Are you a seller, with property listed on the Taos real estate market? If so, you’re likely concerned about the type of marketing used for the sale of your home or land. What’s effective, and what’s not? Of course, we’re all aware of the changes the Internet has made in marketing real estate all around the country. Is the Internet the only way to go? Is print advertising still effective, or was it ever?

The fact is, from the beginning’ print advertising for selling a home has not been as effective as many sellers would believe. The reason that most realtors advertise their listings heavily in newspapers is that it brings them buyer calls and they can then sell a property to that buyer whether it’s your home or not. Yes, people do use the newspaper and homes magazines to look for property. However, those same people are heavily using the Internet in today’s world. A National Association of Realtors® survey shows that more than 80% of homebuyers start their search with the Internet or use it at some point in their home search.

With our large vacation home market, and buyers coming from all over the country, the importance of proper Internet exposure is even greater. Few of our buyers are reading the local paper. Even fewer see the homes magazine, and then it’s usually two or more months old.

What does this mean for print advertising? Gallery Realty of Taos chooses not to do print in most cases. There are certain properties that can benefit from newspaper or homes magazine ads in the Taos real estate market. However, the vast majority do not. We choose to place our budget for marketing into multiple Internet websites, blogs, and syndication of your listing to hundreds of websites around the country.

The fact is, many buyers do use print to look at homes on the market. However, it’s an adjunct to their other activities. They can find far more information on the Internet, including more photos in full color, and lengthier descriptions of the property. There are just so many quality web sites in which to locate properties, and the quality of the information is better. You need your home or land placed on as many websites on the Internet as possible, and that’s done via syndication. When a real estate brokerage tells you that they provide extensive web exposure for your home, ask them what they mean. Have them show you where your home will be shown on the web, and how many sites will display it. Ask them for a syndication list. Unfortunately, many Realtors are not that web savvy. Their idea of excellent web exposure is the number of visits to their personal and company brokerage websites. However, that’s just the tiniest tip of a gigantic iceberg.

It’s syndication of your listing across the web that makes all the difference. If the brokerage is aware of how this works, they will have a list for you of the sites to which they syndicate. Gallery Realty of Taos syndicates to at least 60 sites in the Santa Fe in Albuquerque areas. Then we also go out to sites like Google Base, Trulia, and many others.

It is critical that your home or land be placed on multiple websites, preferably multiple websites with national exposure. Sites like Trulia.com get millions of visits per month. Though we all expose your home on Realtor.com, that site is losing exposure and visitor traffic to Trulia, Zillow and others. Deal with a brokerage that understands the Internet and can effectively market your home to the most viewers.

Call Jim Kimmons at gallery Realty of Taos anytime. Ask about our syndication

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