Info For Sellers

Staging Examples – Before and After

We can either suggest a professional stager or Sheri will virtually stage the home herself.

Aggressively & Persistently Advertising Your Home

Sheri Dettman's exclusive in-house marketing team is unique to desert real estate. They'll work for you in promoting your property, and they embrace all available media to get the message out about your property. Consider that not every Palm Springs area realtor offers equal marketing, services or experience.

Sheri's marketing team will create a distinctive, effective, and results-oriented marketing campaign for your property utilizing our professional marketing and advertising staff, technological resources, and extensive marketing budget. And since today’s homebuyers can come from anywhere, your property will be exposed both locally and globally.

Sheri Dettman & Associates Marketing Channels

• Listing Distribution To 83 Consumer Real Estate Websites: In addition to the MLS, Sheri will distributes your homes listing to the top 83 premier consumer websites in the United States and Canada including Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, HomeFinder.com and RealtyTrac.com.

• Digital Marketing: Digital Marketing is the heart of our online world and includes the creation of our exclusive real estate websites, designed to easily make your property be easily found online. Properties featured on Sheri’s website usually receive 200% to 500% more property views than the major national real estate sites combined during the first 30-days. Your digital marketing will include your exclusive property webpage and your community webpage giving potential buyers an overview of your gated community.

• Featured Property Listings: Your property will be featured on Sheri's Featured Property Webpage and popular Real Estate Blog

• Internet Advertising: Sheri invests in extensive and ongoing Internet advertising campaigns that include Google AdWords, Facebook paid advertising, Bing, and Yahoo. Coverage includes the United States and Canada. Our marketing team includes a dedicated pay-per-click specialist.

• Dedicated Social Media Team: Social media will help to find and engage with your target buyers online. Sheri's social media platform development has created a cohesive presence for marketing your home online and will identify your greatest opportunities for engagement.

• Architectural Photography & Video: Sheri believes that each home deserves award-winning magazine-quality photography. And since over 90% of today's home buyers conduct their home searches online, it's a fact that homes offering the best photos will generate much more interest than homes with average or poor quality images. Beyond investing in the best photography possible, Sheri's marketing team also developed their own exclusive websites to showcase these high-quality images.

• Exclusive Video Tour: A custom video tour featuring your home and your community will be featured on Sheri's Palm Springs area real estate websites, Sheri’s blog, and Sheri’s YouTube channel if appropriate.

• Direct Mail: Your extensive direct mail campaigns will target potential buyers of your property and people interested in your community.

• Property Brochure or Flyer: Print media will be developed for placement within your property.

• Magazine & Newspaper Advertising: Sheri's in-house marketing team has extensively tested magazine and newspaper advertising during the past twelve years. From full page color ads to 1/8 page layouts. They know which media delivers buyer prospects and which media doesn't get results. According to the National Association of Realtors 2018 report, -1% of buyers come from print advertising, making it virtually useless in 2019.

• Additional Proprietary Marketing: Sheri's marketing team also invests in several proprietary marketing and advertising channels that will gain additional exposure for your property. Many of these methods are both unique and exclusive to Sheri Dettman & Associates.

Not Your Average Real Estate Advertising

According to The National Association of Realtors, the average agent invests just $1,500 annually in advertising and marketing. And the top 10% of Realtors nationwide invests just $10,000 annually in marketing. In contrast Sheri Dettman & Associates will invest over $350,000 annually in what Sheri refers to as "Smart Marketing."

So why settle for average when it costs you as a seller nothing more to gain so much more exposure for your property?

8 Questions To Ask An Agent Before Listing Your Property

The days of simply listing a home on the Palm Springs Area MLS® and running ads in the local paper are long gone, or at least they should be. You can use these eight questions to help qualify prospective agents before listing your home for sale.

1. Can You Send Me More Information About You?

You can often get a good idea of which Palm Springs area real estate agents are the most professional by looking at their promotional materials and their real estate websites. If their own materials aren’t professional and stand out, how well are they going to be able to market your home?

Also, be aware of how long each agent takes to respond to your request and how quickly they follow up. If they don’t respond efficiently to your listing requests, imagine how they’ll handle inquiries from potential buyers or other agents.

2. Do You Have A Support Staff Or Assistants?

By employing specialists to handle the details of their business including marketing, advertising, and administration the agent can spend more time servicing your needs, looking for buyers, and being available when you have questions or just want an update.

3. Do You Provide A Written Marketing Plan For Each Listing?

Without a written marketing plan you won’t know how effectively your property is being marketing. A written plan also helps you keep track of any marketing promises that were made.

4. Where Will My Property Be Featured Online?

You’re looking for a professional marketing presentation of each of the agent’s properties and the community where your property is located. Agents who cast a wide net by exposing your property on multiple websites both locally and globally, can expose your property to a wider pool of qualified buyers.

