Selling Property in Washington Wine Country

We understand that selling your home or property is an important decision both financially and emotionally. We don’t just list your home, we develop a custom tailored market plan that we invest our time and money into. Here at John L Scott, we offer a premium service aimed at maximizing the value in your home borne from over 75 years of real estate experience.

We start the process with a Current Market Analysis. This document makes a detailed comparison of your home to other comparable homes that have sold in your area in the last six months and to other comparable homes in the area which are for sale. We make the comparison to homes which are actively being marketed, both to be sure we understand the current market and to develop an understanding of what homes we will be competing with for buyers.

From current research, we know how buyers typically locate homes they have purchased:

30% from Agents
37% from the Internet
15% from Newspapers
7% from Friends, Relatives & Neighbors
7% from Drive-bys
1% from Magazines
3% from All Other Sources

Once we have agreed on a listing price and a selling strategy, we design a marketing campaign for the next 30 to 45 days to focus our marketing efforts in each of these areas.

Other real estate agents will be notified by e-mail, a special broker tour and, of course, by listing on the local Multiple Listing Service. Pictures are essential and each of our listings has its own webpage with a Guided Tour which “talks” the viewer thru the home and is set to music. New listings are flagged and come out on a special list to agents each day.

In today’s market, internet presence is critical. The John L Scott website, even though we only have offices in the Pacific Northwest, gets over 150 million hits a month. Our marketing program features your home on its own webpage, but also will list the property on these real estate websites:

• Realtor.com
• Craigslist
• Google base
• Postlets.com
• Zillow.com
• Oodle
• Trulia
• Vast
• Hotpage
• Backpage.com
• Kijiji

You can be confident that your home will be broadly marketed with the latest technology on the internet.

For drive-bys prospective buyers, a large yard sign will be erected together with professionally developed flyers to showcase your home. We prepare a large stock of flyers and regularly check the box to assure it is restocked.

We also mail our flyer to your friends, family, relatives and neighbors. While this may seem unnecessary, research tells us that 7% of buyers locate their homes in this manner.

Our newspaper advertising begins immediately with a special new listing advertisement which will feature the home during its first week on the market. We then follow this up with an open house and featured listing ads for the next couple of weeks.

We also advertise in the Real Estate Guide Magazine. Research has shown this media does not account for a large number of buyers, but we often find buyers using the magazine as a reference while they are driving neighborhoods or touring homes and open houses. So it is important to keep your property at the top of the buyer’s mind.

After the first 30 to 45 days, we hold a listing conference with you to review what we have learned. We will have feedback from other agents, open houses, internet sites, and hopefully from buyers who have been shown your home. We go over this information in detail, make decisions and adjustments as necessary and then develop and execute a new marketing plan for the next 30 to 45 days.

Depending on the home or property, we will also offer advice and consult on presale preparation, home staging, pricing incentives, and preparing your home for sale.

Once we have received an offer, we will offer professional consultation on negotiating, dealing with contingencies and counteroffers. We are your Realtor and are bound by our Law of Real Estate Agency to serve you.

We also will assist you with closing, moving, and help with relocation. We also offer a mailing to your friends and family announcing your new home which can also be used a house warming party invitation.

So, if you are interested in having a professional assist you in selling your home and want to be confident your real estate agent will invest the time and money needed to properly market your home – give me a call for your free and confidential Current Market Assessment. Enjoy the Washington Wine Country Living website and feel free to contact me with any suggestions or questions.

So you don’t know if you want to buy or sell?

Well that is just fine too. The website was built to help educate people about real estate in the Yakima Valley. Buying or selling a home is such an important decision both emotionally and financially that it critical that you learn as much as possible.

So browse on – and if there is anything else we can do to help you – feel free to give us a call. We love to talk about real estate in the Yakima Valley and are happy to try and answer your questions.