Marketing Your Home With a REALTOR®

The first step after making the decision to sell your home is to find a REALTOR® to market the property for you.

There are a number of ways you might do this. Perhaps you will choose a REALTOR® recommended to you by someone. You might have noticed a particular name or photograph on several "For Sale" signs in your area indicating that the REALTOR® specializes in your neighbourhood. The same name might have shown up in advertisements or on flyers delivered to your door. If you do not have a REALTOR®, it's a good idea to talk to two or three to discuss with them the services they provide and their fee.

Setting the price

Once you have agreed to work with a particular REALTOR®, it's time to set a realistic asking price.  Your REALTOR® has an intimate knowledge of current market conditions and, using access to the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®), can determine what similar homes in your neighbourhood have sold for recently. Your REALTOR® will help you by suggesting an appropriate price range.

The marketing plan

The marketing plan starts when you sign a listing agreement with a REALTOR®. He or she will tell you about the advantages of selling your home through the MLS®. MLS® is a co-operative marketing system to ensure maximum exposure of properties for sale. Most homes sold in Canada are sold via the MLS® systems operated by real estate boards across the country.

MLS® is a sophisticated computer database of properties indexed by price, location, type of home, number of bedrooms, amenities and so forth. All properties listed on the Victoria Real Estate Board's MLS® system can be viewed on the Internet at www.mls.ca.
 

When your home is ready to be sold, the "For Sale" sign -- the most direct marketing tool of all -- will go up in front of your property to catch the attention of passersby. Your REALTOR® will also discuss with you a number of additional ways to market your home. These will depend on your REALTOR®'s recommendations and your wishes. Strategies may include flyers, newspaper listings as well as an "Open House" for other REALTORS® to enable them to check out the potential of matching the house with the needs of their customers and an "Open House" for members of the public.