD photos, virtual tours, possibly even video, and definitly a blog posting about it. Then it should be syndicated to many many other websites.

Dear Mark,

The sheer fact that you are on this site asking how to generate traffic makes me think that the relationship b/t you and your realtor isn't working too well. You shouldn't have to be asking this question. Your realtor should be advising you what he/she is doing to generate traffic . . . I shall say no more as I do not want to offend anyone.

Contact the people at HouseBuyerNetwork.com they have an affiliate in your area who can help you sell your home quickly and an investor. They are reputable, have been in business for 5 years, and helped over 187,000 homeowners nationwide.

We are doing a FSBO sale right now (flat fee listing.) If you decide to go that route, make sure you have the time, knowledge, and skills to market the house - it ain't easy and it ain't for everyone. Good realtors really do earn their money! If you do go FSBO, you NEED to get yourself listed on the MLS and offer a full buyers broker commission, so you would really have 3% minus your marketing costs to play with.

If your agent isn't spending any money or time to market your home, you need to drop them. Find another agent or give yourself some real headaches as a FSBO.

Does your home have photos on the MLS? A nice description? There is no reason for them not to be there!.

We have brought many promising prospects to our home through our open houses - one came for 3 showings so far and may actually buy our home! Open houses are a pain, very time consuming, and cost a bit of money to run. You need to market them properly. But if we're bringing real prospects through - and we're not even realtors!

The hard lesson we learned is PRICE. We *thought* we were priced well. We weren't. We had comps. We had CMAs. We kept waiting for that homerun buyer to offer us the upper end of the home value. Not in this market. Most buyers don't even seem to look at homes priced over their number - there are so many nice homes they can get *below* that number so they have no reason to start above!

It's hard. We interviewed realtors before choosing the FSBO route. Even with the CMAs, all the comps, and the realtor advice you see through rose-colored glasses and tend to pick a price too high. And you get few showings as a result Find a way to step back and really evaluate what has sold. We had a slew of showings after a proper price reduction.

Just remember - you can't price based on what you want to put in the bank.

You can try this, it brought us a number of new lookers and prospects:

Schedule an open house. Draft a nice "open" letter to your neighbors telling them that your home is for sale, why you're moving, and that you would love to see someone with a connection to the area move into the home. "Choose your next neighbor" theme. Invite them to the open house, and invite them to bring friends and family who might want to move into the area. Tell them even if they don't know anybody to stop by your open house to have a cookie and say hi, or just be curious about how you decorated. Make sure to say you'd be happy to show your home for them anytime. You never know - your house might make an impression and you'll get a referral. Include a flyer of your house.

You can mail them. We decided to walk around to 200 homes in the area personally and leave the letters on their doorsteps. It was a nice day, and we got to talk to a number of our neighbors personally and tell them about our home - huge bonus if you have the time!

Other than that - make sure your home is in top selling condition. Never say "good enough", challenge yourself to find the next thing you can do to make the home more attractive. Declutter, stage, etc., etc...

After reviewing all the answers, so that I would not provide you with redundancy, I think that Jeanette is right on target...I do open houses and it is a falsehood that homes are not sold thru open houses. Sounds to me that your agent has set you up so that he or she has to do little for alot! In this market, a good agent will pull out all the stops...including open houses with REAL snacks and beverages....period!!!!
One other thing....80% of photos taken and on the MLS suck! Insist on the very finest Photographs....Picture tell more than a Million words....we are very Visual animals....sounds like you should talk to either Jeanette or myself...LOL

More than 80% of home buyers today start their home search on the internet. Pick the major search engines and type in "marietta homes for sale". Is your agent's website on the first page of Google or Trulia? Is your property advertised on the website such that any potential buy will know why they should want to look at your home, instead of the many other homes for sale in Marietta? Does you agent have a large email list of potential buyers captured on his/her website? The "traditional" ways of marketing your home for sale do not work anymore. Aggresive internet and email marketing is the way to go

A well planned, well advertised Open House is not a waste of time. The current market demands an open house, a caravan, and a brokers' luncheon. Get the word out to every brokerage in the Metro Atlanta area. No it's not a waste of time - twiddling your thumbs is!

Has your agent sent flyers to the neighbors? Do any of the neighbors have family that just might want to have Uncle Joe or Aunt Sally close by? You say it's priced comparable to other homes in your neighborhood - then let the neighbors know to let their co-workers, best friends, vendors - everybody know that the is a deal in the neighborhood.

Not a short sale, not a foreclosure, not an "as-is" property, but a well maintained, bonafide lived in loved in home .....

An open house cost's nothing but time! Most advertising is free and flyers are a nominal fee. Don't give up - sit down and talk to your agent; get a marketing plan together.... check back in and let us know how it goes.....

Before you reduce your price you may want to ask your agent if they have any affiliates in the mortgage market. The tough thing for buyers right now is financing.

Get your agent to market your property with special financing. You can contribute to offer a discounted interest rate or 100% financing. FHA Down payment assistance programs are under review and will be changing soon. If you act now a special finance offering may be your ticket to stand out from the crowd.

My company offers financing opportunities for sellers that reduce the impact of purchasing discount points. If you are interested in learning more be sure to contact me.

This stratagey can be very effective in today's market.

Hi Mark:

You said “We are also thinking of trying FSBO at our lowest possible price.” As a general rule, the people that look to buy FSBO are excepting to pay less than the asking price for they know you are not paying for an agent!

Ask your agent to check with other listing agents in the area to see how many of their listing are getting showings. Most professional agents will share information with other agents. For you see, if I were you I would want to know if we are missing buyers coming to our area. If I was, then discover why they are not coming to my property. Otherwise, firing your agent might not be the right thing to do.

I have to disagree about paper advertising and open houses. In this market, I believe an agent has to utilize all the tools available. Yes, I know how 86% of homebuyers search the internet. I have a website I pay a lot of money for search engine optimization for. However, I have found that print advertising still brings buyers for my listings. I also know that 99% of open houses don't sell the house. Don't you think that as agents we have to do everything possible to reach that 14% or 1% of buyers out there?
Get an agent with a marketing plan that is better than most. It's not just about internet exposure, it's the complete picture. Find out where they advertise, too? Some print publications bring better results than others. A good agent should know how to track ads so that he/she knows where the buyers are calling in from. If there are monthly publications, be sure to be in them, too (Homes & Land is big in my area.)
I will add that price is always the driving source to bring buyers to you. If you aren't getting offers and are getting exposure, reduce, reduce, reduce!

Your agent should have a clear marketing plan for your home. Open houses are a waste of time in most situations. However, there are methods to expose the market. For example, is your home on Trulia? That's a good sign of a tech savvy agent. Since most buyers are on the interenet, an interenet strategy is key to exposing the home.

No matter what an agent does, it still comes to price & condition. If those are satisfied then a little exposure can go a long way.

Open houses and the newspaper are generally a waste of time and money. Most houses are sold are found through the MLS, the yard sign, positioning in realtor.com and the Realtor's connection with other agents. Get in writing from the agent everything that was done and the results. When interviewing other agents, get in writing what they do to market your home. Also, get a report of the homes that have sold and those currently on the market for your type house, location and price point. This is what buyers are looking at to determine if you are in line with the market. You might be surprised that the price on your home may not be competative like you think.