How important is the marketing of homes for sale in Silicon Valley?  First it’s important to understand what we mean by the term marketing: generally, it is the way we attract potential buyers to the homes for sale.  This is more than just the flyer or newspaper ads.  It includes:

• pricing the home
• photographing the property
• describing the home on the MLS (and including good pictures)
• the quality of the flyers
• the print advertising
• the online advertising & exposure
• the networking with other agents
• the direct outreach and appeal to consumers
• the accessibility of the home
• staging the home to sell (appeal, cleanliness, no odors, etc.)

Marketing can be good, bad, or somewhere in between. Bad marketing will likely cost sellers money and good marketing will likely make them money.  

Today we’ll go over the most important elements of marketing because sellers should evaluate them when hiring a Realtor to assist them in the marketing and sale of their home.  While there are many areas of marketing, the most crucial, by far, are these three: pricing, photos, and the description on the MLS.

Pricing:  The biggest marketing mistake which is commonly seen is overpricing.  Sellers sometimes believe that their home is worth more than the buying public do and a home will remain unsold no matter what else is done right.  In fact, you could fly airplanes aroud the home and put full page color ads in every paper around the world but if the home is overpriced, it still won’t sell!  Pricing is the most important part of marketing.   With a too-high price, traffic will be diminished and offers will be low at best (lower than actual market value).

Of course, most homes are worth not just one exact dollar amount but somewhere within a range of prices, depending on terms, the speed of the sale etc.  If the pricing is well done and the rest of the marketing is also quite good, the home ought to sell on the high end of what is possible at that time.

Pricing mistakes are very costly and very easy to make.  Here are some of the ways which sellers can be misled about the probable market value of their home:

• using old comps
• relying upon online home valuations
• basing their home’s sale price on what they “need”
• hiring an agent based on his/her suggesting the highest list price (we call that “buying the listing” when an agent overstates value to secure the listing)
• expecting 100% back from all improvements done to the home
• believing buyers can “always make an offer” (if it’s overpriced, they usually won’t)
• thinking there’s no harm in just reducing the price later (if the market is going down, you will be “chasing the market down”)

The one thing that neither the sellers nor their Realtors control is the real estate market, which is fickle and can change.  In recent years it’s been up and down, depending upon location, price point, school districts and more.  Using six month old comparable sales to establish current market value just isn’t appropriate.  Sometimes even the most recently closed sale is not enough, especially if the market is sliding.  Instead of just relying on the solds, also look at the pendings and the current competition.  The less competition your home has, the better odds you have of selling it – and for more.  But a surge of inventory will cause home values (including yours) to drop.   To understand the probable buyer’s value, all of these must be factored in together.  (The online valuation sites do not do that.)

I should add that it is harder to sell a property that has issues such as high voltage power lines, deferred maintenance, messy tenants who make showings difficult, busy road, junky neighbors, or some other undesirable element.  Many agents will suggest a lower price to compensate for whatever issue is hurting the marketability of the home.

While it’s true that there is no problem that a better price cannot fix, most sellers are trying to maximize their sales price.  For that reason, I’d always suggest asking your real estate agent if there’s anything that can be done to improve the market value aside from that lower price.  Sometimes fresh paint and carpet and a professional house cleaning can do wonders for the home’s saleability.  Or giving tenants a lower rent in exchange for their cooperation during the sale will create an easier time for buyers wanting to see and purchase your home.   A little effort may have a great payoff.  (Some agents focus almost exclusively on price and may not be worried about any other element of marketing.  This is a mistake, so be aware that you may run into an agent with this belief.)
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Last weekend, my husband and I had guests, Tisza and Mel, visiting to help me celebrate my 50th birthday.  They hail from Claremont in southern California and enjoying seeing new and unique places, so Saturday afternoon I suggested that they visit the historic Hacienda Cemetery and Memorial Park in New Almaden, off Almaden Road near Casa Grande. (Tisza is a Realtor and blogger too. You can find her online at Route66Living.com.)

What follows are photos of their trip to the scenic old graveyard, which they kindly permit me to post here.

This area of Santa Clara County was filled with mercury (quicksilver) mines, and that product was vitally important in extracting gold from rock during the gold rush years.  The New Almaden Mine (named after a large mine in Spain called Almaden) was at one point the largest producing mercury mine in the world.

The final resting place for the miners and early San Jose pioneers is an oak-studded glen, close to a creek and in the shadow of foothills.  The graves are each surrounded by picket fences of various styles and shapes.

Here’s a grave with an unpainted fence (most are white).  There are a few markers made of wood – some maintained and others crumbling with age.

Flowering trees add to the beauty of the spot.

One of the most peculiar aspects of this memorial park, and the reason I suggested that Tisza and Mel visit it, is the grave for the arm of Bertram Barrett.

Richard Bertram “Bert” Barrett

His Arm

Lies Here

1898

May It Rest

In Peace

You just don’t see this type of thing everyday.

The Folklore Regarding the Arm of Bert:

Growing up in Santa Clara, I’d always heard the tale of “Bert’s Arm”. It was the stuff of campfire stories, grist for frightening younger kids.   As the story went, Bert’s arm was severed in an accident in 1898 and was buried at the graveyard in the country….. The rest of him went to God in 1959, but by then there was no room left at the little graveyard where his arm was buried. So his body was placed at Oak Hill Cemetery several miles away. (So far, this is all true.)  The fable went on to say that every night, the arm of Bert rises from the ground, searching desperately for the rest of the body…..  At this point, storytellers may move their arms around wildly, gripping ahold of an entranced and scared child to acheive the full impact  (most effective around a campfire, ideally in Almaden Valley somewhere).

I’d heard the story but was suprised to see this marker for Bert’s arm when a field trip for girl scouts from St. Mary’s Elementary School in Los Gatos brought us to this very spot a decade or so ago.

Want to see it? This is not a hard place to find but it’s not exactly on the beaten path.  From downtown San Jose, get onto Almaden Expressway and follow it south until you reach Almaden Road.  Continue on beyond the city’s borders and into the countryside, where you’ll view horses grazing.  After a couple of miles you will be in the historic “New Almaden” area. Normally Casa Grande is open and you can see the museum for the mine, but in 2009 it is closed for renovation.  Bertram Road loops from one part of Almaden Road to another in this neighborhood.  Oddly, the road cuts straight through the graveyard and undoubtedly covers unmarked graves. (I cannot imagine that it isn’t haunted!)

Mel and Tisza enjoyed visiting the Hacienda Cemetery and Memorial Park, and found the story amusing too.  Many thanks to them for sharing their photos of the day with me and with my blog readers!  (And thanks to Tisza too for making the most incredible birthday cake I’ve ever enjoyed!)