5. How Do I Receive Communication And Feedback?

Today’s top agents provide excellent communication and feedback, keeping you informed at all times of your marketing results and property showings.

6. How Many Active Buyer Clients Are You Currently Working With?

The more active buyer clients your agent and his/her team have, the better. Top agents have a good mix of representing both buyers and sellers. If they don't have a record of finding and selling to buyers, then that agent is likely a listing agent.

7. How Many Transactions Did You Complete In the Last 12 Months?

You're looking for experience in negotiating and closing sales, not just showing a lot of properties. Only 8% of the active agents completed more than 4 transactions in 2023. The average agent in the U.S. only completes twelve transaction per year! It’s hard to stay on top of things professionally if you only work at it just a few times each year.

8. What Types Of Things Separate You From Your Competition?

Agents who are innovative and offer new methods of attracting buyers will measurably outperform agents who rely on outdated methods of the past such as newspaper ads or open houses. Marketing Palm Springs area homes effectively today requires progressive strategies which add value and service for both buyers and sellers and reach the largest pool of qualified buyers possible! Informative real estate blogs social marketing and online video are just three examples of media that today's top agents utilize.

If you find an agent that meets all of these qualifications, consider yourself being served by a true real estate professional. Your home will be marketed to the largest possible audience and allow you to get the highest price for your home!

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5 Tips To Maximize Your Homes Sale Price & Sell Faster

by Sheri Dettman, Realtor

Would you like to sell your home faster and for more money? Hopefully your answer is yes, and in that case you’ll want to follow this time proved strategy. We call it getting ready to move! The National Association of Realtors reports that a staged home sells 50% faster and for 17% more money then unstaged. While hiring a home stager is an option, you can stage your home yourself very effectively by following the five key steps below. These tips can also improve your upcoming magazine quality photography and/or professional video shoot of your home.

1. Disassociate Yourself With Your Home

When you list your La Quinta or Palm Springs area home for sale, people will begin looking at your home, and they’ll be comparing it to other homes they also want to visit.

To each of these prospective buyers your home is now a product.  Say to Yourself: “I’m selling and moving so this is not my home it’s a product to be sold much like a color TV on display at Costco.

Decide to let go of your emotional attachments to the house because someone else will buy it, and you’ll be moving soon. Picture yourself moving into your new home and saying goodbye to every room.

2. De-personalize

Hide everything—family photos, awards, trophies, your collection of antique teacups—that might interfere with a buyer feeling like your home could be theirs. People get distracted when they’re surrounded by someone else’s personal stuff. Make your bathroom look like a hotel’s; no one wants to see your soggy loofah and half used bar of soap. Put all your beauty products in a shower caddy that can easily be stowed under the sink before a showing.

3. De-clutter

Clutter can lower a home's sale price and can make a home sell slower! Since you want to move now, it’s a great time to start packing! Most people have too much stuff, whether its tchotchke or paperwork or furniture. The goal is to create a sense of space in a room—and in all of your closets. Fight the urge to shove all your stuff in your closets, since many prospective buyers open every last one and love to examine nooks and crannies. An organized closet can send the message that, as an owner, you’re a person who doesn’t slack on any aspect of maintaining your home...

4. Clean and Freshen

No one wants to walk into a dirty house. Bathrooms and kitchens, in particular, should be sparkling. Pay attention to hidden corners like the nook behind a toilet or the inside of your refrigerator. You never know where people are going to look. Since only about a third of Americans live with pets, be sure you’re not alienating the other two thirds of the population. Remove all traces (leashes, litter boxes, dog beds, pet food bowls) of animals.

And since outdoor living is so popular here in the desert, be sure to make your patio, outdoor furniture and barbecue area appear ‘entertainment-ready.’ Adding a color bowl or two full of seasonal annuals is an easy and inexpensive way to brighten up your patio, as well.

5. Lighten and Brighten

You want to have as much light as possible filtering through your home. Start by cleaning the windows. Prior to a showing or open house, make sure your shades are open. Check to see if all your bulbs are working, and replace low-watt bulbs with high-watt ones to maximize brightness.

Bonus Tip: A Pre-Listing Home Inspection Can Add Value

After accepting an offer for your home we will open an escrow account, and during escrow most buyers will order a home inspection. You can avoid any potential surprises during escrow by having a pre-listing inspection completed by a qualified home inspector.

Taking care of any needed repairs before your home is listed and before opening escrow removes a potential roadblock that buyers could use to re-open negotiations by asking for concessions during their due diligence period.

Sheri Dettman & Associates suggests that your investment in a pre-listing inspection could prove to be of significant value prior to receiving an offer and opening escrow.

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