Market Watch: Real Estate Indiana

Get It Sold! Photos! Photos! Photos! (5/8)

Sunday, March 1, 2009 by Lola McIntyre

Real Estate Photos Help To Sell Your House

Photos are one of the most important marketing tools to draw showings. We need showings of your home before a buyer can make an offer. According to Profile of Home Buyers & Sellers 2008 (NAR), over 87% of buyers begin their search on-line. It is important to show every feature of your home in the best possible light.

Quality Real Estate Property Photos? What's The Difference?

The best way to illustrate the high standard for real estate photography in today's Indiana real estate market is with humor and contrast. Sit back and grab your self a cup of coffee - this is funny. Norm Fisher, a fine REALTOR in Saskatoon, Canada offers a virtual tour of not-so-good real estate photos. In addition, Norm adds his dry humored captions for each property photo! To initiate the slide show, click run or next.

Digital? Heck, no. I’m still using the pinhole camera I made in Grade 8!

Why Should I Expect a High Photography Standard
When I List My Indianapolis Home For Sale?

Because great photos are the foundation to a successful marketing plan. When you List With Lola, your full-service Indianapolis REALTOR with CENTURY 21 Scheetz, she begins your custom marketing portfolio with well over 100 photos of your home. Lola optimizes each photo to best highlight the purpose for each real estate photo. Optimizations begin with straightening interior wall corners, architectural columns, and exterior house corners. The focus is sharpened, and photos are cropped to improve composition or create close-ups of extraordinary architectural features like quoins or dentil molding.*

Indianapolis Real Estate Photo - Improved

Once your real estate photos have been shot and optimized, then photos are arranged and uploaded to the most popular real estate web sites and portals. Often, Lola creates separate files of your home's folders, due to varying number of photo requirements and purposes determined by each site. Real estate sites are Metro Indy Board of REALTORS BLC (Indianapolis MLS), CENTURY 21, CENTURY 21 Scheetz, REALTOR.com, Trulia, Oodle, Craig's List, Indy Star, and popular social networks (RSS to automatically receive more about marketing through social networks in the next post).

The First Photo

Your home exterior shot is the most important; it serves to prompt a buyer ortheir Indiana real estate agent to schedule a showing.

Or, it may prompt a buyer to drive by the property, where they will learn more by calling Instant Info.

What Can I Do To Prepare My House For the Photo Shoot?

In a few words...

Preparing Your Indianapolis Home For Sale

Exterior Real Estate Photo Preparation Ideas

What time of day is the sun shining on your front door? Do you have exterior light which shine on the house? If so, is a night shot more dramatic than a daylight photo? Move your cars and trash receptacles out of curb view. Trim bushes, trees, and grass along sidewalks and driveways. Place seasonal flower pots on the front porch and hand a large cheerful wreath on the front door. Gather brush, coil or remove hoses, turn the beds, and put down fresh mulch. Plant some annuals. For shots near dusk, turn on every interior light and open your draperies and blinds.

Interior Real Estate Photo Preparation Idea

Look around your home with new eyes. What special features appealed to you when you bought the home? Consider dusting and polishing moldings, built-ins, and quality features - they could make stunning close-up shots. If you have a professional-style range, put the kettle on! Tell Lola if there is a room with an exceptional window view, which could be included from an interior photo. Discuss expansive architectural areas such as open-living layout, master suite, volume ceilings. Spacious features may warrant multiple photos stitched together for a panoramic virtual tour featured from a customized button on your property web site.

I Need Help!

Do you need help with a one-time deep clean? Lola can help. Do you need a good source for storing some things while your home is on the market? Lola can help. Do you want to keep it simple, but get it sold? Looking for staging ideas? When you List With Lola, you have numerous resources at your finger tips. Day-to-day details are handled, and contractual concerns are addressed. Lola's advanced real estate marketing skills are working to help sell your property even as you sleep.

RSS
Click on the little orange box over on the right side of this post.
The next update will be automatically sent to you!

Coming soon: Get It Sold! (6/8) Spider Food!

~ The Century 21 Advantage
~ The CENTURY 21 Scheetz Advantage
~ The List With Lola Advantage
Lola McIntyre, REALTOR
CENTURY 21 Scheetz
Your Real Estate Leader in Emerging Technologies
Managing the Details While Keeping It Simple
lmcintyre@c21scheetz.com
Text or Call: (317) 502-1273

___________________

* Optimization techniques are intended to highlight the true nature of a home.

