A Promise To Our Clients

"A very distinct marketing campaign resulting in a prompt and efficient sale, at the highest possible price, in the shortest amount of time—with integrity, hard work and results. Your successful real estate transaction is our top priority."

Overview

The real estate industry has experienced many changes over the last two decades. None of which have impacted Buyers, Sellers and Investors more than the rise of the internet and online marketing. Gone are the days when merely installing a yard sign at the property, holding a weekend Open House and placing postage-sized black & white print ads in newspapers is sufficient to generate sales.

The internet's success has resulted in the decline of newspaper and print advertising effectiveness. Personal computers with high-speed internet access, regional MLS (Multiple Listing Service) databases connected to local and national public web sites like ColoProperty.com and Realtor.com, have had profound effects on overall real estate marketing. In the following section, Reasons To List Your Home With Us, you will find examples of advertising and marketing tools we use to successfully exploit the internet to sell your home.

"We would be honored to be among those selected for an interview to represent you in the sale of your home."

It goes without saying, that fundamental differences exist between real estate brokers, the firms they represent and the marketing strategies adopted by both. That's why we encourage Sellers to interview competing brokers prior to deciding with whom they will list their home.

Broker interviews and evaluations typically reveal fundamental differences—those that contribute ultimately to the successful sale of your home versus those factors that cause properties to languish months in marginal markets, without generating offers or a contract. (Keep in mind the broker who represented you during the purchase of your existing home may not necessarily be the best choice to market it in today's market.)

We would all like to return to the recent past and those heady days when the average DOM (days on market) was 38 days or less.  A market where multiple offers on recently-listed homes was not uncommon. And, when brokers rarely developed aggressive marketing strategies to sell homes; it simply wasn't necessary—homes sold quickly due to low inventory levels and high consumer demand.

However, the current post 9/11 market is radically changed from those previous market conditions. To compete effectively in today's real estate market requires  aggressive pricing strategies and technologically savvy brokers capable of exploiting the internet and online marketing, where research shows the majority of buyers—94% by industry estimates—begin and end their search for their new home.

The question sellers must answer, with certainty is, "Will the broker I select, to market and sell my home, fulfill my expectations in providing the level of services essential to be competitive—delivering on their promise to sell my home in the shortest amount of time, for the highest possible price?

Let us demonstrate why we have proven track records of making sales and closing transactions where others have failed.

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Reasons To List Your Home With Us

Internet Marketing (Reason #1)

First Professional Realty Group Website

Created and maintained by our in-house staff, First Professional Realty Group's website was designed to be a one-stop, comprehensive, online resource by providing relevant, and timely real estate information to five primary groups: Buyers, Sellers, Hispanic & Latino, Investors and For Sale by Owners.

The website is designed to generate showings, Buyer leads and ultimately sales. Buyers are given the opportunity to learn more about individual properties, view multiple-photo slideshows, view or download a CirclePix Virtual Property Tour for properties of interest, print marketing brochures, consider the unique features of each home, send email messages to any of our affiliate brokers requesting showing appointments, check current interest rates, calculate their estimated mortgage payment and even become pre-qualified or initiate their loan application process through various mortgage lenders listed on the site.

And yes, according to National Association of Realtors statistics, nearly 51% of brokers nationwide have a web presence. However, the vast majority are corporate or canned (pre-produced and off-the-shelf) sites that primarily promote the franchise brokerages or individual agents—with a secondary emphasis on buyer, seller and investor needs. At First Professional Realty Group, our clients' needs are primary and the company's needs secondary.

  Internet Buyer Characteristics

Traditional Buyers	Internet Buyers
• 34% Very Satisfied	• 87% Very Satisfied
• 15.22 Homes Visited	• 7.08 Homes Visited
• 6.6 Weeks with a Realtor	• 1.9 Weeks with a Realtor
• Average sale: $350,000	• Average sale: $462,500
Source: C.A.R. Internet vs Tradional Buyers January 2003

As you can see from the above chart, Internet Buyers are more satisfied with their buying experience, they visit fewer homes before writing a contract, spend less time with their Realtor® looking at properties before reaching a buying decision and make purchases of more expensive homes than their traditional counterparts.

By some industry estimates, over 94 percent of all buyers initially find a home of interest by researching one or more internet websites. This means it's essential that sellers rely heavily on brokers who have the in-depth knowledge and skills to fully exploit internet marketing opportunities if they intend to compete successfully.

Online Property Profiles

We efficiently extend exposure and awareness beyond the scope of IRES/MLS (Information and Real Estate Services), ColoProperty.com by creating individual online Property Profile Web Pages for each of our listings. A unique feature of each Property Profile is the multi-photo slideshow which has no limitations to the quantity of photos or visual content. Buyers viewing these online Property Profiles spend more time with each property giving our Brokers a greater opportunity to promote your home.

The slideshows showcase the home's unique features and unlike IRES/MLS which provides for 18 photos, ColoProperty.com 12 photos and Realtor.com only 1 photo per listing, our slideshow profiles have unlimited photo content.

