How I Market Your Home

John Lockwood Exclusive Marketing Plan

Our web site network -- Our web site network's two flagship sites are http://www.sacramento-home.com and http://www.johnlockwood.com. Together they enjoy over 600 unique visitors per day. One of our team members, formerly a software developer and independent software consultant, has spent several months engineering our web presence to be both user friendly and search-engine friendly. As a result of this work, we enjoy over 100 1st place keyword positions and over 300 positions in the top five on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Alta-Vista, Ask Jeeves, MSN, and Lycos. Keywords include "Sacramento Real Estate" and other high-profile local keywords. Your home will be placed in our featured listings section on all our sites.
Locate buyers through the MLS - The MLS allows me to "reverse prospect" for agents who are representing buyers looking for a home just like yours. Unlike many agents, we regularly take advantage of this valuable feature.
Easy communications with us, directly -- We offer our direct lines in all of our marketing. We work seven days per week, and we're there when your buyers call.
Honest feedback after each showing. We solicit buyer feedback from our own buyers, and we ask agents who've shown your home for their feedback as well.
Our focus on selling our listings first -- The way our marketing system is set up is to direct all buyer calls to us because we have more interest in your house than any other Realtor®.
Enter your property into the MLS system -- The MLS is a very powerful tool that exposes your home and hires a team of well over 1,000 Realtors® located in El Dorado County, Sacramento County, and Placer County.
Professional flier -- We put a flier in the flier box in your front yard that gives basic information about your house. It also prompts the potential buyer to get more information about your house through our web sites, or to call us directly.
Fliers are faxed, e-mailed, or dropped off to top local Realtors®. We announce our new listings right away to our colleagues.
Yahoo Classified Ad - We want your home to be seen by as many Internet buyers as possible, so we go beyond our own network to purchase a classified ad specifically for your home.
RE/MAX yard sign -- We place a RE/MAX yard sign in your front yard that has our direct line numbers on it. Even with the advent of the Internet, yard signs still rank as one of the most effective forms of promotion for your property. REMAX takes full advantage by allowing the us as listing agents for your home to handle buyers who call on the sign ourselves. Other companies route these valuable sign calls to a floor agent (often an inexperienced newcomer with no other way to attract business).
Promote your home to Realtor®s on the MLS Tour - In areas where there is a shared Realtor® open house attended by the several local real estate offices, we will present your home professionally to the entire meeting as soon as it is available for showing. We will also "host" the open house and provide some incentive for Realtors® to preview your home (food and/or a drawing).
Pre-qualify all potential buyers -- We believe it is of utmost importance to ensure that a potential home buyer is pre-qualified before a purchase agreement is accepted on your house. If we are not the selling agent, we always recommend that we get a pre-qualification letter from a lender before we take your house off of the market, and we push for pre-approval as soon as possible.
Fully compensate the buyer's agent - Our commission of 6% allows us to compensate the agent bringing in the buyer at a full 3%, without sacrificing our services to you on the marketing side. Busy agents with many homes to sell will give preference - consciously or not - to those with a full commission.
Negotiating the best possible contract -- This is where the rubber meets the road. It doesn't matter how good the marketing program is, or how many offers you get, if your agent is not a good negotiator not only will you not get the best deal, but often the house won't get sold. We take pride in this area of our business.
Following through after an accepted contract -- This is another very important part of the real estate transaction. There are literally dozens of things that can cause a real estate transaction to fall apart. Fortunately our 24 years of combined experience means our fallout rate is extremely low.