Total Commissions – This is the total commission you will pay upon the sale of your home. The point to note is the “Buyers Agent” commissions. It is standard to maintain an offered amount of 2.5%. If you fall below this amount then Buyer Agents will not bring their buyers to view your home. It’s as simple as that! In my “Accelerated” program, the average 2.5% is bumped up depending on the package you decide to proceed with. Eg. If you look at the “Accelerated-Deluxe Package” you will see that the “Buyers Agent” commission being offered is at 3%. This is a strategy used in today’s modern market. If a Buying Agent is working with pre-qualified buyers and is showing them houses around town, which house do you think they will show them first? If there are two homes comparable to yours, it’s a given that they will bring the buyers to your home and being sales representative that they are, you can depend on them to sell your house to the buyers as the 3% is a great incentive for the agent. I may have reduced my commissions to get this “Accelerated” program rolled out, but the program name speaks for itself--You will sell your home in an “Accelerated” time! Which means the happier you, my clients, will be in the end!

Online Advertising

MLS & MLS.ca – This is the bloodline of a Realtor. Your home will be listed on MLS, which is what Realtors see. We see listings before they are released to the public side of MLS.ca. This means that Agents who already have qualified buyers can notify their buyers of your home that has just been listed before the public can see it. Which will give you that much of an advantage over selling privately. MLS and MLS.ca is the largest reason why over 87% of people who sell privately end up listing with a Realtor.

Xpress Property Xchange (XPX.ca) – Your listing will be listed on Canada’s FIRST integrated Real Estate Network. In other words this is the first website to allow people to list their homes for sale or rent and you can be selling privately/fsbo/for sale by owner, you can be a Realtor, Builder, Landlord and/or Property Manager. Usually websites only allow you to list your home for sale if you are either selling privately or if you are a Realtor, this website combines everyone together on one website to make it easier for buyers to shop for properties. This company is founded and operated by myself, Sterling Wong.

RealEstateForSaleMississauga.com, RealEstateForSaleMississauga.ca & HomeForSaleMississauga.com–These are the three other websites I own. Your home will be listed on these sites as well and all listings are searchable via search engines such as Google. A little background on these types of websites— IDX is a technology that feeds listings from MLS to these websites. Ontario is the only Province/State in North America not participating in IDX. However, there are 3 companies that take part in IDX technology in Ontario in a "relationship" basis. I have purchased these three websites researching this IDX technology to give your listings maximum exposure on the internet. For each of these three companies there are thousands of Realtors in Ontario who will have your home for sale listed on their websites.

Google Advertising Campaigns–This is a feature that I personally take pride on! How it works: I will create a web page for your listing, with images, descriptions and contact info. Example http://www.xpx.ca/property.php?id=297I will then create a Google Advertising Campaign using keywords that will display your home. For Example, this listing was located in Brampton, I chose keywords such as Brampton real estate, homes for sale in Brampton, 4 bedroom home for sale etc. Now when anybody types in these keywords in Google, your home will show up on the first page. See the image below.

Search #1

Search #2

One thing you should note is that other Realtors who use Google Advertising Campaigns use it to advertise them selves or their businesses. When you click on their links it takes you to their main page of their website, then you have to click around to find the houses they are selling. My approach of advertising campaign as you can see; is that I am advertising your property, NOT myself nor my business. Now when potential buyers see the ad and click on it, they are landing directly on your home for sale!

If you are like any of my colleagues they would ask me “prove it” to accommodate this type A personality; below are some stats showing the traffic this listing received from my Google Advertising Campaign over a 30day period. This listing sold in 32days in the month of June 2008 when the Brampton market was slow! The average days-on-market for this time was between 40-45days in this area. This listing had almost one showing everyday and I received more than enough phone calls on this listing, mostly due to Google Ads! NOTE: that the 614 visitors is like having 614 potential buyers walking into your home. Also, note that these are only stats for this Google Advertising Campaign. Other traffic sources from RealEstateForSaleMississauga.com, RealEstateForSaleMississauga.ca & HomeForSaleMississauga.com have generated a great deal of traffic which helped getting this home sold and helped it get the online exposure it needed all in a timely fashion!

On URL#2 there were 614 visitors coming to the home page of this listing.
On URL#4-8 these are how many times buyers have clicked on the other images of the home.

Features

Client Feedback – Depending on your package you can get feedback on a daily basis. After a potential buyer or potential buyer with a Realtor has passed through your house, I will contact them getting their feedback on why or why not they put an offer in on your home. Some sellers like being kept in the loop and it’s a really good way to track the reasons why these potential buyers did not make an offer on your home. They most likely have been pre-qualified for a mortgage, if they came with an agent, the agent would have done their due diligence to make sure that your property came into the buyers criteria for the new purchase—Why didn’t they make an offer? This is what client feedback is all about.

