Whether you call it a property flyer, house for sale flyer or anything in between, having something that a buyer can take away with them after touring your home is essential. To create a great first impression with your real estate flyer, you’ll first need to ensure you have the right content.
Before we get into a breakdown of the essential components to include in order to create the best flyer to help sell your home, let’s get your home ready for showings:
Freshening up your home in preparation for listing is never a bad idea. Small cosmetic improvements not only make the home look better, they also boost your bottom line, especially if it ensures a speedy sale. When listing a home, you want to do whatever you can to get an offer ASAP, otherwise, you’ll be stuck carrying the home, plus the cost of a new mortgage, or be forced to reduce the price in order to offload the property.
With that said, making improvements on your home should be a strategic process as well. Spend too much and you lose money; spend too little and the hard work and money you do spend could be worthless.
Fortunately, there are a handful of improvements that guarantee a steady return on investment (ROI): exterior upgrades, kitchen updates, and bathroom renovations. But this doesn’t mean you have to completely renovate your home or drop a large sum just to sell your home.
Of the projects mentioned in this Bankrate article, four out of the five that return the most money are upgrades for the home’s exterior. We’ll explain. Money spent on increasing curb appeal goes a long way in two key areas: first for netting top dollar for the home; second in creating stand-out photos for your marketing flyers and the online listing.
Not to stress you out, but there’s probably no other time when photos are more important than when selling a home. According to data from the National Association of REALTORS®, 44% of buyers begin the home search online, and the overwhelming majority (93%) leverage some type of web listing throughout their home search. Having clear, well-lit, colorful photos lets prospective buyers feel as if they are actually inside the home and clearly allows them to see if your home has what they’re looking for. Since this is the first impression potential buyers receive of your property, excellent photos could mean the difference between multiple showing appointments, and a home that stagnates on the market for months.
Even in a for-sale-by-owner situation (FSBO), it’s worth it to invest in the services of a professional real-estate photographer. Since you don’t have an agent marketing the home on your behalf, these photos will do much of the heavy lifting for you.
With slick photos of your property in hand, now it’s time to create a professional flyer to announce your open house or to let neighbors know the home will be going up for sale.
Thanks to new technologies such as Canva, Adobe Spark and Pic Monkey, graphic design novices can create their own flyers in just minutes.
Trust us, creating your own marketing flyer isn’t something you want to DIY from scratch (unless you’re already a Photoshop pro). Picking a premade flyer template will save you a ton of time and ensure your creation looks cohesive and professional. Even though you are doing a FSBO transaction, you don’t want your listing to look any less professional than others in the area.
The number of images you’ll be able to add depends upon the template you choose. Pick the most compelling images for your flyer – ones that show the expanse of the house, have great eye-catching colors (like if there is fall foliage in the yard), or the ones that show off the differentiating features of the home. If you’ve taken the time to update your kitchen or bathroom, be sure to add an image of these updates as well. Many potential buyers won’t even go look at a home if the photos reveal outdated appliances or “work” to be done.
Keep the words (“copy” in marketing speak) on the flyer short and to the point. Be sure to include information about the most important selling features of the home: the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, any stellar school districts, or any/all new upgrades.
It may help to create your MLS listing copy first, and then shorten it for the flyer. This way, you’ll be sure to include the most relevant points on both pieces of marketing.
Even though using a flyer template is the best move when creating a for sale by owner flyer, it’s best to change it up just a little so your flyer doesn’t look like the one for the house that is selling one street over.
Get creative here: feel free to change the background colors, font, text spacing and size. Knowing a bit here about color theory can help you select colors for the flyer that complement the features of your home. For example, if your home has a bright yellow door, make sure to add pops of yellow on the flyer to accentuate this feature.
Print hard copies of your flyer and distribute throughout the neighborhood. Be sure to print enough to have a stack available for buyers who come to the house for showings, so they can take one to remember your house later as they’re making decisions. Often, buyers look at many homes in one day, so having a tactile reminder of what they’ve seen is important.
While investing the time and money into a paper copy of a flyer may seem like an antiquated marketing practice in 2020, don’t discount how many people in your neighborhood may not be looking for a home, but would want to tell their friends, family and colleagues about available properties in the area.
In 2020, you should definitely save a copy of your flyer in several digital files (PDF, JPEG, Word Doc) so you have compatible digital files at the ready when someone asks you to send the flyer via email.
There you have it, you’re ready to create your home flyer! If you need any more guidance, we have you covered. Our packages for home sellers include walking you through the process of creating your home’s listing, generating home flyers and more.
