Jean Villa Real Estate Agent - NJ Realtor - 908-319-9556 Hunterdon County & Warren County Homes for Sale: Jean Villa, Realtor®, Agent - West Central NJ (Weichert Realtors in West Central NJ)

If your home has been for sale for more than 100 days you're probably tired of looking at the for-sale sign in your front yard. If you want to sell your property now and get on with your life, pay close attention: Your price is too high!

In good markets or bad, price is the key factor in selling a home. Regardless of location or condition, any home will sell at the right price.

Properties that sell fastest sell closest to list price.  Those that are on the market longer sell for much less than those which were priced realistically when it was first placed on the market. This is especially true in a declining market, such as we have had.

Pricing a property is a complex exercise.  Many factors are considered in preparing a comparative market analysis, and of these, experience is the most important. When sellers ignore a properly-prepared CMA and insist on listing their property more than 2% above recent closed sales, they are making a big mistake which will ultimately cost them dearly.

Realtors do not determine market value. Neither do sellers. Market value is the amount a buyer is willing to pay and a seller is willing to accept for a specific property. Sellers should never price their homes based on what other sellers are asking. The only prices that matter are those of comparable homes that have recently sold.

Buyers want a good deal, and will not knowingly pay too much. They are selective and price-conscious, and look at many propertiesbefore making a decision. The property they eventually choose will be the one which gives them most of their want and needs at a price they perceive to be fair market value, and in this kind of market, what they consider a "deal".

Some sellers believe it's easy to get market price, and that a Realtor's job is to sell the property for whatever the seller wants or needs. Some believe if they wait long enough, a buyer will come along who is smart enough to have the money and income to buy the house and too dumb to know it's overpriced. Not likely. Buyers also want to see a market analysis.

A common seller statement is "we're in no hurry; we'll just leave it on the market until we get our price." In fact, the longer a home is on the market the less likely a seller will receive asking price.

Some sellers say "If my price is too high, buyers can always make an offer." True, but they usually won't. Many realtors won't show overpriced homes, except maybe to convice clients what a good deal a competing property is.

Sellers often tell their agent that they must sell at a certain price because they need the money. Real Estate Economics Law #1 is that "a seller's need for money does not increase the market value of the home." If you were a buyer, would you pay a premium for a home just because the seller needs more money?

Sellers often say, "Couldn't we just try it for a couple of weeks?" Of course they could, but 90 percent of the showing and previewing activity happens in the first two weeks. These buyers are looking for a specific house and are called by their realtor to see the new listing. They need to be captured, as they are probably the best buyers.

When a property hasn't sold, sellers think their agent is not exposing the property to enough buyers. No matter how much exposure their home gets, it won't sell if it's overpriced, and if it did, it probably would not appraise.

Pay attention to the pricing of your home. The long market time will cost you thousands of dollars that rightly belonged to you.

If your home has been for sale for more than 100 days you're probably tired of looking at the for-sale sign in your front yard. If you want to sell your property now and get on with your life, pay close attention: Your price is too high!

In good markets or bad, price is the key factor in selling a home. Regardless of location or condition, any home will sell at the right price.

Properties that sell fastest sell closest to list price.  Those that are on the market longer sell for much less than those which were priced realistically when it was first placed on the market. This is especially true in a declining market, such as we have had.

Pricing a property is a complex exercise.  Many factors are considered in preparing a comparative market analysis, and of these, experience is the most important. When sellers ignore a properly-prepared CMA and insist on listing their property more than 2% above recent closed sales, they are making a big mistake which will ultimately cost them dearly.

Realtors do not determine market value. Neither do sellers. Market value is the amount a buyer is willing to pay and a seller is willing to accept for a specific property. Sellers should never price their homes based on what other sellers are asking. The only prices that matter are those of comparable homes that have recently sold.

Buyers want a good deal, and will not knowingly pay too much. They are selective and price-conscious, and look at many propertiesbefore making a decision. The property they eventually choose will be the one which gives them most of their want and needs at a price they perceive to be fair market value, and in this kind of market, what they consider a "deal".

Some sellers believe it's easy to get market price, and that a Realtor's job is to sell the property for whatever the seller wants or needs. Some believe if they wait long enough, a buyer will come along who is smart enough to have the money and income to buy the house and too dumb to know it's overpriced. Not likely. Buyers also want to see a market analysis.

A common seller statement is "we're in no hurry; we'll just leave it on the market until we get our price." In fact, the longer a home is on the market the less likely a seller will receive asking price.

Some sellers say "If my price is too high, buyers can always make an offer." True, but they usually won't. Many realtors won't show overpriced homes, except maybe to convice clients what a good deal a competing property is.

Sellers often tell their agent that they must sell at a certain price because they need the money. Real Estate Economics Law #1 is that "a seller's need for money does not increase the market value of the home." If you were a buyer, would you pay a premium for a home just because the seller needs more money?

Sellers often say, "Couldn't we just try it for a couple of weeks?" Of course they could, but 90 percent of the showing and previewing activity happens in the first two weeks. These buyers are looking for a specific house and are called by their realtor to see the new listing. They need to be captured, as they are probably the best buyers.

When a property hasn't sold, sellers think their agent is not exposing the property to enough buyers. No matter how much exposure their home gets, it won't sell if it's overpriced, and if it did, it probably would not appraise.

