Selling Your Albuquerque House: Choosing an Albuquerque Realtor

 If you’re getting ready to sell a house in Albuquerque you might be wondering how you're going to choose the right real estate agent to do the job. Let me tell you how I think you should choose.

Three important factors come to mind right away:

• Competence: Does the agent have experience?
• Character: Will you trust the agent to do the best job possible?
• Marketing: What will the agent actually do to sell your home?

The real estate market is changing rapidly. How Albuquerque real estate agents do their jobs is changing rapidly too. You need an agent who has been in business long enough to know the ropes but who hasn't become complacent about doing their job. The tools real estate agents now use require more technical expertise than ever. You need an agent who stays current with the new way real estate is done. If they can't start a computer, don't hire them to sell your house!

Here's a few questions to ask any Albuquerque Realtor that you might be inteviewing to sell your home.:

1) Do you have your own website or websites?

2) Will you use your blog to advertise my home?

3) WIll you use social media sites like Facebook to advertise my home?

If they don't know the answers to these questions it's time to move on the next Realtor interview!

This is one of the most challenging real estate markets ever for Albuquerque home sellers. You’re about to trust your most important asset, your house, to someone. You need to take the time to find an agent who you can trust. You need an agent who will tell you the truth about your home’s value, whether it’s good news or not.

This is not the market to overprice a home. List prices need to be realistic. Watch out for old-school agents may try to buy your business by over promising how much they can sell your home for. After all, who wouldn't be tempted to pick the agent who promises to sell their home for the most money? In reality what happens to overpriced homes is that they don't sell, which is very frustrating, and eventually you have to reduce to sell anyway. In a market where prices are going down all you've done is wasted your time and then had to settle for less.

Pick an agent you can trust to understand the market. Pick an agent who will help you set realistic expectations. They are the agent who will get you results.

Once you've found an experienced agent who you can trust you need to ask about their marketing plan.This is the most important part of selecting an agent. It’s crucial that you find  a Realtor who knows how to use the internet to market your home. You will find agents out there who are going to do nothing more than hastily slap your house into the local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) then sit back and wait. You should seek out more than that, and the agent you pick should have a detailed, written marketing plan for your house.

Here’s the old-school marketing plan:

• The agent takes some bad photos.
• The agent inaccurately measures the house.
• The agent slaps the home on the MLS, frequently with misspellings, other errors or omissions.
• The agent puts up a sign.
• The agent goes out to lunch with other Realtors and waits while you wonder what else they should be doing to sell your home. Then they call this “networking.”

Give me a break, that's not enough marketing to sell a home in the tough Albuquerque real estate market!

Here’s what you get with my marketing plan:

• A For Sale sign with a toll free 800 number on it so buyers can get info if they are driving by. The buyers can choose to dial through to speak with me, but even if they choose not to speak with me don’t my toll free number captures their phone number so I can call them back and offer information.
• A For Sale sign with a Text Hotline where buyers can text a 5 digit number on their cell phones to receive a mobile phone website with photos and listing info. My call capture system sends me their phone number so I can follow up.
• A For Sale sign with a memorable custom domain name like www.123Maple.com and a custom website that goes along with it.
• Monitored placement on popular websites like Trulia, Zillow and Realtor.com
• Three times a week ad placement on the super popular Craig’s List
• Placement on up to 30 other websites
• Automated feedback system that gather stats on showings
• Virtual Tours
• Video on YouTube
• Ad on Facebook Marketplace

You’ll get maximum exposure online with my marketing plan!

Call me at 505.803.5012 if you're thinking of selling your Albuquerque home. I'll take the job of selling your Albuquerque Home seriously and dedicate myself to getting the job done!

Albuquerque Realtor Rich Cederberg has been helping people with buying and selling Albuquerque real estate for 6 years. He works all over the metro area but specializes in Vetana Ranch Real Estate and Seven Bar Real Estate. Learn more about Rich by reading his Albuquerque Real Estate blog. He currently works for RE/MAX Finest, 505.792.2255.