Discount Broker
(Less than Favorable Results)

Put a Sign in the Yard-
Discount Brokers frequently allow the seller to place their own "For Sale By Owner" sign in the yard. This occurs when the brokerage agreement permits the seller to sell the house on their own if they find their own buyer.

What frequently happens is that many REALTORS will avoid showing the home because the FSBO sign sends out confusing signals to the buyers. Should they try to see the house without an agent? How are offers presented? Will the buyers agent have to deal directly will the seller and do twice the amount of work? Its just easier to avoid these problems and the sellers miss many good, qualified buyers.

Advertise the Property-
Common sense would indicate that the Discount Broker, with limited dollars available for advertising, would most likely be not spending significant money on advertising the property.

Place the Property in the MLS-
In fact this is the only one service that discount brokers are likely to offer but usually for an upfront fee that is non-refundable. Discount brokers also often fail to include more than one photo and seldom will have a virtual tour of the property. (Beware of discounts that can be costly in the long run.))

Appointments Made Directly with Homeowner-
There are three ways to make appointments to show a home.
1- Call the Seller directly. (most frequent method)
2- Call the Listing Office
3- Call the Listing Agent.

Many times when sales people call the seller for an appointment the seller is not home or will not be available at the time the buyers agent wants to show the home. Often no one answers the phone. The result can be a missed opportunity to get the home sold. 

Handling of Offers & Negotiations-
Most often Discount Brokers have required the Buyers' Agent to present all offers directly to the seller. Many Discount Brokers have not offered any guidance with negotiation and the seller is left with little or no representtion.

Questions to Consider-

• How would you determine a buyers' financial ability to purchase your home?
• If the buyer made an offer, contingent on the sale of their home, would you be able to determine its salability?
• Are you familiar with the terms and conditions of a contract that you would be comfortable, with little guidance from a Limited Services Discount Broker, to agree to the buyers' conditions? 

A good FULL SERVICE real estate company provides these valuable services and places the interests of the Seller ahead of everyone else.

Full Service Broker’s Marketing Plan

Place a Sign in the Yard-
Most companies will either stick a sign in the yard or have a colonial sign post installed within several days after the paperwork is signed. (See Baird & Warners' Pre-Marketing Plan to discover a better approach.)

Advertise the Property Regularly-
Most full service companies will advertise your property at least twice a month in some publication. Ads may provide a picture with one or two lines of information and a price. Baird and Warner believes your property should be advertised 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and have multiple photos taken by professional photographers.

Place the Property in the MLS-
As a full service broker Baird and Warner will hire professional photographers and have multiple photos in the MLS in addition to virtual tours.

Utilize Electronic Marketing Effectively-
In addition to print media we find that other methods to be more effective in today's electronic age.  Baird and Warner employs advanced internet technology which puts us in the forefront of marketing homes. Find out if a company you might be considering has a website presence. Try out their website. When you do, ask yourself these questions:

• Does their website offer multiple photos?
• Is it easy to navigate?
• Does it have a audio guided tour?
• Does it have a virtual tour?
• Can an appointment be made online?

Check out the Baird & Warner website to see what "Internet Marketing" should be.

ADDITIONAL MARKETING SERVICES
Provided by Baird & Warner and Wayne Jacobsen

Pre-Marketing

Prior to placing the home "Active" in the Multiple Listing Services your Baird and Warner agent will be laying the groundwork that should create anticipation by potential buyers for your home. This is how we do it.

• We make sure the home is in top marketing condition by offering a Free Consultation and making suggestions. (painting, repairs, staging, etc.)

• Take digital photos for brochures and advertising

• Design and provide multi-page, color brochures of the home and supply them to the homeowner prior to the home becoming available to show. (A quality presentation makes an impact).

• Schedule Professional Photographer to take photos for all websites.

• Design, print and mail "Just Listed" cards to target market prior to the home becoming available to show.

• Install the colonial sign post 3 days prior to the home becoming available to show.

• Submit property to "Exclusive Previews" 72 hours before the property goes "Active" in the Multiple Listing Service.

These services are designed to create a buyer frenzy so that when your home becomes available to show, people have already been calling about it and appointments are being set to show your home. That's the goal of pre-marketing.

What is Exclusive Previews?
Baird & Warner has over 140,000 buyers that have registered in our "Homefinder Program."  Buyers who are looking for a home in your price range, will be notified by email as well as their agent, if your home meets the search criteria they have entered. (Ask your Baird & Warner agent how many people are registered for a home like yours)

Baird and Warner Exclusive Services

In addition to the standard marketing Baird & Warner does, which includes everything you would expect from a full service company, Baird & Warner will also:

• Expose your property on the Baird & Warner, award winning, website.  This website provides multiple photos, a virtual tour, appointment scheduling and interactive mapping.

• Expose your property on multiple internet search engines including Realtor.com, Trulia, Goggle, Yahoo, Zillow.com, Tribune.com, and many more. These are the resources where buyers go to whenever they are looking for property across the country.

• While your home is on the market it is protected from unforseen breakdowns with a Sellers' Home Warranty Plan whether you agree to purchase it for your buyers or not. (There is no cost to you other than a small deductible for each occurence).

• Baird and Warner has an on staff, in office, mortgage broker that will qualify all buyers we bring for your property.

• When you buy or sell through Baird & Warner you receive a Personal Move Coordinator to handle all the details of getting the home ready to sell including help with switching utilities, finding a mover, doing repairs, trash hauling, etc.

Wayne's Additional Marketing

Electronically Notify Personal Contacts-
Upon the Sellers' authorization Wayne will electronically submit a "Just Listed" notice, via email, to nearly 1000 contacts in his database.

Now the chance that one of these contacts wants to buy the Sellers' property is only a remote possibility. What this method does however is it gives these contacts the opportunity to tell their friends, family, and coworkers about your property. This they do by word of mouth or better yet, by forwarding the email to someone they think should know about the property.

Wayne's Personal Website-
As you can see from this website, property listed with Wayne is added to his website. This website features Multiple Photos, Virtual Tours and Featured Listings

Electronic Newsletter-
Once a month Wayne sends an elctronic newsletter to contacts in his database. This newsletter includes featured listings with a link to the Baird and Warner premium website.This reintroduces listed properties to Wayne's contacts each month until the property is sold. Check out Wayne's Newsletter and how it can be used to effectively market newly listed property.

Wayne's Toll Free Information Hotline-
Each listed property will receive a recorded, personalized, Information Hotline description of the property. Where permitted a sign rider will be added to the sign post directing people to call this Toll Free number.

What this does is to remove the resistance that many people have to calling a real estate office expecting to get some overly agressive salesperson asking them a bunch of questions.

What they get is a description of the property and a way to contact the Listing Agent, if they wish, for more information.

This Toll Free Information Hotline has resulted in five times more calls on listed properties then by all other methods combined. The more leads generated on any listed property the more likely that property will sell and for more money.

Give Wayne a call to receive a demonstration on how this technology can get you more money for your property.