Therefore, a permanent exterior element like a water tower is never altered.

Get It Sold! (4/8) Your Custom Property Web Site

Monday, February 23, 2009 by Lola McIntyre

Advanced strategic marketing skills are essential to selling your Indianapolis home in a reasonable time frame and help to preserve your Indiana home value.

Your custom property web site serves as a foundation to which other sites point.

Lola collects hard data, and together with you, your customized marketing strategies are regularly evaluated. Advanced full-service marketing skills are standard, with no additional charge, when you List With Lola.

BRING US AN OFFER

Offers to purchase your property arrive after the buyers have seen your house. Second and third showings indicate strong, serious interest by a buyer who is

ready, willing, and able. More than 87% of today's buyers begin their home search on the internet. [National Association of REALTORS, Profile of Home Buyers & Sellers 2008]

So, how do we maximize the number of showing to potential buyers, and draw them to your welcome mat? We create a property web site with your street address as the web address, and drive them there through innumerable marketing avenues.

HOW WILL BUYERS KNOW ABOUT MY PROPERTY WEB SITE?

A customized sign rider with your property web address is added to your CENTURY 21 Scheetz yard arm. Property web sites can even be placed at home building sites, like at 557WorthCT , a property for sale in Westfield, Indiana at The Village Farms. Neighbors and prospective buyers will look up the site once they get to their computers, and remember the web address, since it matches the street address.

An Instant Info sign rider will also be added, where buyers can access MLS property with a simple mobile phone call. Instant Info is a 21st century technology provided exclusively by CENTURY 21 Scheetz.

Preserve Your Indiana Home Value With Advanced Marketing Skills

Your custom property web site will be funneled through popular real estate portals, like REALTOR.com, and numerous others.

Social networks serve as powerful and creative avenues for posting your property web site; many mash-up applications are employed.

Your friends, family members and work associates can also join Lola in chatting up your Indianapolis home for sale through social networks, your work intranet, and add your Web/Home Address to your personal email signatures. Promotional avenues are limited only by imagination.

BUYERS SCHEDULE SHOWINGS WHEN...

Unlimited, good photos are paramount to attract showings. Your property MLS listing will limit the number of photos to 12. However, your custom web site number? Unlimited; flexibility frees creative marketing!

So, highlighted features on your custom web site are what prompted the showing. Then, showings bring offers.

CUSTOMIZED PROPERTY WEB SITE FEATURES (Abridged)

1) Extended description fields highlight outstanding features
2) Added custom buttons to link HOA, property documents, mortgage tools, Open House announcements, printable brochures, Google Earth Maps, and any other customizable needs, flash buyers presentation
3) RealBiz360 Virtual Tour with high resolution & full-screen interactive
4) List With Lola Contact Information, Lead Capture, and more

HOW DO I KNOW MY CUSTOM WEB SITE WORKS?

We measure the data results. Lola will send you visitor stats from on-line marketing tools each Wednesday. Together, you & Lola can determine the resources which prove most effective. Lola will help with determining which sites drive the most traffic to your custom web address, and which combinations of marketing strategies attract the most attention.

RSS
Click on the little orange box over on the right side of this post.
The next update will be automatically sent to you!

Coming soon: Get It Sold! (5/8) Photos, Photos, & Photos!

Get It Sold! (3/8) Top 10 Real Estate Marketing Tools That Work

Wednesday, February 11, 2009 by Lola McIntyre

Are you looking for an Indianapolis REALTOR? Have you been tracking Indiana home values? Finding an Indianapolis real estate professional with a creative marketing sense, an eye for preparing your home for sale, strong work ethic, and the ability to manage the details with simple explanations is essential. Now, more than ever, skilled marketing strategies and technology prowess, delivered with caring attentiveness is vital to preserving your Indiana home value. So, here it is, a Top 10 List of Marketing Tools That Work in today's challenging market.

1. http://557WorthCT.com - Customized property web site. The web address (URL) should match your street address. Several marketing tools and evaluation of their effectiveness, begin & end here. This particular property is one of the rare remaining home sites in The Village Farms. In the case of marketing home sites, community features are paramount.

