Long Beach Real Estate-Long Beach Condos

LONG BEACH REAL ESTATE - Expired Homes and Condos Listings

  Trying to Sell YOUR Long Beach Home or Condo?

Did you know that 845 Long Beach homes and condo listings expired this year? 

Lets see if we can get some perspective on that number.

2009 Long Beach real estate sales statistics 11/12/2009: 

• 881 Long Beach homes and condos for sale - Active on the market
  
• 735 Long Beach homes and condos in escrow
• 845 Long Beach home and condo listings expired
  
• 65 Long Beach homes and condos withdrew their properties from the market
• 859 Long Beach homes and condos cancelled their listings
• 2,833 Long Beach homes and condos closed escrow in 2009 - SOLD

 

PRICE - Overpriced homes do not sell!

 

The number one reason for expired listings is overpricing.  If your home is overpriced it will not receive many showings and you will be chasing the market down.  It is an unfortunate reality that many sellers believe their home is worth more than the market dictates.  Your home is worth what a buyer is willing to pay and the value an appraiser will attribute to it. If your home or condo is overpriced it is critical that you price it at or near market value. 

 

Condition - Homes in poor condition do not sell for full market value!

 

Before going onto the market your home should be de-cluttered and depersonalized.  It should be thoroughly cleaned from top to bottom, fresh paint applied where necessary.  All minor repairs should be taken care of.  There are many inexpensive ways to add curb appeal to your Long Beach home without spending a small fortune.  Your home should be in the best possible showing condition.  It should be kept neat and clean for showings for the duration of your time on the market. 

If it is possible a professional home stager should be employed.  While this can prove to be pricey there are ways to use a stager to improve the appeal of the home without spending a small fortune.  A good stager will provide a comprehensive list of items that should be taken care of prior to sale.  This list can be tackled by the home owner with or without the paid services of the stager.  Most stagers will charge a consultation fee.  How you deal with the issues is entirely your decision.  Professionally staged Long Beach properties just look better than their competition.  Buyers are no longer interested in purchasing homes or condos that need much in the way of upgrading, most are barely willing to paint.  They no longer have to do any of this to get a good buy in today's market, many just can not afford the upgrades after purchase. 

If your Long Beach home or condo needs paint and new flooring, your kitchen and bathroom are out of date or the home is in disrepair, you must reflect this in your offering price.  If you want a higher price, an investment in a professional home staging service may be the answer for you.  Staged Long Beach Homes and Condos sell faster and typically sell for higher prices. 

What is Home Staging?  Read the interview with acclaimed home stager Michelle Minch>>>

 

Many expired listings were not in sell-able condition.  They could not compete in their current condition.  Today's First Time Home Buyer could not afford the after purchase cash to put the home into the condition they desired or they just weren't willing to.  Buyers are looking for a "deal".  They want homes that are pretty much ready to move into. 

 

 

PHOTOS - They sell your home!

The most important sales tool for marketing your Long Beach properties is photos. Nothing attracts a buyer to your listings the way a large selection of good photos representing your home in an attractive and realistic manner will.  When buyers search the Internet, it is the photos that catch their eye and draw them in.  If the main photo is attractive and well presented, they will look at the other photos.  If the home or condo is still appealing to them, they will read the copy and call their agent for a showing. 

Many listings have 1 really bad photo of the exterior of the home.  Poor quality, bad angle, wrong time of day all contribute to a negative presentation of your home.  Poor exterior and interior photos are going to contribute to your home NOT being shown.  Your property should have many good quality photos of the exterior, interior and the grounds (front and rear).  The photos should show the buyer all of the good qualities of the home and inspire them to request a showing. 

Many expired listings were presented very badly with few photos and/or photos of very bad quality. 

 

INTERNET MARKETING - Over 80% of Buyers are searching on the Internet!

 

Why Hire an Internet Savvy Realtor?

Over 80% of all home searches begin on the Internet.  Your Long Beach Homes need to be online, and findable, when buyers begin their search.

