I was listening to the radio the other day when I heard a relatively new real estate commercial.  In it, the narrator was saying something about how she didn’t use this particular agent, but that this agent had lots of buyers.  Remember, the real estate agent has lots of buyers.  No seriously, you should pick up the phone to list your house because this real estate agent, and only this real estate agent has a list of buyers.  She will even show you her list of buyers when you are meeting to list your house with her.

I have to laugh.  We’ve talked about what an awesome real estate agent looks like.  We’ve talked about Real Estate Experts.  We’ve talked about working with a professional agent in St. Louis.  And, I’ve even warned you to be skeptical of real estate commercials.  Let’s take a look at this old marketing ploy for what it is.

The time of the year

Traditionally, the spring is the time of the year when most people end up listing their houses.  The fact that I heard this ad here in the middle of February is not an accident.  By about the third week in March, you want to be ready to list your home for sale.  This is dependent on many factors, but if everything lined up perfect, end of March would be the time.  This particular real estate agent isn’t new.  I’ve done deals with her.  From what I know of her production, she doesn’t have the money to run these ads all the time, especially in the time slot she chose.

Her specific focus

This ad was definitely intended for those who are considering listing their homes for sale.  It wasn’t set up for buyers at all.  You might want to ask yourself when the last time was that you heard a real estate agent on the radio advertise for buyers.  I can think of about 4 radio ads in St. Louis right now, and they are all biased heavy seller side.  This isn’t a coincidence.  All things being equal, buyers are easier to find than sellers.  Plus, with the amount of money it costs to advertise, you must be targeting sellers because the buyer commission is paid by the seller and the majority of the time there is far less net to the buyer agent.

The sales pitch, let me list your house, I have buyers

I’m trying to think of a way to say the same thing using a sports analogy.  I think it would be something like this.  Let me hit cleanup, I am a good pitcher.  In this analogy we are in the same place, a baseball field, but we are using one thing we do well as a justification to do something else.  Honest question, how many buyers that this agent has are actually going to buy your house?  I’ll tell you what I know from experience.  No buyers on her list are going to buy your house from her list.  This does play on an interesting fear though.  I’ve noticed that home sellers are always worried that their house isn’t going to sell.  The house will always sell; it’s just a matter of price.

When spending mega dollars for advertising, we can’t be boring.  We have to have something that makes some sense and sounds exciting.  For example, if I paid for an ad that said, let me list your house because that is my job, it lacks that “spark”.  Let me list your house because I’m afraid of robots would add spark, and is true, but it’s probably not the best justification for listing your home.

If you are looking to sell your home, give me a call because it is my job.  Did you see what I did there?  If you are looking to buy a new home, please consider working with our brokerage.  Each client comes to us with their own set of circumstances, and we work together to give you the best experience possible when buying or selling your home.  We call this the Deerwood Advantage, and I’d be delighted to show you how it works in a very confusing real estate advertising real estate world.