Roatan-Real Estate Sellers Guide When you consider Selling your property there are several things to think about. With the innovation of the modern real estate company when you list your property for sale does not necessarily mean that the company you list with, themselves will sell your property. What you need is a company that will MARKET your property. Where does the company you are considering rank on web site searches for real estate on search engines like Google and Yahoo? That is where most clients start the purchase process. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. People looking for property seldom get past the top five companies in any search engine. Do they communicate? Do you send emails that take days to return a response to you? When they show your property do they communicate with you about that showing? Give input? Will your property be promoted in print? Do they publish and distribute printed materials? How many web sites does the real estate company use to market properties? Do they send out Newsletters to people? Communications is an important consideration. How many people subscribe to their Newsletters? Do they send them at regular intervals? Do they send out hot deals to their client base? Will it be on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service)? What is the difference between a REALTOR® and a real estate agent? Do they produce results? All of these should be considerations. Bottom line ? Choose wisely. Make sure they have a ton of experience and knowledge. The longer they are on the island the more history regarding property sales they have. Always a plus. A REALTOR® broker is a member of the National Association of REALTORS® and therefore is bound by its strict Code of Ethics. REALTORS® are committed to treat all parties to a transaction honestly and are expected to maintain a higher level of knowledge about the buying and selling process than practitioners who aren’t NAR members. Identify them by the REALTOR® logo a stylized block R on their business card, membership pin, or other marketing literature. Your real estate company can do all it can for you in offering print and web site advertising, which gets the message out that your property is available for sale but in every market economics, ……… supply and demand has it’s role. On an island that can be exemplified but overall the selling time of your property is determined mostly by four factors- 1-price 2- terms 3- condition 4-marketing effort Here is where the Real estate Company must Produce. What questions should you ask? -What makes you different? -Why should I hire you? -Can you provide referrals? -Does your company post Client Testimonials? -If you are SELLING you should be asking what the marketing plan is for the property you wish to sell. -Does the Broker do all the advertising of property or does the agent also market? - If the agent does, what does he do? -You should ask also how they as agents, not the company plan to promote the property. -How will they attract BUYERS to your property. -As a SELLER does your agent provide a CMA (Certified market Analysis)? This will tell you what your property may be worth for this market at this time. Do your homework! Go to our site and look at comparable properties both on our site and the MLS site listing most of the properties for sale here. Check out similar properties and similar island locations and get a good idea of what is for sale and for how much. This can give you great guidance in setting the price you wish to get and if it can sell at that price. If the condition of your property compares favorably to others currently for sale, and you are offering comparable terms, your price may be adjusted to reflect greater value to prospective purchasers. Because buyers comparison shop before making a decision, they will perceive greater benefits in your property at less money. This alone can cause buyers to compete favorably for your offering. Everyone wants as much as they can get for their investment but there is only one price. The RIGHT ONE. Overpricing property will not generate customers that even wish to look at it. If it is not shown, it can not be sold. Terms are another factor which may be adjusted to attract buyers. If your home is priced fairly at "market value", consider offering seller financing at a lower than market interest rate on a portion of the sale price. Flexible terms may attract an entirely new group of potential buyers. In that financing on the island for non citizens and non residents is not available if you can offer owner financing you can have an advantage over many who can not offer that option. Condition alone can sometimes prompt fast buying decisions from impressionable purchasers. Consider upgrading your home by making major repairs and cosmetic improvements before selling. A home that sparkles with pride of ownership can trigger emotions resulting in an instant sale. If it is vacant property home site or acreage, make sure it is presentable. If the real estate company can not show it they can not sell it. Remember – here, like where you live, location is a key. If it is in a hot selling or high demand area a premium price may be appropriate. In an area less traveled, with less infrastructure and less demand will generate less customers and less price for an identical property in a great location. Consider listing your property with Roatan-Real Estate. We will make every effort to market it in every way possible. Why?- 1-Our site is always one of the top ranked sites in any search engine. Check it out! Do a search. We can not guarantee our site comes up first but we should be in the first 2-3 you come to. 2-Print? Yes we give many of our clients space in every MLS magazine published. List with us and you will be in the hands of many island visitors! In addition to the MLS magazine we publish our own publications that we place in up to 50 locations on the island when in publication. 3-Our main office in Mt. Pleasant sits right next to the most popular bank on the island. We generate TRAFFIC. 4-We seasonally do U.S. target market ads and have good relationships with several brokers in various locations in the U.S. 5.We send out Newsletters featuring properties and new listings every month PLUS have a "Investor's Club" which generates notices for new listings and HIT DEALS when they happen, month days or weeks later. Here is what one of our Sellers had to say about Roatan Real Estate- ""To Larry and Staff: We would like to thank you and your entire staff at Roatan Real Estate for the exceptional service we received from you during the whole listing period and sale of our home on Roatan. The only mistake we made was not listing our property with you sooner than we did! You and office were very responsive with fast communication always, all the way through the process. Whenever we had questions or concerns, you and your staff always got back with us right away. I have first hand experience with all other major realtors on the island, and I can personally attest that you and your staff are far more responsive and helpful than any other office on the island we have dealt with-you are in a league by yourselves as far as we are concerned. Please don’t let all this go to your head, but we did feel that it was appropriate to thank you for your great service and hard work all along. We really appreciate it and we will highly recommend you to any future clients-please don’t hesitate to have anyone contact us for a reference. Keep up the great work!!! Sincerely, Bob & Karen Schrey" If you want to Sell, Roatan-Real Estate would like to be your company. Let us show you what we can do!