Today, buyers sit in the comfort of their homes, at their computers previewing properties online. Listings with photos get viewed and those without don't—that's why we place an inordinate emphasis on the need for quality property photos.

Buyers are directed to First Professional Realty Group's website through paid advertising, yard sign flyer-box brochures, links to the IRES/MLS online database, ColoProperty.com and all collateral marketing materials, e.g. direct mail, quarterly newsletters and door hanger direct occupant distribution programs.

Virtual Home Tours

In addition to our online Property Profile web pages, we contract with CirclePix Virtual Tours to create custom, virtual property tours of our listings. The virtual property tours are posted at the CirclePix website, the First Professional Realty website and linked to each individual Property Profile, They're also posted to the IRES/MLS database and ColoProperty.com.

The virtual property tours are also copied and duplicated on business card compact discs for use in direct mail distribution programs to cooperative brokers, their clients, out-of-town respondent inquiries, and as giveaways at scheduled Open Houses.

Check Out This Virtual Tour

(Click Here to View The Virtual Tour)

Email Campaigns

Including email campaigns under Internet Marketing may seem incongruous, however in today's world of email vs. snail-mail, relentless telemarketers and unreturned phone calls—email is the most effective and desirable form of communication with other Realtors®. However, Realtors®, like the general public, don't enjoy receiving email messages with attachments (which are often thrown away without reading or consideration) as they frequently contain viruses, worms, or Trojan horses and we all know what that means.

That's why we create promotional email messages as dynamic web page templates—without any attachments. The message content is not limited exclusively to text; they contain property photos, graphics, property features, directional maps, links to the online Property Profiles and CirclePix Virtual Property Tours. We email, on a regular basis to over 200 of the top-producing brokers in the Longmont/Boulder market, keeping them informed of price changes, promotional offers, Open House schedules, etc. Email campaigns reinforce top-of-mind-awareness and ensure repeated exposure of your property to these top-producing agents.

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Reasons To List Your Home With Us

Advertising & Awareness (Reason #2)

Custom Interior & Exterior Photography

The foundation of effective real estate and web marketing starts with professional photography and quality graphics. Humans are visual by nature, see in color, expect quality and make instantaneous evaluations of properties based on those three attributes.

Buyers view online listings with extensive listing photos and pass by those lacking multiple photos or those of inferior quality. Without excellent, well lit property photos, it's nearly impossible to create visually compelling marketing flyers, virtual property tours, online property profiles and great eye-catching print ads with which to project your property's most desirable image to the targeted buyers.

No doubt you've seen some of the mediocre photos and creative executions, in various publications and property brochures, currently in use in local print and online real estate advertising. I'm sure you'll agree, that's not the image you'd want your home's awareness campaign to project. Our first task is to schedule an interior and exterior photo shoot of your home, creating a comprehensive photo library for use in all advertising and collateral components.

Yard Sign Flyer-Box Brochures

Using your home's photo library, we create high-quality, full-color marketing brochures for placement in flyer boxes on each yard sign. To ensure the brochure box is never empty, we preprint reserve quantities of the brochures to remain inside your home to refill the brochure box as necessary. An empty brochure box is a potential showing missed or worse yet a missed sale.

Don't be misled by those who advocate that marketing flyers at the yard sign are not important. Research by NAR (National Association of Realtors) has found that nearly 10 % of local and in-state buyers continue to search for homes the old-fashioned way—by driving through neighborhoods that meet their search criteria. Finding a home of interest, they pull brochures from the yard sign's flyer box to determine the home's price range and whether to schedule a showing appointment with the listing agent or their broker.

Another important design element of the flyers is the inclusion of First Professional Realty Group's website address on each brochure. This encourages buyers to go online at our website to obtain more comprehensive information than can be contained on the printed flyer. The online Property Profiles at our website offer considerably more information than a MLS listing sheet or the limited information found at ColoProperty.com or Realtor.com. Again creating another possibility to generate a sale.

The brochures are also used for direct mail purposes, as take-home brochures for those buyers actually touring the home and are regularly distributed at the Longmont and Boulder Independent Brokers bi-monthly meetings.

Check Out Examples Of Flyer-box Brochures

(Click Here To View The Sample Flyers)

Direct Mail Campaigns

Direct mail is effective at broadcasting information to many recipients, at nominal expense and to broad consumer databases. Direct mail increases buyer awareness, stimulates showings and generates sales leads. We rely on full-color postcards  which require no opening by the recipients, and where the message is highly-visible and immediately read. Typically, we include our listings on a rotating schedule with the following:

• Just Listed

• Do you know a buyer for this property?

• Weekend Open House

• Price Reduction

• Special Terms

• Just Sold

Display (Real Estate Weekly) Advertising

With the decline in newspaper readership, rising advertising rates, and the undisputed influence of internet media sources, the effectiveness of display newspaper advertising continues to be debated among Realtors® and researchers.

Our opinion, supported by the previously mentioned NAR research of internet buyers, is that traditional paid newspaper advertising is a less effective component in today's advertising strategies. However, we do believe that full-color real estate publications like The Real Estate Book are more productive at reaching local and out-of-market buyers than newspapers. Also, this publication has quantifiable, reader pass-along rates which are nonexistent with newspapers. Our own tracking of buyer responses supports this conclusion.