2. MLS – Listed on your area’s multiple listing service. Indianapolis real estate is listed on the Broker Listing Cooperative (BLC). Every information field should be fully utilized in order to draw the highest potential for your Indiana home value. Unbranded URL to your property web page should be visible on the main page (not side link) of your MLS listing.

3. Photos (Hundreds!) – Digital ‘film’ is free. Expect too many pictures and for them to be fully optimized. Are they bright? Inviting? Do they include all the features important to you. At best, subject should be level.

4. Virtual Tour – (Optional). An additional tour can be added as a separate link to your custom property web site. Seamless full-view tours can be an added advantage to highlight a specific feature of some homes.

5. Signage – Is it a full yard arm, with professionally installed post ? Full-sized yard arms allow for CENTURY 21 SOLD SIGN CENTURY 21 Scheetz additional sign riders for more custom marketing which sets your home above the competing active listings in your area. Additional sign riders are added with your custom property web address, Instant Info, Home Warranty. A unique sign can be created to highlight outstanding features.

6. Instant Info * – A CENTURY 21 Scheetz exclusive. Mobile marketing feature for MLS info via your cell phone. Lola can capture leads and invite the buyer to preview the home, thereby increasing the number of showings. Loyalty with potential buyers is earned. My most loyal buyers find Instant Info easy and hassle free.
(*See below how this benefits you as a buyer & seller.)

7. LeadRouter – CENTURY 21 is a fitting name for the most globally respected name in real estate; LeadRouter is a 21^st century marketing tool which sends inquiries regarding your property directly to your agent, instantly. Time is of the essence. Another List With Lola advantage: Info & LeadRouter are interconnected. No other brokerage in Indiana offers both, together.

8. Centralized Showing Services – With many properties competing for buyers’ attention, every advantagematters. Agents from all brokerages are encouraged to show your house when the showing is easy to schedule and easy to show. CSS is the industry standard. Century 21-Scheetz was one of the first to utilize this valuable service, and now other brokerages are following suit.

SentriCard SentriLock CENTURY 21 Scheetz Lola McIntyre, REALTOR

9. SentriLock & ShowingBeacon – Security & Convenience. Sentrilock user cards require password & upload content from microchip. We know who enters and when. Showing Beacon allows showing agent to send text or call you when o.k. to come home. Especially convenient for families.

10. Open Door Policy & Weekly Updates -. Lola's office door is is always open. Call or text anytime. Updates of weekly activity is sent out each Wednesday; updates, contain visitor stats, showing feedback, hard data, market changes, and marketing revisions for upcoming week.

Additional List With Lola Advantages

Reverse Prospecting
Lola searches aggregated data revealing which clients have received information about your listing into their client gateway. These buyers are represented by other agents and brokerages. Lola contacts each buyer agent, points out added features, and invites them to show the property. Often, Lola strategically integrates Reverse Prospecting your custom marketing campaign in tandem with other tools.

Preparing Your Home For Sale In Indianapolis
Lola will offer give you some good ideas to help you prepare your home for sale. Staging, preparing the walls and flooring, and more. For interested clients, professional staging can also be arranged.

Open Houses
Ask Lola how she draws people to Open Houses!

Quality, full-service skilled real estate marketing is all about the details.

RSS Feeds, Spider Food, & Web Site Exposure with the Most Traffic
Your home and custom property web site will featured on the top web sites. In a future post, Lola will explain some advanced digital techniques used to increase exposure.

Creative B u z z Marketing
Carefully orchestrated customized creative marketing strategies, with measurable results!

RSS
Click on the little orange box over on the right side of this post.
The next update will be automatically sent to you!

Coming soon: Get It Sold! (4/8) Your Property Web Site

~ The Century 21 Advantage
~ The CENTURY 21 Scheetz Advantage
~ The List With Lola Advantage

____________

* What Is Instant Info

One of the benefits in working with Lola McIntyre as your agent is that she will register you as a preferred user to our exclusive Instant Info system.  This allows you to get the asking price and virtually any information you want, on any property
in the MLS system, without having to call an agent or even Lola.
All you need to do is dial the Instant Info number with your cell phone, enter the address and the
system will give you the asking price and features on the property you are curious about.  No calling an agent and getting a voice mail message.
No selling whatsoever.
Once you get the information you can hang up or  you can choose to be connected to Lola. if you would like to view the property or have additional questions.

