The
best price, the fastest sale, the most enjoyable
experience!
David and Dwight are experts in the DC region.
From Friendship Heights to Fairfax, Georgetown
to Old Town, Brookland to Bowie, we have our fingers
on the pulse of the metro DC market and have proven
strategies for marketing your home in the most
effective, appropriate way. Here's how it all
works:
It all comes down to price
First and foremost, pricing in this challenging
market is key. A property overpriced by just $10,000
might sell months later than it should for up
to $100,000 less. That's because attracting the
right buyers in the first two weeks is just as
important in this climate as it was when the market
was hot. To ensure we price your property correctly,
we depend on our proven pricing strategy. This
includes:
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| Just
listen to what some sellers have
said... |
Dwight
and David, Thank you so much for
all of your help with the sale
of my uncle's condo. This was
a very difficult thing for mom
and me to go through but you helped
ease the pain! Please keep in
touch!
C.
Yost |
|
Keep friends close,
enemies closer. In this market,
you're in a fight on a battlefield. Knowing
the strategies and firepower of your competition
is key. We walk
into listing appointments with intimate knowledge
of the strengths and weaknesses of other similar
properties in your neighborhood.
That gives us the confidence and edge we need
to recommend the best listing price to you.
- Being a nerd
is cool again. Calculators and
databases aren't just for geeks, they're for
us too! Combining information from the MLS and
tax records with our own market knowledge, we
come up with the most comprehensive valuation
opinion possible.
- Measure twice,
cut once!
Just to make sure we're nailing the best
price for your home, we run the numbers past
our colleagues in our office to make sure. Unlike
most realty offices, we
have a team attitude that's all about mutual
cooperation. After all, 50 heads
are better than 1!
Marketing: It's not just
the MLS
Pricing is only the beginning. To ensure a home
sells for the most, the quickest, we have to ensure
as many eyeballs have seen the property as possible...
which all comes down to the marketing.
That's why Dwight and David focus on marketing holistically...
combining the old print ads with the new email-marketing
campaign and virtual tours. Here is their 10-point
approach to effect marketing:
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Once the photo
is taken, there's more work to be done.
Retouching is essential in photography...
and nobody else does it. From lightening a dark
corner to cropping out the power cords, even
adding a blue sky with clouds when the day was
dreary, Dwight
and David are committed to presenting your property
in the most accurate, but appealing, way possible.
- Great photos
like friends.
It's not cool to show a 5-bedroom house with
only five photos. Photos are king, and surprisingly
93% of listings out there have less than six
photographs. 85% have only one photograph,
more than likely taken by an MLS rep in a car!
Would you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars
on something that vaguely looks like the Loch
Ness Monster? That's why all
Dwight and David listings have at least 15 photographs.
We also have 360-degree panoramas, Google maps
and downloadable newspaper articles or disclosures
too.
- Photos look
better on good materials. Have
you been to an open house lately and noticed
some agents just print out a one-sided flyer
on his office copier?
Don't settle for that! Dwight
and David print out hundreds of four-sided,
full color, glossy, heavyweight flyers.
They look great, feel great, and give
a better impression of your home... they give
it extra value.
- Can't stand
'em? Beat 'em! No other virtual
tour provider offers a tour that is as straightforward,
simple and easy to use as the one Dwight and
David offers... and that's because they built
their own Virtual Tour Vendor themselves!
Placepix.com is proprietary to Dwight
and David and offers a quick, easy way to view
every photo and panorama for each property.
- Postcards are
not passé. Nothing makes
an impression on potential buyers than holding
a card in their hand that was sent directly
to them. Sure, most of them get thrown away
without a glance. But for that one buyer, in
the market for a home like yours, nothing else
has as lasting an impression. Most agents do
not send postcards at all. Some will send 200-300
cards to neighbors. Dwight
and David send out over 1,000 postcards
for each listing they have.
- You've got...
a sale! E-mail is in... and
Dwight and David are i
n your inbox! Dwight and David send out weekly
emails advertising their open houses, and you
won't
believe their sending power. Over
14,000 recipients receive their emails every
week, including over 10,000 licensed DC-area
Realtors. Nobody else can send
to their recipient list, not even brokerages.
Our emails announce new properties on the market,
open houses, and even broker's open houses specifically
for agents. No one else can compare.
