Preparation refers to the planning and work that must occur before a property hits the market. For re-sale homes this typically involves repairs, upgrades, touch-ups and enhancements to the property itself. It is also crucial to understand your objectives and time frames.

As an example, key activities within the marketing plan must be timed properly if you have purchased another home – not only for your logistical benefit, but to ensure negotiating leverage is in your favour when offers are most likely to come in.

Perhaps the most overlooked or worst-implemented aspect of property marketing is positioning. When I've taken over the marketing of properties that did not sell under the management of another realtor, in some cases I've determined that poor positioning was the biggest flaw in the previous agent's marketing.

All the flashy marketing in the world is useless if it targets the wrong buyers. Understanding the impact of excellent positioning is easiest to explain through counter examples.

Click the "our property marketing plan" button above to read more about the OttawaAgent.ca framework and project plan for selling. We explain how conscious, carefully targetted positioning nets you the best results, and show you concrete examples of how the best of intentions in poor positioning can seriously undermine the sale of your property.

Pricing is so important that many agents espouse the philosophy that price is all that matters. They suggest that if you price a property properly, it will sell regardless of what else you do. In my opinion, this is too often used as an excuse for passive or ineffective marketing.

There is no question that price is extremely important – however, a property priced at market value may not sell if it is not presented properly or if it is attracting all the wrong buyers because of ineffective positioning.

A wise person, the owner of the first Brokerage I associated with, said to me in my early days in the real estate business: “a well-listed property is half sold.” Back in those days, "well-listed" was mostly constrained to getting the facts of the property correct, including a decent write-up with clear but unsensational photos, having a visible yard sign, and launching on the best day of the week.

The stakes are much higher today. Buyers expect all homes to look like models when they are for sale and are distracted or deterred by the slightest flaw in the presentation of a property.

Having properly prepared a property and crafted the marketing channels, the final act is to promote it through those channels. In the 21st century, the bulk of promotion is performed online, because that is where the vast majority (nearing 100%) of potential buyers are shopping.

There are many opportunities to employ ineffective methods of marketing a property offline, and some of these are still used widely by many realtors. Furthermore, many traditional property marketing and sales tactics are designed only to benefit the agent, in some cases undermining the seller's position.

While online marketing is paramount, it is not all created equally for your benefit as the property owner. Most agent marketing online benefits the agent, and not so much the property or the seller. We think critically about online marketing and explain clearly how our work is exclusively designed to get you the best results possible in current market conditions.

Coming soon, exclusive or "pocket" listings... "FirstList", etc.

We have a buyer for your listing. We have a list of buyers in waiting.

Open houses deserve special mention. For buyers and for sellers.

Marketing and advocacy come first. You could make an argument that neighbourhood familiarity is helpful when working for buyers.

There is some correlation between achieving a sale price at or above established market value and time on market; but there are a lot of "buts" in that assessment. Performance is highly dependent on market conditions and the specific property. "Above asking" is irrelevant. Established market value is the benchmark.