Property Marketing

Welcome to real estate in the 2020's

Managing the marketing and sale of your highly valuable real estate asset, whether it's your home or an investment property, is a serious responsibility.

When I started working in real estate in 2005, I was surprised how ad hoc most realtor's services are. Coming from a high technology product development, marketing, and management background, I created a marketing plan, went on to learn deeply about the property selling process through research and experience, and continue to refine the elements of the plan accordingly.

This page outlines that property marketing plan, the services you can expect, and the options you have. You can also visit our home selling services and pricing page to review a breakdown of marketing costs and the service fees you can expect to pay.

On our Selling Your Property Page we explain our philosophy: how and why our marketing plan, tools and tactics differ from most real estate agents. People often say they don't know what to look for in a great real estate agent. That page helps you understand what to look for, and what to avoid.

If you're hiring an agent to put your home on the market and get it sold, shouldn't you understand your agent's marketing plan and exactly how each element of the plan is designed to improve the sale of your home?

  • Net you more money after costs?
  • Hit your target closing date?
  • Survive financial, insurance, inspection, appraisal, and other challenges posed by some prospective buyers?
  • Employ the best offer strategy to capitalize on behaviour of buyers in your local market at this precise time?

Your realtor's responsiblity.

Naturally, you want to work with someone with a track record of success, who is professional and personable; but how do you measure their success? How do you separate personality from performance? What is performance? If a realtor makes a lot of money or "sells a lot of houses" does that necessarily mean they are getting the best results for each client? 

Many a real estate agent has built a profitable business through neighbourhood socializing, and ensuring everybody around knows about every house they "sell". But a closer examination reveals that there is no correlation between the agent's success, and the results for each individual client. Simply getting your home sold is a mediocre accomplishment.

Ensuring the best results requires the investment of time and money, attention to detail at every step of the process, and an unwavering commitment to actions designed for your benefit.

We can summarize in one sentence why our services are different, almost every step of the way, than the services provided by the typical agent or "team": There are a few secrets about the real estate industry that consumers don't think about when hiring a realtor. The number one secret is this:

Listings are (treated as) the engine of the business.

That's why most of the "services" provided by typical real estate agents and "teams"...

  • open houses
  • coming soon signs
  • posting on "off market" portals like "FirstList" from "knokd"
  • exclusive or "pocket listing" marketing
  • lawn signs (yes, even lawn signs - we will explain!)
  • "buyers in waiting" lists
  • "buyer's agent" team members

Self-Serving Realtor Tactics

...are designed for one purpose: to use your property to generate more business and/or more income for themselves. We couldn't sleep at night if we operated that way. We critically analyse every marketing action and deploy those that focus squarely on delivering better results for the client (you, the property owner) with no thought to leveraging your property for our benefit. We grow our business on a reputation for solid representation and personalized, professional service.

We empower, advise, and represent. We also deliver on expectations, striving to exceed.

A smart plan ensures that every dollar spent (by you or by us) generates (for you) tens, hundreds, or thousands of dollars in return. The OttawaAgent.ca property marketing plan is built on a framework we call The 5 P's Of Property Marketing. This is the plan Bruce originated in 2005 and we have worked hard to continuously refine, augment, and improve over the years.

Every action in our plan and every service we provide directly improves your selling experience and helps maximize your results instead of focusing on generating more business for us.

The 5 P's of Property Marketing are: 

  • Preparation
  • Positioning
  • Pricing
  • Presentation
  • Promotion

​Product Mindset + There is a 6th P that comes into play to varying degrees as well, depending on market conditions: Persistence. Persistence is really part of Promotion, but deserves some individual attention. This is not some trite list of words - you will see there is meat in the plan, and lots of examples of how it has been successful for clients over the years, sometimes where others have failed before.