- Marketing costs
money. We advertise in just
about every local publication you can think
of, including the Washingtonian, Washington
Blade, Current Newspapers, Roll Call, The Hill,
and more. We've also been featured as local
experts in DC Style and Washington Citypaper,
and we've appeared in Washington Life magazine
too. We've even had two properties featured
for full-length articles in the Washington Examiner,
which is a free daily newspaper with
tens of thousands of readers! This all costs
money, and we don't shortchange our clients
to save a buck ourselves... We know that advertising
aggressively will sell the home the quickest
and for the most money, which ultimately will
save us time and money to work with our next
happy clients! That's why Dwight
and David spend more advertising dollars per
property than just about any agent around.
- Use your connections.
There's a reason Dwight and
David work for Coldwell Banker versus a smaller
"boutique" firm or even the larger
regional competition: global exposure. Coldwell
Banker is the largest real estate corporation
in the world, with 3,800 offices in over 42
countries. Coldwell
Banker publications reach 45,000 potential buyers
locally, 100,000 recipients nationwide and our
exposure reaches to over 30,000 agents worldwide.
With advertising opportunities
in the world editions of the Wall Street journal
and the International Herald Tribune, and internet
connectivity to hundreds of Coldwell Banker
offices around the globe, no other brokerage
can promise the international exposure Coldwell
Banker offers as a default.
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Click the play button
above to learn more about Coldwell Banker's
exclusive LeadRouter
technology |
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Tech is tops!
Dwight and David offered the
first direct-to-MLS map search available in
DC for buyers. They created their own virtual
tour vendor. They receive web inquiries on their
cell phones as voice mails, and voice mails
are sent to their email inboxes. They even have
the power of LeadRouter which
sends a voice message, text message and email
directly to them whenever anyone inquires about
their property on Washingtonpost.com, Realtor.com,
ColdwellBanker.com and other sites... immediately!
No one knows
how to harness the power of technology better
than Dwight and David, given
that 85% of buyers currently perform their own
searches for over three weeks without ever visiting
an open house or calling an agent, technology
must be utilized to its fullest extent for maximum
exposure to the market.
- Two for the
price of one! If you like getting
a good deal, then you'll like this... most agents
work solo, and some say they're on a team but
you'll never meet any other team members. Dwight
and David take on every listing as a duo from
start to finish. They both advise you on price
and staging tips. They both help show the property.
And they're both accessible 24/7 should anything
happen. Before you hire another agent, look
up one of their listings online. Call the number
on that listing and see if you can reach them
immediately. Leave a message and wait for their
response. If you don't get through right away
you'll see immediately the advantage of listing
with Dwight and David... any buyer, for any
listing can usually get an answer or an appointment
within an hour, day or night. Their cell phone
numbers are on every listings, all the time.
No assistant, no office number, and no answering
service... direct access for you and the buyers
who want to meet you at settlement! Best of
all, for double
the agent you pay the same commission as just
about any other agent out there...
after all the best agents aren't more expensive;
they're priceless!
We're not done yet!
Well you've made it this far, but truly this is
only half the battle. Pricing and marketing is
key to getting the buyer, but getting to settlement
takes a few more crucial steps where lesser agents
will fail.
- Have you got
a poker face? Dwight and David
do. Successful contract negotiation depends
on keen strategy and experience. Not everyone
can do it. Dwight
and David were top agents in both units and
volume in 2007, and they didn't
get there by showing their hands at the table.
The highest price is not just given to you;
sometimes you have to know how to ask for it.
- Like sands in
the hourglass... Time slips
away before you know it, and sometimes contracts
slip through your fingers too. Dwight and David
have the experience and personal touch to help
any contingencies go by without a worry. To
do this they go
the extra mile to attend all home inspections
and appraisals. These days contracts
fall apart for all kinds of reasons. We make
sure we do our best to prevent minor molehills
from becoming impassable mountains.
- And
just in case...Dwight and David
will get your contract from open house to settlement
as quickly and smoothly as possible, but they
can do far more than that too.
Their knowledge of the current market and unique
seller situations allows us to help you effectively
with all the following as well:
- Short Sales
- 1031 (Starker) Exchanges
- Joint Tenancy/Tenancy in Common Situations
- Divorce Situations
- Renovation recommendations and referrals
- Pre-Listing Inspection referrals
- Extensive Staging and Decoration
- Zoning and Easement Issues
- Utility issues
- Tenant First Right of Refusal
- Eviction referrals
- Litigation referrals
It all comes down to service, from the moment
we meet you through settlement and beyond. We
follow up, from meetings and emails to post-sale
home purchase "check-ups". We think
of all our clients as clients for life! |