Thursday, May 28, 2009

Important Note to Lakeshore Sellers


In the old days it used to be easy to choose a real estate agent to sell your lake home or cabin. You just needed to call a few in to give you a price, and then pick the one you liked the best. Most everyone had the same marketing plan:

1. Put up a sign
2. Advertise in the newspaper
3. Advertise in local real estate guide
4. Put in MLS (if available)
5. Do open houses
6. Take calls
7. Get offer
8. Go to closing

And a lot of them wore cheap suits and drove Lincoln Continentals, so it was hard to opt for one over another based on appearance alone.

Once in awhile an agent would even promise to go knock on neighbors' doors to see if they knew of anyone interested in buying a place on your lake (not a bad idea). Some would promise to make fancy brochures that they would leave on your kitchen table, and even put up a brochure box at the end of your driveway (which many times would end up being empty). Or an arrow or two out on the road (which many times would end up missing). And when the seller called the office to complain about some of these promises not taking place, there was no voicemail to leave a nasty message on...only a receptionist with a little pink notepad.

Those were the good old days!

But now, life has become complicated. Most people who own lake homes and lake cabins have been there for awhile. They aren't as versed in a lot of the new technologies that seem to inundate us each day. And to think about Twittering to create a successful sale, or spend a good part of each day social networking with strangers - hoping to find one who is the perfect match for your waterfront real estate - might send shivers down your spine.

Truthfully, I don't know what works and what doesn't any longer. What I do know is that nearly every real estate agent boasts about having multiple websites they can display your property on in hopes of attracting an interested - and qualified - buyer. Some of them say your listing will be on nineteen sites, others promise it will show up on 29 of them, but most of them have no idea how they really get there...or if they ever do. There are all kinds of automated feeds that send listings to everywhere these days, but they may or may not be an effective means of marketing, since buyers still have to find them...and then also find your property on them.

I also know that if I spent my day trying to Twitter my listings away, I probably wouldn't sell too many. It might be like knocking on doors all day trying to find just the right buyer for each property. And that doesn't seem real efficient to me either.

When it comes right down to it, selling real estate really hasn't changed all that much. There are only a few things that are important in creating the sale, and here they are:

1. Price your property corectly (in this market it is more important than ever).
2. Clean up clutter and fix anything that needs fixing inside and out.
3. Think about where your ideal buyer might come from. If you have a lake property, most buyers will be from somewhere else, and they may not even know for sure where they want to end up. To find these types of buyers, widespread - and targeted - exposure is the name of the game.
4. Choose an agent who will be honest with you and get you the type of exposure that will put you in front of that ideal buyer.
5. Hope for the best!

In over 20 years of selling lake properties in many parts of Minnesota and Western Wisconsin, I have always tried to be as upfront and honest with potential sellers I possibly can be. I probably missed out on quite a few listings where I was too honest, whether it had to do with realistic pricing or just getting rid of the orange shag carpet. Not everyone wants to hear the truth, but you are not hiring me to be a liar. It won't do either one of us any good in the long run, and you will most likely still be in the lake home that you didn't want to be in any more - putting the dock in an out, raking the beach, fixing the plumbing...and maybe even replacing mechanicals that start to wear out along with your 732 day old listing on the MLS.

As much as possible, I have tried to get my agents to follow these same guidelines. As a company we don't get all the listings we interview for, but we generally still feel good that we gave the seller the best information possible to make a well-informed decision.

There are all kinds of reasons sellers choose to work with - or not to work with - certain agents, from personality conflicts to some of the other issues I have touched on here like pricing and condition. But when it comes right down to it, you still have to get that perfect buyer to your door one way or another, so your main focus in choosing how you will go about that should be on the best marketing plan for your particular property in this day and age.

Lakehomes.com is one of the most widely viewed waterfront real estate websites in the entire country because of its simple and highly targeted name, along with incredible search results. Not only that, but it has the information waterfront buyers are looking for, and it keeps bringing them back. And if your listing is in Minnesota or Western Wisconsin, you can't find a better place to expose your lake property to an incredible amount of likely buyers each day.

The graph at the top of this article represents our page views from visitors to our site each day since the beginning of 2009. As you can see, we have gone from about 1,000 views per day to over 20,000 views a few days ago, since our numbers started climbing in February. That's a 2,000% increase in traffic in just the last few months.

For the most part, those aren't buyers looking for in-town starter houses, horse farms, convenience stores, or condos for sale along the boulevard; they are lakeshore buyers looking for places like yours! While most other websites include the above property types along with their waterfront offerings, Lakehomes.com makes it easy for lakeshore buyers to find exactly what they want without having to filter through all the other things they don't. Because of that, we also make it easier for those buyers to find your lake home, cabin, lot or resort when it comes time to sell it.

The National Association of Realtors found that 87% of buyers were now using the Internet to find real estate information online in their November 2008 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. If that many people are out there searching online overall, and if that many targeted ones are showing up on our site each day, isn't that where you might want to be, also?

Like I said earlier in this article, selling real estate has really not changed all that much over time. It's just a matter of using common sense to figure out how to get your property noticed by the most possible likely buyers for it once it is properly priced and well-presented. Whether that is on Twitter, through the local newspaper, or handing out flyers door to door, I don't don't know the answer. But some people are having pretty good luck with that on Lakehomes.com!

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Giving Visitors What They Want

Over the last several months you have probably recognized some pretty drastic changes with this website. During the past thirteen years, we have brought the Lakehomes.com name from one of the first online niche real estate destinations to a regular stop for those who are thinking of buying or selling lake properties in Minnesota and Western Wisconsin.

As a visitor, your main purpose of using this site - or any site for that manner - is to get the information you want. And...you want to be able to get it without a lot of work. Our goal has always been to fill that need to the best of our abilities.

In February, Lakehomes.com took on a new look. Instead of just being a website for Lakehomes.com Realty and its agents, we decided to blend the site with both agents from our own real estate company and local experts from other companies who could give you the best information and service possible. So, instead of just seeing agents from Lakehomes.com Realty on our site, you may find those from Edina Realty, Coldwell Banker, Keller Williams, or any other company where we have teamed up with a local expert who we feel can give you the lakeshore expertise you need.

It is a great combination effort. And whether you are a buyer or a seller, you can be assured that you will be able to connect with a real estate agent who understands the local market - or markets - you are focused on.

From everything we are seeing, it is exactly what you are looking for. The number of visitors on the site has increased about 400% since mid February, and our page views have seen about a seven-fold boost. In these days of "way too much information," it seems we are providing the refined data that people are looking for...at least as far as waterfront real estate is concerned.

We will continue to grow into more markets - and provide more localized information and expertise - as we move ahead. But whether we remain a great informational lake property website for Minnesota and Wisconsin, or a national brand, we promise to continue to bring you the information that you are looking for as best we can.

As we continue on our quest to be the ultimate waterfront real estate portal, we intend to add business directories, rentals, and other services to help you find all the information you need in one online destination. So when it comes to lake properties, and information on the areas surrounding them, you shoudn't have to go anywhere else - other than Lakehomes.com - to find exactly what you need!