If you would like Lola to set you up on the system, contact Lola at :
lmcintyre@c21scheetz.com
Text or Call: (317) 502-1273.

Get It Sold! Meet, Listen, Gather (2nd of 8)

Thursday, February 5, 2009 by Lola McIntyre

WORKING TOGETHER

You know your own home, intimately. You know the sounds the house makes as it settles with the change of weather. You can even maneuver through a room with the lights off. You know what you love about your own home and why you bought it.

SHOW ME YOUR HOME

We begin with a tour of your home! I observe, listen, we ask questions, and write details on paper. I'm finding language which will help in crafting marketing descriptions later. Together we are noting layout, room sizes, materials, built-in features, and how you enjoy living in your home.

We also discuss location. Is the home in Indianapolis, Carmel, Westfield, Fishers, Zionsville, Noblesville, Geist? Is the home on Geist or Morse Reservoir, local river or creekside? There are many measurable differences in Indiana real estate. Indiana home values are considerably different from community to community.

GATHERING DATA: It's All in the Details!

List With Lola! Your Real Estate Leader in Emerging Technologies

The initial meeting is vital to establish a valued partnership between myself and my clients. Together, we work to draw out the minutiae which sets your home above competing properties. When we listen and discuss the detailed features of your home, I begin to roll up my sleeves. Now the fun and important partnership begins.

MEANWHILE BACK AT THE OFFICE

You have given me a tour of your home, and together we determined some great features. I return to the office to begin a strategic marketing plan by drawing a creative mind map. I consult hard data in the Indianapolis MLS to weigh out current Indiana home values, determine competing homes for sale, and new home building developments similar to your home value.

Creative Marketing to Sell Your Home in the 21st Century - Lola McIntyre, REALTOR

Working from the perspective of the potential buyer, a list of prioritized features is created to anticipate the appeal and benefit to the buyer. I compose tag lines to peak interest and draw showings. Spider food * is set aside. Then, your home's important home features are optimized with formidable on-line marketing tools.

Finally, a suggested timeline is established.

KEEP IT SIMPLE

Together, we find a mutual time for me to return to your home where we'll go over the main points of your personalized strategic marketing plan. You can ask any questions, then I clarify concerns quickly and easily.

LIST WITH LOLA

Contact Lola for your free, personalized market evaluation appointment.
Call or text directly: (317) 502-1273, text
Or email at: lmcintyre@c21scheetz.com

RSS for the Next Post!
Click on the orange box to the right of this post to receive the next in our series: Sell It! How To Market Your Home To Sell in the 21 Century.

__________________________________________
The next post (3rd of 8) will discuss: The Marketing Plan
* What is Spider Food? Learn more in an upcoming post!
3D Art from, The Gold Guys Blog; Used with permission.

Get It Sold! The Series (1/8)

Sunday, February 1, 2009 by Lola McIntyre

21st Century Marketing
In this flexing market, engaging a skilled real estate marketing expert is not just a consideration, but a necessity. Once the computerized presentation about marketing your home for sale, discussing the current Indiana home values, learning about competing homes for sale in Indianapolis, and more real estate news you may have been looking for, your primary question still remains:

What Will You DO To Market My Home and Get It Sold!

Expert Marketing Skills
Most full-service real estate brokerages (and even discounted assistance) boast marketing your property through internet sites. But, deeper REALTOR skills are required to knit together every digital marketing tool, in order to maximizes the possibility of selling your property quickly and for the best possible price.

The Series
There will be a series of 8 posts on this blog: MarketWatch: Real Estate Indiana, which will detail how Web 2.0 Marketing Strategies fortifies your full-service real estate marketing plan.

Get It Sold!

Introduction & Invitation (this post)
Meet, Listen, Gather
Our Partnered Marketing Plan
Your Property Web Site
Photos, Photos, & Photos
Spider Food
Social Networking
Measuring Results

Click RSS
Receive the entire series directly to your browser immediately as it posts. How? Click on the orange RSS box on the side blog roll to the right of this post.

Your comments are most welcome to any post.
Lola McIntyre, REALTOR
CENTURY 21 Scheetz
Your Real Estate Leader In Emerging Technologies

Village Farms & Friends

Wednesday, January 28, 2009 by Lola McIntyre

When I was bicycling a number of years ago, one of my favorite routes was to head north on Oak Ridge past 146th in Westfield, Indiana. In a matter of blocks, I cycled past a number of horse pastures.