Display Classified Advertising

Belden Associates is the premier national newspaper research and consulting firm in North America. With over 60 years experience, working with more than 200 newspapers, Belden consultants have built an international reputation for innovative, strategic research studies that help executives make difficult paid media placement decisions. A recent study conducted by Belden Associates found that readership of display real estate newspaper advertising is declining as classified display is increasing. The reasons are too numerous to enumerate here, however their research indicates media schedules incorporating additional classified advertising schedules are increasingly more effective at reaching buyers based upon changing demographic and psychographic readership profiles.

We utilize classified advertising extensively in our client's marketing campaigns—both text-only and display for maximum results. Classifieds are effective and currently generate more responses than large-format display ads.

(Click Here To View Sample Display Classified Ads)

Property Profile Home Books

Home books are effective at removing objections for buyers when writing an offer. Displayed prominently in the home, Home Books summarize the property's unique features and are referenced by cooperating brokers and their buyers during actual showings.

As your broker, we will be more informed about your property than anyone else—the only problem is that, in most cases, we won't be present when your home is shown by a cooperating broker. This makes us unavailable to answer any questions posed by the Buyers; questions that a properly prepared Home Book can answer without our presence. The information summarized in our Home Books is unique to the property and contains some or all of the following information:

• Instructions to write an offer

• Required earnest money

• Seller's Property Disclosure

• Marketing flyer

• County property records

• Legal description

• Comparative market analysis

• Recent appraisal information

• Financing options

• Home Inspection

• Well report

• Description of water rights

• Area location map

• Utility information

• School District information

• MLS/property listing

• Subdivision CC&R's (Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions)

Selling a home is a process of removing or negating buyer objections. The Home Book assists in the buying process by removing objections and providing the buyer and their broker with the necessary information to write a contract.

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Reasons To List Your Home With Us

14-Day Action Plan (Reason #3)

Completed within two weeks of listing your home:

• Presenting your home at the Longmont and Boulder Independent Broker's regularly scheduled meetings and placing it on tour.

• Placing your home on First Professional Realty Group's weekly office tour.

• Creating your home's listing on IRES/MLS which includes ColoProperty.com

• Installing a yard sign and brochure flyer box at the property.

• Installing a lock box at the property.

• Create the interior & exterior photo shoot.

• Uploading 18 exterior and interior color photos to IRES—the maximum number allowed by IRES

• Creating the online Property Profile Web Page

• Creating both color and black & white marketing brochures

• Creating a color Property Profile Home Book

• Preprinting additional marketing flyers for flyer box distribution

• Installation of brochure flyers in the flyer box

• Installing the Property Profile Home book in your home

• Email awareness notifications to all Realtors

• Creating the first direct mail "Recently Listed" postcard

• Creating a 30-day Open House schedule

• Copywriting and creation of display and classified print ads

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Reasons To List Your Home With Us

Blue Ribbon Home Warranty Insurance (Reason #4)

Why a Home Warranty is important to your peace of mind:

Under the home warranty program available through First Professional Realty Group, you are protected from unexpected repairs of major working components while selling your home. Not only does this assist you in a worry-free sale, but the prospective buyers are not likely to feel they must hold back reserve cash to cover the cost of unexpected maintenance. Therefore, homes covered with a Home Warranty compete effectively against "new construction" which carries a mandatory 1-year warranty and pre-owned homes without warranties. First Professional Realty Group can facilitate the application process of the Blue Ribbon Warranty.

Benefits when you're the seller:

Selling a home is one of the biggest decisions of your life. Why take chances? Be covered against the expense of an unexpected repair or replacement while marketing your home, less the standard deductible. Think about it. No matter how closely you inspect a home before you sell, you just can't predict certain things. Like breakdowns from normal wear and tear, or the possibility of mechanical failure during the marketing period. Things like internal plumbing, electrical wiring, or vital parts of the air conditioning and heating systems. Working components such as the washer, dryer, oven, refrigerator, and other items. Only a warranty like Blue Ribbon Warranty can give you the protection you need and the protection your buyer needs for one full year after title transfer.

Coverage by one of the largest providers of home protection plans:

When the major systems and appliances in your home are protected by Blue Ribbon Warranty, both buyer and seller can relax. Because Blue Ribbon protection is solid and reliable. The kind you can count on for the peace of mind you want in your home. Blue Ribbon is Colorado's #1 home warranty program.

Toll-free, 24-hour claim service:

What could be easier when something goes wrong than making a single, toll-free phone call? Well, when your home is protected by Blue Ribbon, that's how easy it is—24 hours a day, seven days a week. As soon as Blue Ribbon receives your call, the claim is entered into their state-of-the-art computer system. They'll notify a contractor in your area who contacts you for an appointment. When the contractor arrives at your home, he/she will verify the claim, prepare a repair or replacement estimate and call their claims department. He/she is then authorized to complete the necessary repairs or replacement on covered items.

For more information on the Blue Ribbon Warranty program, give us a call at your convenience.

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