Marketing Plan Framework

The high level steps in our marketing plan, are:

  1. Research, analyse, author and deliver a comprehensive market evaluation including MLS records of comparable properties that have sold recently, land registry data, and purchasing MPAC and Teranet reports as appropriate. The evaluation includes analysis and high level recommendations in full narrative form of unmatched quality in the industry.
    This report helps the seller understand market conditions and effective pricing strategy. It includes recommendations for work items to prepare the property, with a focus on structural and functional matters, ensuring the property is in solid condition and there are no buyer objections for factors within our control. We may comment on major cosmetic items but do not provide detailed cosmetic recommendations in the market evaluation.
  2. The client decides on an asking price based on the market evaluation and raw market data we provide.
  3. Enter into a representation agreement to authorize moving forward. This is an agreement for comprehensive real estate representation by the broker (us) in furtherance of the sellers' best interests as contemplated in Ontario regulations under the Trust in Real Estate Services Act.
    There may be an exclusive period during which marketing preparation is performed, and a target public launch date. The property will not be advertised or made available to any potential buyers during preparation. This is one of the ways we are different in the details. Most agents in today's market will use your property during the preparation phase, if they have one, as a marketing lever to build their own business through "coming soon" or "office exclusive" marketing. Some will allow or encourage the sale of your home during this stage rather than properly exposing the property to the market to ensure you net the highest proceeds possible.
  4. Connect the client with a professional design & staging partner for a comprehensive consultation.
  5. Provide contact information for and liaise with professionals and support services to facilitate the process and the transaction (for example, home inspectors, lawyers, governing authorities, mortgage agents, property managers, specialized and general contractors).
  6. The designer provides recommendations to the client immediately and directly, sending us a copy for our reference, and invoicing us for their consultation services.
  7. If the designer recommends work exceeding our design and staging budget, the designer confers with us to facilitate communication of staging options to the client with a breakdown of our costs and client costs.
  8. Discuss the options with the stager and the client as needed to finalize the staging plan. The staging plan outlines who performs each work item, and how costs are allocated.
  9. Implement the staging plan. The client does some of the work and the stager or other contractors (painters, repairmen, etc.) do some of the work. We do some of the work ourselves in some circumstances (we have performed pool maintenance, enlisted HVAC service companies, hired cleaners, shovelled snow, for example.) Everything is executed in accordance with the staging plan.
  10. When we are certain when the staging plan implementation will complete and the property will be ready to go to market, we update the launch date on the representation agreement if required.
  11. If the property is a condominium, we order a status package to have on file for buyers to review. Purchasing these documents in advance gives us the leverage to shorten the conditions on offers so your property isn't tied up and effectively off the market for two weeks during the buyer's diligence period.
  12. Revisit comparable sales and market conditions, and review the presentation of the property. Any appropriate changes to pricing strategy are discussed and agreed upon. Sometimes quite a bit of time passes between the original market analysis and the property being ready to go to market. Pricing changes may be prudent – up or down depending on what has happened in the interim.
  13. Book the photo shoot with the client. Professional grade photography is performed either by Bruce personally (time permitting) or by a qualified third party.
  14. Craft superior ad copy for the marketing description in the MLS database and expanded ad copy on OttawaAgent.ca; a key advantage for positioning the property.
  15. Accurately populate the MLS listing of the property to target buyers most likely to purchase the property, ensuring they are correctly informed of the property's characteristics.
  16. Prepare a professionally crafted additional information PDF to further inform buyers about key characteristics of the property, enhance the marketing position and ensure clarity to reduce misunderstandings that can lead to problems during negotiations, conditional period execution and closing.
  17. Publish a professional presentation of the property in the showcase on OttawaAgent.ca, www.OttawaAgent.ca, applying SEO profiles to attract potential buyers who search for properties via online search engines.
  18. Discuss showing and offer management strategy based on a detailed analysis of market conditions for the property  with the client and establish a plan that will maximize exposure and create the best opportunity to yield the highest sale price the market will bear. 
  19. Review the pros and cons of installing a "For Sale" sign at the property. Other agents will install one regardless of the potential negative impact for you. Notice that many signs prominently feature a huge photo of the agent - sure to improve the net proceeds of your sale 🙂
  20. Launch time. We employ other online advertising methods as appropriate, depending on market conditions and the target for the specific property.
  21. Navigate and advise regarding offer handling strategy based on the level of interest in the property.
  22. Advise and manage negotiations with buyers and/or buyer's agents to achieve the best results based on the sellers' objectives and requirements.
  23. Guide and manage documentation and preparations for transfer to legal counsel to close the transaction.