At the heart of successfully selling real estate is a keen understanding of marketing, and your listing is your most valuable asset for attracting buyers. How do you make it stand out in a sea of competition?
For starters, images and prices are the first things people check when scrolling through a real estate listing. Visual content helps your audience map the space in their minds. When done correctly, anyone can picture themselves in the room and determine whether it suits their purpose.
The visuals you post should reflect the value of your home, provide an honest look at the conditions without undervaluing the best features, and generate interest in the remaining content below the images.
Second, the written strategy behind your listing makes a difference. Actionable and valuable content allows you to connect with people searching locally for properties. Think of content creation for your listing as a form of branding, strategically sending your listing to the people most likely to put in an offer on the property.
Working with a trusted real estate agent to put together high-quality photos, careful keyword usage, and compelling written content will elevate your listing so it gets seen!
Consider these eight real estate listing tips to increase interactions with your listing, attract your intended audience, and convey the most critical information about your property more efficiently.
1. Declutter the Space
This is my #1 tip: get rid of anything you don’t need, or that’s simply taking up space with no functional focus. Excess furniture and decorative pieces can make a room feel smaller and less usable, whereas less stuff allows people to envision the possibilities better. Removing clutter also makes it easier to stage the space.
Additionally, getting rid of clutter takes some of the personalization out of it. Why is this important? You want buyers to feel like they are walking in the front door of their new home and immediately fall in love with the space. Making a big purchase like a home is often an emotional experience. Set it up right, and you’ll have a buyer invested in closing the deal.
2. Invest in Staging
Staging takes a neutral approach to decor and furniture, making it a possible home for all potential buyers. An efficiently staged home has a singular theme with a limited color scheme to accentuate the home’s best features.
3. Clean Up the Paint Job
A fresh coat of paint is a cost-effective way to increase your home’s value and another way to make it universally appealing. Much like staging and decluttering, a neutral paint color throughout the house allows the buyer to imagine their own furniture and possessions in the home. It will also feel like less work for them to put their own spin on it if they start from a neutral place.
4. Include a Floor Plan
A floor plan connects the photos of individual rooms and features with an overall vision of the actual property. Viewers can completely understand the home’s layout in a single image and imagine themselves living there. They can also get a feel for room measurements to know what pieces will fit or what rooms to designate for family members.
5. Spring for High-Quality Photos
It’s tempting to pull out the ol’ iPhone and snap some pictures. For sure, smartphones have come a long way. However, unless you have an eye for taking images as a professional photographer, you risk presenting your property less favorably, which is a huge turnoff for buyers.
How you photograph the home is just as important as what you show in the pictures. Low-quality, out-of-focus photos communicate insincerity or carelessness to the potential buyer. To produce high-quality visuals that really showcase your property, go with your real estate agent’s recommendations for a real estate photographer.
A professional photographer provides the following advantages :
- Enhancing photos with professional edits
- Choosing more photogenic angles in each room
- Utilizing natural and forced lighting to create a better image of your home’s best features
- Arranging objects and furnishings to present the home at maximum efficiency
- Picking the right time of day to make your home look its best
I have access to professional photographers and stagers with a niche understanding of the Tampa real estate market and what buyers here want to see in a listing. I promise I won’t steer you wrong, and it’ll be worth the investment!
6. Highlight Your Home’s Best Features
Talk to me about what you think are the best parts of your home. I’ll bring ideas to the table, too, as I know what sells, but you may have features you want me to look at. For example, do you have a beautiful beachfront view, a mid-century modern kitchen, or a fireplace in the main bedroom? We’ll showcase the most remarkable spaces and those with mainstream appeal, such as a large outdoor area or extra closet space.
Also, think about any improvements you’ve made since living there or building your home:
- Did you just replace the roof?
- Do you have all-new appliances or systems still under warranty, offering a potential buyer more security in their purchase?
- Was your 4-season sunroom a custom build?
- Did you make any recent updates that might have increased your property’s worth?
- Did you or a previous owner use any materials that add value to the home?
We’ll want to consider drawing attention to these things in the listing (and also any open houses or showings).
7. Optimize Your Written Listing
Wondering how we make the words in your listing attract the ideal buyer? Let’s ensure your listing has the right real estate buzzwords and communicates what photographs cannot!
We’ll need to consider who your target audience is. Think about it this way – if you were a potential buyer, what questions would you have, and how would you expect a seller to answer them? Is your property better suited for growing families or independent singles? What adjectives may match their goals?
Finding the right buyer could be as simple as the difference between the words luxurious and practical. I’ll guide this process to make sure we have a listing that sparkles.
Here are some critical components we will include in the description:
- Location, location, location. We will talk about the proximity to schools, shopping, and nightlife, as well as highway accessibility and commuting potential.
- Your home upgrades and most vital features to feature as selling points.
- Descriptive phrases that match your ideal buyer’s wants and needs, such as low-maintenance, spacious, luxurious, or family-friendly.
8. Giving an Honest Perspective
A word of advice: given all modern technology can do with camera angles and photo editing, it is easy to paint a perfect picture. However, it inevitably wastes your and the potential buyer’s time. You can play to the beneficial features and long-standing value the property provides, but trying to hide flaws will only decrease your chance of getting the sale. Not all properties will appeal to all buyers, and that’s ok! You just need the right buyer for your home.
Florida requires sellers to disclose the home’s conditions and defects formally. Of course, this does not mean you should go into detail about every minor aesthetic flaw. However, if you have a system issue or structural problem, please mention it to me so I can present your home in the best light while still ensuring we disclose anything required by law.
Working with me as a local realtor is an advantage, as I can provide a professional understanding of the laws that govern disclosure in Florida.
Get More Real Estate Listing Tips From an Expert
Tampa has a strong luxury market, and selling property in the area means creating a listing that matches that dream. Incorporating these real estate listing tips is the first step in turning a corner. As a Tampa native and real estate agent in this market for many years, I have a strong network of connections to match you with ideal potential buyers and the ability to create a listing that best reflects what this community wants.
Ready to list, or still have more questions? Please don’t hesitate to reach out! I love connecting with people to chat about all things Tampa and the housing market here. Drop me a line today, and we’ll pull together a listing that is sure to bring the right buyers to your door!