1. POOL. Contrary to popular belief, installing a pool limits your buyer pool. Not everyone finds pools a benefit; in fact, they can sometimes be seen a liabilities. Buyers automatically start calculating the cost of upkeep: maintenance on equipment, increase in electricity and heating bills, and lastly repairs.

If it so happen you find a buyer that values a pool it does add a bit of value; however, it’s not as valuable as you think because of “adverse selection” ( remember the theory from Economics class? lol). Simply, buyers will value the pool less because there is an inherent risk that the pool was not properly installed or maintained.

2. No garage, small garage, or messy garage. A garage is valued as a “Room.” So have having a 3 bedroom with no garage is perceived as a 2 bedroom; in most cases. Where garages are nominally considered are condos, town homes, or highrise living.

A messy garage is almost as bad as no garage. If your sellers are using the garage as storage, buyers can’t get  a sense of the “space” and all they see is junk. One solution is to have the sellers place their items in an off site storage facility.

3. Poor maintenance.If you have weeds growing out of the front lawn or have paint pealing off the walls, it’s time to rollup your sleeves and get to work. People will subtract the cost or not make an offer on the house. And if people think the house hasn’t been taken care of, they will wonder what else they’re not seeing.

In general, “specialists” are rewarded more so than “generalists.” Following my cake analogy theme, let’s say you where shopping for your Wedding Cake. Would you go to the supermarket baker? What’s wrong with that? They bake a lot of cakes and they know how to do it all; afterall, they make a killer Spider Man cake for your nephew’s birthday!

The supermarket baker is a generalist. He/she knows how to make cakes; but what you need is a “cake boss” who specializes in Wedding Cakes, right? Now think of how much a baker vs a wedding cake decorator charges? There’s a a clear price and quality difference.

Real estate is very similar. You can be a generalist: you know all markets, multi-million dollar listing and fixer-uppers, all transaction types, investments, flipping, long-term, short-term, short-sale, REO, online, offline… you get the picture. OR, you can be specialist, niche. Someone who is exclusively selling homes in West LA catering to executive level clients looking to buy homes in the $800k-$1.2M range.

If less is more then niche is Big!

I hope this helps!

PS: Many of our Turn-Key Flyer customer boutique agents who specialize in highly targeted market segments. To market themselves as a “specialist” they use our “Around the Neighborhood” brochure flyer and the “Homes Near You Specialist Flyer.” It’s a great idea to make these in addition to your regular listing or open house flyer. It gives buyers/sellers a sense that you really do know the area. The templates you see below are free bonuse flyer we offer to the customer who purchase Turn-Key Flyer Templates, an easy fill-in-the-blank PDF Flyer Templates for the graphically challenged Realtor.  Examples are below (Bigger images here):

Recommend Homes Flyers

Area Specialist Real Estate Flyers

**Please note, this flyer is not for sale. The template is part of our customer appreciation bonus templates. Customer of Turn-Key Flyers receive free flyer templates throughout the year as bonus gifts. This flyer is part of that package and only available to current customers. Please visit http://www.TurnKeyFlyers.com for product details.

Recommend Homes Flyers

**Please note, this flyer is not for sale. The template is part of our customer appreciation bonus templates. Customer of Turn-Key Flyers receive free flyer templates throughout the year as bonus gifts. This flyer is part of that package and only available to current customers. Please visit http://www.TurnKeyFlyers.com for product details.

Area Specialist Real Estate Flyers

What you’ll need:

• Microsoft Word (Any version will do. I’m using MS Word 2011)
• You’re contact information
• Photo (optional)

Total time: 10 minutes

Here’s is what we’re trying to create. This is a sample letter head I made for my company:

Okay, now on to the tutorial:

The first step is to open a new Blank Document in Word. Now, access the “Header” section. Either double-click the top portion of the doc or select Insert > Header. (Be careful here, Word tries to force you into their ugly template layouts. Just choose the text header. You’ll get 3 [TEXT] fields just select them and hit delete or backspace to eliminate them). This is what it should look like when you’re in the Header access area:

Next step is to add your contact information. The secret to making the text align in a cool way is by using “Cells.” So insert a 2 column cell (side by side). Either use the Table tab or go to Insert > Table (Cells).

Now that you have your 2×1 cell. It’s time to get creative. First add your name in Cell 1. Then your contact info in cell 2.

Now that you have the structure and content, it’s time to start adding some flavor and style. Play around with font and size.

I prefer a more clean look so I’ve used Ariel Font and varied the sizes. The business info area, I’m using a 7 point font. Size is a matter of preference; but 7pt for the details is common. What we have do now is “clear” the cell border so the header looks clean. To do so simply select the two cells and go to the cell formatting tab and choose “No Border.”

After adding a dab of color here’s what my letter-head looks like:

But, I still want to add just one more detail. So I’ll add a spacer between my name and company info. I select my Company information then go back to the cell formatting and choose border LEFT. Now I have a space detail that really makes my header pop.

At this point you’re done! Simply exit out of header edit mode and you’re got yourself a sleek, clean, and modern letter head. BUT, let’s say you want to add a photo or logo!

All you have do is Add an Image or Photo. Got do Insert > Photo > Photo from File. Find your logo or photo and select it.

This is where is get slightly tricky. Try to arrange your photo in the place where you’d like it to go. Play around with a few of the Photo settings to get the right fit.

Once you’ve got it in place, your header should looks something like this:

One final step: SAVE YOUR WORK! Here’s a quick tip, save the file as a Doc/Docx AND a Word Template .DOTX

Now YOU ARE DONE! And ready to send out self branded letters to your clients.