Neighborhood Activity Updates – Depending on the package you choose you can get updates on a daily basis, as homes are selling in your neighborhood and if prices of homes are dropping/raising in your area. If a new listing comes up in your area this is posed as competition for us. I will do my due diligence to ensure we are priced accordingly and update you on the research I have uncovered.

Full Color Feature Sheets – These feature sheets are handed to a potential buyer viewing your house and that they have something to take home with them. In case they did not put in an Offer the day they viewed it, these Feature Sheets are viewed as post marketing material that will aid the potential buyer in changing their minds. Here is an example of how this listing’s Feature Sheet looks like. Visit XPX.ca/Feature.pdf

Public Open House – Self-explanatory here, depending on the package you choose, you can get weekly Open Houses to help the exposure of your home. Stats report that 8% of homes sold are via Open Houses.

Open House Ads Via Google – This works a lot like the Google Ad campaigns as mentioned above. Because it only takes me 3 minutes to get at the top of a Google search result, this is viewed as “real-time”. For example, depending on your package you can have an Open House Google Ad Campaign going for as long as 3 days prior to the open house. If your open house is on a Sunday, then from Thursday and on, whenever anybody types in(we’ll use the above listing as an example) “Brampton real estate” “homes for sale in Brampton” or “Open houses in Brampton” etc. They will see an ad just like the image below which will lead them to your home for sale and the details of the open house.

VIP Section (Exclusive to VIP Packages)

XPX.ca Property of the Week Ads – Your property will be on the front page of XPX.ca as the “Featured Property of the Week”. XPX.ca receives more than 2,000 unique visitors coming to the home page and has a Google Page Rank of 4!

A quick 101 on Unique Visitors and Google Page Ranks: Unique visitors are viewers who are new to the site. If the viewer comes to XPX.ca 6 times in one day, that is still only considered to be only 1 Unique Visitor(or 6 visits or hits). Beware of sites that advertise hits or visitors, as this is not the same!

Google Page Rank of 4: if you have a Google Toolbar on your internet browser, when you go to a webpage you will see a green meter that is ranked from 1-10(you may have to turn this feature on). A 10 is virtually impossible to get and it is very rare to see a Realtors’ website to be over a 3. Google ranks websites accordingly if they “like them”. The greater the number is the more important they view your website.

Local Newpaper Ads – Local ads with your listing will be advertised in the weekend edition of your local newspaper on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. Eg. Mississauga News, Brampton Guardian etc.

Home Staging – A professional home stager will come and produce an assessed report of your home at no charge. After receiving the report, you have the option of doing the project on your own or to hire them on to finish the job. Some properties need furniture, bath towels, new lighting that can be rented out to help stage your home. Home staging is viewed as “turning your house into a hotel”. De-personalize and de-clutter. Dressing up your home and “staging” it properly can increase the value of your home, will help sell your property for top dollar and in a timely fashion!

Maid Service – A professional Maid Service Company will come and clean your house from top to bottom at no charge.

Full Appraisal – A professional Appraiser will come and assess the true value of your home.

Open House Invitation Mailers – 200-300 Open house invitation post cards will be mailed out in your neighborhood a week prior to your open house.

Agent Open House – A Wine & Cheese Agent Open House will be launched to help draw in Realtors who will be aware of your home for sale. This is a great opportunity for Realtors to go back to the office, talk to their potential buyers and tell them about your home for sale.

Just Listed Mailers – 350-500 8x5 flyers are mailed out in your neighborhood for additional exposure.

Floor Plans – This is great additional post marketing material for a potential buyer to take with them along with the Colored Feature Sheets.

Carpet Cleaning – Complimentary steamed Carpet Cleaning Service for all rooms in your home with broadloom.

Window Cleaning – Complimentary Window Cleaning Service.

Sterling’s Client List – I will personally send out an e-mail notification that your listing is up for sale to everyone in my data base.

BRS Contact List – In a Realtor’s back door, there is an online service where Realtors register their qualified buyers. The buyers contact info is not released but their agent’s names are. It shows the approximate location the buyers are looking for and the price range they are qualified for. I will contact these agents who have potential buyers that qualify to purchase your home. These Realtors will always like to know that we are offering more than 3% commission as part of the VIP Package.

Standard Features

All Packages include:

• “What’s Cooking” an internal newsletter emailed daily to all Re/Max Realty Specialists Inc. Agents. (5 offices and over 450 agents) All new listings get notified as well as your open houses.
• You're Listing and Open houses will be advertised on all Re/Max Realty Specialists Inc. Agent websites. (Over 300 agent websites active)
• Listing Feature Sheets, not to be confused with the Colored Featured Sheets.
• Mortgage Feature Sheets--A mortgage breakdown on what the monthly payments would be if a buyer were to purchase your home, income needed to afford your home etc.
• Full Color Lawn Sign.
• Lock Box, for easy showings.