How to Choose Featured Listings

Not all real estate listings are created equal, you know that. Some are overpriced, others may be priced about right but are located close to a noisy and polluting industry. Some are close to ugly while others may be over built for their neighborhood.

Obviously you want all your listings posted to your iHOUSE website. But your website real estate is precious too. Making the right listing a featured listing can go a long way toward helping you achieve the goals you have for your business and your site.

Just how should you pick the right listings to be featured?

Two goals

Most real estate agents have two goals.

• The first is to sell property, usually houses. It’s so tempting to focus only on selling the most recent listing and feature it right away. That may not be the best strategy, however.
• The second is to develop a client base that results in a constant stream of listings and sales. This is a more strategic approach and requires thinking through your big picture marketing campaign.

Although your featured listings can help you achieve both goals, you probably want to pick your featured listings so they help you grow your business long-term.

Choose featured listings with YOUR future in mind

Sure, you want to keep current client’s happy, and sometimes that means featuring their listing as soon as possible, but not always.

Maybe you’ve got a listing you know will sell in a hurry  even though it isn’t the kind of property you usually deal in. There’s nothing wrong with a quick sale, and if featuring that listing on your site makes sense, by all means do it.

Of course, you want to show off the best looking listings you have, and that may mean making that gorgeous home a featured listing.

Whatever property you’re considering featuring,  think how it impacts your business, today and into the future

If, for example, the neighborhood you farm is older, but well maintained, tract homes, a new McMansion as your one of your featured listings may send the wrong message. On the other hand, if you’re expanding your farm into an area of homes like those, it would be a perfect listing to show off.

Perhaps the question to ask yourself when selecting listings to feature is “who will this listing appeal to?” If you think it’s the type of client you want to work with, feature it, even if it isn’t the best looking listing you’ve got.

Other things to keep in mind

Of course, there are other things to keep in mind as well:

Keep track of both when you make a listing featured on your site and when you should take it down if it hasn’t sold.

How quickly a featured listing will get stale depends on your market conditions and the area you’re working in. Whatever that timing turns out to be, you don’t want your viewers to get bored looking at the same featured listings over and over again.

It may be best to save your sold banners for the normal listing display, unless you have something to really brag about, like ‘sold in 3 days,’

Pay extra attention the quality of the photos in your featured listings. A poor photo there just isn’t worth the bad impression it leaves.

Featured listings on your site make your site dynamic and interesting. Choose the property to feature carefully.

How do you choose featured listings? If you’ve got questions, ask them in comments and I’ll do my best to get them answered for you.