Advertising is a hallmark of the real estate industry and a key part of any decent real estate marketing plan. At least that’s what you’re meant to think.

If you look through any real estate portal or publication, you will encounter pages and pages of listed properties. You’re also just as likely to see agents with their names and their smiling faces lighting up their agency’s branding.
But what are these adverts really saying to prospective buyers? Are they helping to promote your property over all the others surrounding it? Or are they boosting the real estate agent’s profile so prospective sellers will list with them?

What’s the difference?
One of the most obvious tricks in real estate marketing is that more visibility means your property is more likely to sell and this has been a common misconception in real estate sales since day dot.

Agents with lots of adverts next to their names give the impression that they are hugely successful with hundreds of properties to sell at any one time. This helps the real estate marketing agent get more listings, advertising themselves using your property.

Sellers are told if they pay more money to get more exposure they’ll be higher up the list with bigger adverts and to be honest with some slick photography making the property look very appealing, but in reality they are competing against others doing exactly the same.

Buyers do not buy because they liked an advert – they buy because they liked a home
With the big real estate portals now owned by media companies, this ‘Profile Advertising’ is across all the real estate portals. With 95% of agents advertising on these websites, one of the strategies these media companies use to increase their profits is by upselling from a standard listing to a Feature Property or Premier Property Listing . These portal sales reps always have the same spiel : “You know that the upgrade is about building your agency’s profile so you can get more listings. Why don’t you simply get the money required from the seller!” They call this Vendor Paid Advertising (VPA) and it costs sellers unnecessarily.

Therefore agents are making recommendations to their clients to benefit their own interests rather than that of the client for which has appointed them.

The correct decision
A real estate agent’s key role when acting for the seller is to find a buyer. Most buyers who will want to buy your house are already looking for property in your area.

An expert real estate sales agent will not flood the market with adverts for your home in a scatter-gun approach to marketing. Instead, they will target prospective buyers by reaching out to their database and a targeted demographic of suitable buyers.

Getting started in selling your property
If you want to speak to an agent about selling your home for the best price, get in touch with Regional and Rural Realty. Our real estate agents use our extensive database of buyers and other targeted marketing strategies to find the right buyer for your property.