• Complete Listing Paperwork.  Before listing your home, we review a market analysis report with you which will show you the price of competing and sold listings in your area or subdivision.   Because appraisers use the price of sold listings to determine actual market value along with other factors, these listings will give you a good idea of what your home is worth and the competing listings will show the current active listings you will be competing against.  After we review this report, we will complete the listing agreement paperwork. 
   
• Take photos of your home.  These photos will be used to maximize exposure of the key selling points of your home.  Multiple photos will be uploaded to the MLS(I use the maximum allowed which is 20).  More photos, up to 4 of each room, will be shown on a custom web page created for your listing. 

• Enter your property into the Multiple Listing Service(MLS).*  Your listing will be available to ALL REALTORS® in the Middle Tennessee area as well as the general public who search the MLS public sites(www.realtracs.com and www.REALTOR.com).  More than 36% of homes listed are initially found by buyers online as well as an additional 36% of listed homes are initially found by REALTORS sending them to their buyer clients.

• Install a very attractive FOR SALE yard sign.* 12% of  homes sold initiate with the yard sign. (Optional, but recommended).  According to the National Association of Realtors, 59%+ of home buyers used the yard sign in the search for the home they purchased.  Our yard signs always have our mobile phones posted so we are available for questions about your listing.  

• Install MLS key lockbox on property.*  This will allow other REALTORS® to show your home by appointment when you are away.  The electronic lockbox records the REALTOR®'s name and company as well as the time and date they entered.  Only REALTORS® have the ability to open the lockbox with an electronic key card issued to every REALTOR® in Middle Tennessee through the local MLS.

• Review condition of property and suggest ways to improve saleability.  This will be reviewed weekly along with pricing based on the feedback we get from REALTORS® and visiting buyers.

• Mail, email, fax or deliver copies of listing paperwork to you.
   
• Create a custom web page for your listing with photos of each and every selling feature of your property.  The MLS only allows 20 photos.  Photos were listed as the most useful source of information about homes they viewed on websites.  The custom web page shows potential buyers  ALL points of interest of your home.   Other sites such as the MLS and the enhanced listing on Realtor.com direct visitors to go to the featured web page to view more photos.  View examples of custom web pages by clicking on the listings on our featured homes page.
  
  Over 90 percent of home buyers initially go to the internet to search for their next home.  If you list your home with us, your home will be seen by more potential buyers because we syndicate to over 40 real estate search engines and maximize photos on all of these sites.
   
• Submit the listing information to our syndication service so the listing can be viewed on over 300 different specialty real estate search destinations.
  
   
• Submit the listing information to www.REALTOR.com.  We purchase enhanced listings on Realtor.com to allow more photos for potential buyers to see as well as make your listing stand out from the others on the map or the list of search results.  We also direct buyers to view more photos on our website if they want to view more than the 25 photos listed on Realtor.com.
                               

• Report progress for showing activity and feedback is done automatically through our central showing system.  You will have online access via the internet to your showing activity.  Feedback emails are automatically sent to the buyer's agent when the showing appointment is confirmed.  The buyer agents fill out and submit feedback to this system and you will be able to view the feedback replies online anytime.  A weekly email of all showings and feedback are sent to you.  Learn more about our central showing system at www.showings.com.

• Review feedback from showing agents.

• Review feedback from showing agents.

• Review condition of property and suggest ways to improve salability based on feedback of previous two weeks.

• Review first month's progress and REALTOR® feedback with Seller(s).  Compare recent sales and competing listings.  Discuss pricing and make changes to price or staging based on feedback.

We will be available by telephone almost anytime.  Our mobile numbers are 615-477-3484 for Casey Baird or 615-477-3542 for Raine Baird.  Our office number is 615-859-7150(ask for Casey Baird).   If it's after office hours, our office voicemail immediately calls our mobile phones to alert us of the voicemail.  We always try to answer every call between 8am to 8pm when we are not with a client.  Please leave a voicemail if we are not able to answer.  We try to return all calls within 2 hours or less.

This marketing plan may be changed or customized to fit your special needs.

What we don't do and why:

We don't do open houses. 
Why?  Because open houses sell the home less than 1% of the time and are very expensive.  We pass this savings on to you.  Open houses are not for the seller, they are for the listing agent to try to get more buyer clients.  Agents hold open houses in hopes that some of the buyers that come to look are not working with agents so they can hopefully pick them up as clients.  If the house sells, great, but that's not the main goal most of the time in this new age of the internet.  Open houses were a great way to sell a home in the past, but now that 90% or more home buyers are viewing homes and photos online instead. The open house is on the internet now and when they find one they like, they call their agent over 89% of the time or drove by the house.  Here are some interesting stats from a 2009 study done by NAR......only 12% of buyers frequented open houses and only 10% of those buyers found the open house useful.  This means only about 1 in 100 buyers found the open house useful.  Even then, those buyers had usually seen the homes online already, had it emailed to them by their agent or seen the yard sign.  They would have visited the house anyway without the open house so it's not smart or effective to spend advertising dollars on open houses.  It's better to route those dollars towards more effective ads online and reduce listing fees to pass on to the seller.

We don't do print ads.
Why?  Same reason as above.  Print ads, according to studies done by NAR, sell the home less than 3% of the time.  This media is very expensive and very ineffective.  Only 11% of buyers frequented newspaper print ads and only 2% of those found the ads useful.  This means less than 1 in 100 buyers find newspaper print ads useful.  We would rather focus our ad budget at the very effective advertising that buyers are viewing to try to capture as many of those buyers as possible.  Again, it's better to be the most prominent in the 90%+ category where buyers said they found the home they purchased.  According to more recent survey's done by the National Association of REALTORS®, the number of people that actually found the house they purchased thru open house, homes magazine and/or newspaper ad combined was less than 3%.  We focus on capturing more buyers from the 90%+ category.  The buyers in that less than 3% category still see the home online, thru their agent or the yard sign, so they end up finding the home anyway.  The ads in magazines, newspapers, etc. are the most expensive and ineffective.  Compare the recent study NAR did with buyers in 2009.  Buyers say they frequented the internet first to view homes 90% of the time and said they found the internet 77% useful.  This means nearly 70 out of every 100 buyers want to view the home online.  The REALTOR was the next most used source of information at 87% and those buyers found the information from the agent 98% useful this means 85 of every 100 buyers are more than likely to view the home with their agent but probably after they view it online......and probably because their agent emailed the listing to them.

This is why we reduce our fee and pass the savings on to you.  We are also affiliated with a broker that doesn't take 1/3 of our commission check.  This is another reason we can reduce our listing fee and pass on the savings to you.  We are a full service agent and don't reduce the commission offer fee to buyer agents on the MLS.  We still offer buyer agent's 3% on the MLS to show your home to stay competitive with other listings.  We take all calls from agents and our showing center sets up all showing appointments.  Call us today and save thousands on listing fees.  Interview me before you sign a listing agreement with any other agent.   Call Casey Baird at 615-477-3484.

All of the stats quoted above come from the 2009 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers book.  The National Association of Realtors does this survey and publishes this book every year.  I have purchased this book every year since I have been in the business and have used it as a guide to target my listing advertising focus, save my clients money and increase quality showings on their homes.

Casey Baird / Office 615-859-7150 / Reliant Realty / 256 Seaboard Ln. / Ste. E-105 / Franklin  TN  37067