Selling a Higher-End Hudson Home? It Starts With Photo One

At higher price points there are fewer buyers, and every one of them matters. Nearly all of them will see your house online before they ever see it in person, so the online version of your home is really the first showing. Here's how we approach it.

The old 3 P's don't work

When I teach agents about listings, I talk about the old 3 P's of selling a house: put it in the MLS, place a sign, and pray the phone rings. That isn't a marketing plan. Most homes at this level deserve better than that. Our version is to properly prepare the house, promote it effectively, price it correctly and prospect actively for buyers. That's 4 P's. Photos sit right in the middle of all of them, so maybe it's 5 P's now.

The main photo decides the click

Think about how buyers actually shop. They run a search, scroll a grid of results and look at one picture for each house. If they don't like that main photo, they never look at the rest. For most homes the main photo is the front exterior, so the exterior has to be ready: lawn cut, beds edged, leaves cleared, cars out of the driveway.

We've seen this play out. Two homes our team was selling needed about the same amount of interior work, but one had a manicured lawn and the other had an unkempt yard. Buyers liked the one with the manicured lawn more.

Then the next three best features

After the main photo, we put the next three best features of the house: maybe the kitchen, the primary bedroom, a remodeled bath, a deck or the backyard. A buyer who clicks should see the strongest reasons to schedule a showing right away, not a hallway and a laundry room.

Then walk them through the house

From there we arrange the photos the way a buyer would walk through the house: foyer, living room, dining room, kitchen, office, then upstairs. We also caption them. Buyers often can't tell how the photos connect. Is that bedroom on the first floor or the second? A caption answers it, and in a larger home that matters even more. A floor plan helps as well, so a buyer can see how the rooms fit together before they ever walk in.

Video helps too. I record narrated video tours of homes myself, like the one I did for 2207 Westminster Road in Cleveland Heights. Walking through in a natural order, a video gives an out-of-town or busy buyer a sense of the flow that photos alone can't.

Fill in every field

How a listing is entered in the MLS directly affects how many buyers find it. If a field exists, someone may be searching on it. Leave the square footage blank and the house shows up as zero, so it drops out of every search with a minimum size. The same goes for acreage and other fields buyers filter on. And we check the city and area ourselves rather than trusting whatever the county record says.

The written description matters as well. Lead with what makes the house different, use plain language a buyer would actually search for, and skip the clichés. "Updated kitchen with quartz counters and a walk-in pantry" tells a buyer something. "Must see" doesn't.

Timing matters too. A higher-end listing gets its biggest wave of attention in its first days on the market, so we don't go live until the photos, video, description and every field are ready. Launching half-finished and fixing it later wastes the week when the most buyers are paying attention.

Then measure, every week

We send sellers a report on the same day each week covering showings, feedback and online activity, plus what we did that week. If the house is getting views but few showings, the photos or the price may need another look. If it's getting showings but no offers, buyers are seeing something in person the photos didn't prepare them for. Either way, we'd rather find out early.

A note on Hudson in the winter

Hudson buyers at the upper end usually have choices, and the season changes the pace. If you plan to list over the winter, schedule exterior photos on a clear day and keep walks and drives shoveled for showings. Snow is fine in a photo. Clutter isn't. If you have great summer photos of the yard or patio, ask whether it makes sense to include one or two, clearly as seasonal shots, so buyers can picture the house at its best.

If you're thinking about selling a higher-end home in Hudson, schedule a time with me or someone on our team at 21mike.com.

Mike Ferrante
The Mike Team at LPT Realty
www.21mike.com
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