Statistics from the National Association Of Realtors newly released now show that nearly 80% of home buyers begin their search on the internet. This has huge implications for sellers, and for agents listing homes. The old way of promoting the sale of a home is no longer the best way… used to be, we would secure a listing agreement with a seller, and spend most of our energy and marketing dollars advertising in local newspapers. It appears that now the best way and most effective use of marketing time and money is spent on the World Wide Web…

This is not to say that ads in newspapers and other print media should be discontinued. Some resources should still go to this effort. But a reallocation of the marketing resources, limited as they are, should be considered by any listing agent. There are now a wide variety of resources online to find houses. From REALTOR.com to GoogleBase, and Yahoo Real Estate. These require time to post listings on, and require money for adequate or enhanced listings.

If your listing agent is not up to speed on current marketing trends, you may sit on your home for sale for quite some time, especially in this market environment, where Average Days On Market have climbed to more than 90 days, compared to a year ago when houses sold, on average, in 30 days. Also, for your listed home to sell, you should allow that the listing agent will need more than the typical 3 month listing agreement, common a year ago. This is because it takes time to get the listing viewed, to get interested buyers, and generally to market the property in the current environment.

We will post more on this topic in the coming days.

See http://www.HomeSalesRI.com/sellers_corner.php or http://Sellers.HomeSalesRI.com for more information about selling your home.