If you’d rather not hassle with creating the entire header from scratch, you can download my pre-formatted Word Template file for free. Click here to go to the download page: TurnKeyFlyer Clean Letter-Head Template DOC

I hope this helps!

Reuben

The Template Master

If the postcards are half-sheets why bother cramming all your info into that little space? Why not simply take your flyer fold it in half, throw an address lable and a stamp, then tape the fold closed, and send it through the mail?

Direct mailing of postcards and estate flyers are one of the easiest techniques to bring attention to an agent, Open House, or New Listing. Though some agents do not think it is a worthwhile work, making use of flyers in a direct mailing campaign can be very productive.

Being a bit savvy and creative can save you TONS of money and give you an edge over the competition. Try it on your next campaign. Create a Listing Flyer or Open House Flyer, then fold it in half and send it as a post card!

Not everyone is convinced about these fancy QR widgets, myself included, but they are growing in popularity so we’ve added them to all our templates. If you’re not a big fan fo the QR there is a simple way of removing it. Here’s what you’ll need and how do it:

What you need:

QR Delete Image File — This is a simple transparent image that is specifically designed to make the QR Code disappear. The file was included in your TurnKeyFlyers.com Top Producer Package; but if you misplaced it, you can redownload it here: Blank_Image_(Use this to erase photos).gif

(**NOTE** please make sure to save this file onto your desktop. This will make finding it easy)

How to:

1. Go to the QR code section of your flyer and “click” the QR image with your mouse.
2. You’ll be asked to find an new image file to replace it with. Simply find the Blank_Image_Use-this-to-erase-photos.gif file you’ve saved onto your desktop and select it.
3. Taada! You’re done!

Pretty simple eh?

The QR code section is a simple image box. You can actually replace it with a wide variety of other images if you’d like. The most common is replacing the QR with a company logo.

I hope you find this helpful.

If you have any questions please feel free to comment.

Original QR Enabled Real Estate Flyer Template

Deleted QR

QR Replaced with a Company Logo (Original Logo is deleted)

Simply use your target Keyword in your website links on your profile page!

Here is a step by step on how to do it:

Phase 1: Go into your “Website” links and choose the edit. 9/10 your website label is probably called “Company” or “Personal,” change this to “Other.”

Phase 2: Next you’ll see a text field appear. Simply type in your Keyword there followed by your URL link.

Phase 3: Save and enjoy the new SEO pump!

Most people don’t realize that the Keyword is hyperlinked to the URL. This creates a link to your site from the high PageRanked LinkedIn; thus, adding a bit of jet-fuel to your SEO!

For example, my target keyword is Real Estate Flyers and Real Estate Flyer Templates. I simply labeled each keyword to my website http://www.TurnKeyFlyers.com and the other to my Facebook Fan Page http://www.facebook.com/turnkeyflyers . Literally within 24 hours I went from floating around the 4–5 in Google to a solid #1!

I hope this helps! If you have any other simple SEO tricks please share them in the comments below!

PS: If you’d like to learn more marketing and SEO insights or simply would like to read a few of my articles and posts, I’ve compiled a collection of my greatest articles into a free marketing ebook. You can download it totally free here: Real Estate Marketing eBook by Reuben Fine @ TurnKeyFlyers.com

It is important for home sellers to remember to put something in the buyer’s hands. Its hard to put a house in their hands though. But it is very easy to highlight the best features of a home onto a convenient  real estate flyer. However, flyers aren’t a place for a “data-dump” but rather a reminder of the best attributes of a home.

Home buyers are in the process of making the biggest, most expensive purchase of their lives. They are looking for specific features in a home, a dream or starter home. It is critical for the sellers to use real estate flyers to tell the buyers about the property when they leave.

The real estate flyers should have several components. One of the most important features of a successful real estate flyer are pictures. Most buyers are not going to consider purchasing a home if they can’t see what it looks like. Even if a home is listed with all the features they are looking for in a home, if there are no pictures to back those statements up, a buyer will likely ignore the listing. There are some essential pictures that should be included:

• Front of the house
• Master Bedroom
• Kitchen
• Living Room

The better the pictures look, the better the flyer will look. The buyer wants to know what the home they will be living in looks like and the pictures should show them.

Now that the pictures have been selected, sellers should also list important features of the home on the real estate flyer. At the very least, a home owner should list:

• Price
• Square Footage
• # Bedroom & Bathrooms
• Any upgraded features

A lot of home owners have features in their homes that are not standard. These things should also be listed, if not pictured on the flyer. The fact that a home has a Jacuzzi tub, gardens on the property or a roof top deck could be the deciding feature between similarly priced homes.

When those things are on the flyer, it gives the buyer time to weigh the features of the home against their want list. If a buyer is truly interested in the property, it will give the seller time to speak with serious buyers. When homeowners are honest upfront about the home, buyers appreciate them for not wasting their time on a home that doesn’t meet their needs or budget.

Talking about the neighborhood is also very important. There are certain buyers that will only purchase a home in a certain neighborhood. If there are special events, specific school districts or spacious yards, the buyer will want to know about these positive aspects of the neighborhood. Even in a neighborhood that is less than desirable, there is always something positive to list. Buyers should always know where they may live.

Successful real estate flyers always include information about the home. Buyers don’t like to waste more time than necessary when looking for the home of their dreams. By handing out great real estate flyers, home owners are saving themselves the aggravation of dealing with buyers that are not interested in what they have to offer. A great flyer saves both parties time and energy.

(if you’d like to see more real estate flyer examples, click here to see a sample gallery.