Pay attention to the pricing of your home. The long market time will cost you thousands of dollars that rightly belonged to you.

The concept of getting your website to the first page of Google seems like an almost impossible task to many.  People spend months writing more and more content for their site, getting backlinks, and editing things without ever getting your website to the first page of Google.  You feel defeated when your site stays on page 17 and just won't budge.  Then one day you get a call from a company who promises “if you give us $395.00 per month, we will put your site on the first page of Google.” The part that these telemarketers neglect to mention is that the moment you stop paying them, your website will drop faster than lead balloon.  As a former real estate agent, I used to get these calls regularly.

So, how can you actually get your website to the first page of Google?  Well, there are a couple of really basic principles that you’ll need to implement.  The “basics” are just that – basic.  Before I share these, first you need to learn to not over-complicate things.  Here are 3 easy steps to getting your website to the first page of Google:

1. Good, solid, keyword-rich content. So what is quality keyword-rich content? Basically, it’s content that gives something of value to consumers and search engines.  You need to have keyword-rich posts that answer the questions your consumers have.  Do not just spit out some random words and call it a post.  If you write just to write and do not really have purpose, you are basically wasting your time if you are trying to get business.  Develop a gameplan for your content and stick to it.

Ten well-written, targeted, keyword dense posts will bring a greater result than 100 posts that are thrown together quickly, with topics all over the place, and which contain piles of typos, grammatical errors, and more.  This is a prime example of the principle of quality over quantity for the greatest result possible.

2.  Writing Consistently on Your Blog. Many times people start working on getting their website to the first page of Google and after the first month or so they simply give up. One of the key factors to getting your website on the first page of Google is to consistently offer fresh content on your site.  The easiest way to do this, of course, is to integrate a blog into your page.

You don’t need to have a Masters degree in English to have an effective blog.  You just need to publish 2-3 good, quality posts each week that offer valuable content to your readers that are also written with your primary keywords in mind.  One of the biggest excuses that I hear is that a business does not have time to write.  According to HubSpot, businesses who blog receive 55% more visitors than companies who do not.

Here’s a simple time management strategy:  On the weekend or whenever you have a few spare hours, (watching a football game, relaxing by the fire, etc.), sit down and write 2 or 3 really good quality posts.  Then, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday you can launch these pre-written posts.  You can then take the rest of the week to respond to comments, etc.  To the consumers and search engines, it appears as though you have written new content on three different days.

This practice is far healthier for your rankings than writing a bunch of content one day, then waiting 7-10 days to write more.  Why? The search engines are constantly visiting your page to index more content.  The freshness is important when it comes to Google’s indexing algorithm.  Also, they see a constant stream of new stuff instead of a bunch on one day, then a week of dormancy until you get around to posting again.  This is also helpful for your consumer audience of readers.  If you publish 3-4 posts all at once, the likelihood of those posts bringing you good consumer traffic from those subscribed to your blog is minimal.  Most consumers will read maybe one post, but will not have the time, attention span, or energy to read multiple posts.

3.  Link, Link, Link! The more sites that are pointing links at your page (especially when titled with the keywords you are trying to achieve) will produce a great return.  One easy way to get some great links pointing to your site is to make sure you have added your business site to your profiles on any and all networks you participate in.  Links from higher ranking sites help the search engines realize that these sites recognize your website. 

It is kind of like when Oprah endorsed KFC’s new grilled chicken promo.  In no time, there were over 2 million coupons printed and many were left missing out on the promotion because of lack of supply. Links from reputable sites make your own site seem more reputable. 

One thing for sure, you need to make positive that the links you insert places are actually working for you.  Many networks block the search engines from following the links to prevent spam.  (I will be writing more about this in the future.)

Another great way to get links, is to ask your friends and family members to place a link on their blogs, websites, etc.  Two things with regards to linking: do not pay a link farm service.  Search engines don’t value these links – I could go into great detail about why, but just rest assured that it’s a waste of time and money. The other tip is to not do a reciprocal link when possible.  This means, if your brother links to your site, do not put a link back to his. 

A detour. An easy alternative to reciprocal links is to have a link triangle. In this case, your brother links to your site, you link to your parents, and your parents link to your brother’s page.  All links are one-way and none are going back and forth.  The more links you can have pointed at your site, the better it will help in getting your website to the first page of Google. You can think of each link as a “vote” for your site.

If you implement just these three tips, it will help get your website onto the first page of Google.  Obviously,  there are plenty of other factors that contribute to this phenomenon.  If you take these and not only integrate into your website, but also into your blog, the most vital part to your website, you will start seeing results in a rather quick fashion. These three items I discussed alone can make or break the effectiveness of a website. 

If you have any questions, let me know. And by the way, 210 Consulting- Social Media Advisors offers some really great personal coaching taught by myself and Jason Crouch on this subject.

Photo Credits: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mklingo/245562110/ & http://www.flickr.com/photos/spiderpop/2798740868/

 

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I am the Co-Founder of 210 Consulting- Social Media Advisors.  If you would like more information on any of the topics discussed in this blog, please contact me directly. Also, please visit my other online consulting blog for more social media tips, tricks and enhancements.

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