Choosing the right marketing plan to sell your home? Two words: Trade Me

This may well be the shortest article I write.

There is actually only one very simple, yet highly effective marketing plan to sell a home in NZ.

It is two words:

Trade Me.

That’s it.

Let me say it again incase you missed it:

Trade Me.

It doesn’t matter if you decide to list with Ray White or Barfoot & Thompson or Harcourts or LJ Hooker or Professionals or Bayleys or any other brand. The fact is that every real estate agent in this country will feature your house on Trade Me’s Property section in the same way. They all have a subscription to upload all their listings as part of a standard monthly subscription.

In addition to every property being marketed by a licensed agent, every property being sold by its owner privately will be on Trade Me. Futher more every property buyer, be they an investor, first-time buyer or traditional buyer will be using Trade Me, setting up favourites, receiving email alerts and using the mobile app. The old argument that there are property buyers who don't use the internet is just that an old and outdated argument!

Trade Me receives over 150,000 unique visitors a day to property listings – that’s far more than there are genuine buyers in NZ on a daily basis. You can be safe in the knowledge that within that total are the prospective buyers of the house you are looking to sell.

That’s it – done. The fact is at $399 it is the only marketing budget you need to spend.

There are in addition to Trade Me a host of other options for advertising property for sale; many of which real estate agents will try and convince you are critical to the sale of your property for this reason or that reason. The fact is you don’t need them. Let me be clear they are not irrelevant, however every one of them will be viewed by people who also use Trade Me and will see your property in all its glory on Trade Me.

My advice is to think of Trade Me as the main meal, everything else is simply fancy trimmings. This analogy does though highlight the other core part of marketing your home, for the main meal is not a main meal unless the ingredients are the most appetising - appetising ingredients like great photography is eye- - catching and mouth-watering.

So there you are just two / four words that are the core to the marketing plan to sell your home - Professional Photography + Trade Me.

Disclosure: Just in case you think this is in some way a piece of paid for advertorial by Trade Me, I can categorically say it is not. I spent 6 years competing with Trade Me when I ran Realestate.co.nz, which is a great site and hugely supported by the industry and loved by consumers, however in the online marketing world of property Trade Me is the King.  I should also point out that I have no financial interest in Trade Me as I do not own shares in the company.

Alistair Helm is founder of Properazzi.co.nz