Did your Long Beach Realtor have the ability to market your Long Beach homes and condos on the Internet. Step back; pick keywords that should bring your agents site to the front page of Google; keywords like Long Beach Real Estate, Long Beach Condos and Long Beach Homes is your Realtors site there? Google accounts for over 80% of all real estate searches.  Are any of the sites that your Long Beach Realtor owns coming up at the top of the engines? No? Keep shopping.

Over 25% of all Home Buyers FIRST saw the home they purchased on the Internet. If your Long Beach homes and condos are not heavily marketed on the Internet, you are missing thousands of potential buyers.

Is your agent capable of sending your listing to the top of the search engines where buyers will find it?  Few are.  Most agents rely on large sites like Trulia, Zillow and Realtor.com to promote your listing.  You won't know this but this is problematic.  Your listing will be lost in a sea of other listings and will not receive the consumer attention that you need and deserve. 

The MLS will send your listing to these sites, and many others, automatically when you list.  Your agent will receive weekly, monthly and quarterly reports from these sites showing the statistics.  Having been the recipient of these reports, I can tell you that even with a purchased featured listing there are very few click throughs to individual listings and few, if any, buyers contacting the agent from those sites.  Sellers do not know this and are impressed by these sites not knowing that these sites are not the best place to reach local buyers. 

When a buyer shops for real estate on the search engines they use search terms that relate to the type of home and the neighborhood they are interested in.  For example a buyer searching for a condo in Downtown Long Beach is likely to put Downtown Long Beach Condos into Google.  Or a buyer searching for a home in Belmont Heights may put Belmont Heights Homes into Google or another neighborhood like California Heights Homes and so on...

Few agents own sites that have top search engine placement.  Most rely on the sellers lack of knowledge regarding how the search engines work and promote the larger sites, which really just don't drive the buyer traffic the way they claim to.  The reports speak for themselves. 

Many agents offer single listing web sites.  That is a web site dedicated to your property only.  Imagine having a site with your address as the URL?  Sounds great doesn't it.  What you, and probably the agent, do not know is that new sites are placed into the Google sandbox and will be held back by Google for months before they are slowly allowed to rise in the engines. But it sounds impressive doesn't it? 

Web and Blog sites do not just float up to the top of the engines, Google must designate them as authority sites, this can take years.  Proven sites with years of really good content under the belt are the sites that Google recognizes.  Sites that provide real value to consumers.  Very few sites ever attain this highly coveted status.  We are proud to hold the #1 position in Google for Long Beach Real Estate and are in the #1, 2 or 3 position for most real estate related search terms in the greater Long Beach area.  Our positioning on the engines is very powerful.

Laurie Manny is the foremost authority on Internet Marketing and is recognized as such by the California Association of Realtors.  Laurie was recently invited to speak at the California Association of Realtors Tech Tuesday on blogging and search engine placement.  Her 1 1/2 hour session, the last of the day, ran over by an hour and the audience was still present.  They didn't want it to end.  Laurie is often consulted by industry news sites and has accomodated several organisations as a speaker at their events.

The Laurie Manny Professional Group has incredible Internet marketing abilities and is on the top of the Google search engine for most Long Beach real estate related searches. We can put your Long Beach home or condo directly in front of buyers eyes on the search engines.

We also have a database of over 3,000 buyers who are either currently actively searching for Long Beach homes or condos or are preparing to over the next year.  We have the ability to email your Long Beach home or condo to the entire database.  These emails always generate showings.  This is an incredible opportunity for a seller to present their property to a large audience of buyers that are ready to buy now. 

There are many interesting and creative ways to market Long Beach homes and condos.  We manage to stay ahead of the curve and out of the box in the best interest of accomodating our clients home sales.  You should want your Realtor to have the ability to present your home to the largest possible audience in the most effective manner.  The days of an agent placing a listing on the MLS and waiting for another agent to sell it are gone forever!

We recently marketed and closed a high rise ocean view condo that had been on the market for 2 years with multiple agents and little or no Internet marketing.  Surprisingly most of the agents didn't even have sites..........go figure!  We can sell yours too!

If your listing expired or you are thinking about selling your Long Beach home or condo, contact Laurie for a free evaluation. Laurie is the foremost Internet savvy Long Beach Realtor.  (562) 212-5420

 

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