Last weekend I was taking photos to list one of the last remaining lots in popular Village Farms. There is a clear advantage to taking pictures in a community with available land for sale when there are so many amenities, reflecting the vibrancy of this well-developed community. Where do I begin? Clubhouse? Pool? Lighted Tennis Courts? Trails? Playgrounds? Lake?

My encounter with "Mr. Ed', however, was unexpected. Recalling my bicycling days, I could not resist getting out of my car with my camera, walk to the fence where one of the Village Farms horses was gently grazing, and snap a picture. He literally posed! In fact, he tried to nudge my camera so I would pet him!

If you are looking for Indianapolis land for sale to build your dream home, turn your dreams into reality with one of the last remaining lots in Village Farms of Carmel/Westfield on 557 Worth Ct.

Trust & Perspective

Sunday, November 23, 2008 by Lola McIntyre

Trust is the only choice, when fears abound regarding Indiana home values. This coming Tuesday, several economic indicators will be released - an effort to release news before Thanksgiving and the first day of holiday shopping. Real Estate Existing Home Sales indicators are expected to be among the first released, tomorrow at 10:00 by the National Association of REALTORS (NAR).

PERSPECTIVE
This leaves us with an opportunity to ponder and make clear choices for ourselves - the foundation being trust. For me, the REALTOR, I ask how I can better help you, my clients. Gathering hard data, pricing your home well, aggressive on-line marketing using social networking while staying ahead are just some of the skills required to help you with important Indiana real estate decisions.

Ultimately, we all have the choice as to how we can utilize the upcoming data - clearly opportunities abound. I just read a great post by Life Coach, Lynn Zettler: Are You Fearful of Your Future Because of Our Economy?

If you would like some hard data about the real estate market in your neighborhood, contact me, Lola McIntyre. People are leveraging their investments and reexamining their portfolios. Real Estate is selling at my office - the listings and solds white boards have ink added, daily!

MarketWatch: Mortgage Rates Drop

Friday, November 21, 2008 by Lola McIntyre

The global economy can draw many questions. Example: We feel the economy crunch happening, so why do gas prices drop?
Today, MarketWatch reports fixed mortgage rates are falling for the 3rd consecutive week. Does this affect Indiana mortgage rates? What does this means to Carmel Indiana Real Estate? Dropping rates sounds like a good thing, right? Economist point to our flexing economy as the reason for dropping rates. But, bottom line - opportunities abound with Indiana real estate.

Wow! How great if your Indiana mortgage company, like Century 21 Scheetz Mortgage, says, "30 year fixed at 6.04%" (Didn't my parents buy their home in the 1960's with a mortgage at that rate?). What kind of rate can I get if I move? Or, perhaps a refinancing is good idea.

Use the mortgage calculators on my Century 21 Scheetz Resource Page and while you're at it, have some fun tracking Indianapolis homes for sale. If a question arises, just pick up the phone and call me!

Holiday Home Shopping

Monday, November 17, 2008 by Lola McIntyre

What do the holidays and Indiana Real Estate Market have in common? 'Tis the season corporations announce 4th-quarter relocations. CARTUS certified relocation experts at Century 21 Scheetz Relocation Department are busy!

As a certified relocation specialist, I spent 72 hours last weekend helping wonderful clients relocate to Indiana. Got it done! We looked at homes in Marion County and Hamilton County, and had fun getting to know each other, too!

"Is this an 'o.k' time to list my home?". In a word, YES!

List before the holidays - now, not later. Great examples within each price point, when expertly priced and marketed, sell in any market.

About Lola

Saturday, November 15, 2008 by Lola McIntyre

Hello! I'm Lola, your full-time REALTOR with Century 21 Scheetz in Carmel, Indiana. An early proponent in multimedia, and former music professor, I love marketing homes in central Indy because I love Indianapolis! My husband and I have been marrried since college days, and we have two sons.

We relocated to Carmel, Indiana in 1989 because of comparatively gentle cost of living, great schools, and strong arts and technology opportunities. Take a gander through my artful lenses to search Indiana Home Values, Indianapolis Real Estate Trends, and community hot spots in and around Indy.