But truly this is just the beginning of my concern. The term ‘marketing' is used generally to refer to the activities of making a product visible to a market. Whether it's widgets or wigs, pumpkins or property, the concept remains the same-in a free market system, the greater the exposure, the more likely a true value will be determined by a public acting of its own free will, given access to comparable information about the specific products and available competing ones. Note that ultimately the value of a product or property is determined by what a buyer is willing to pay for it. The larger the potential market, the greater the need for a diversity of marketing channels to ensure that exposure is maximized. And here's where the limited-service model loses traction: just adding a property to a list is not, by definition, marketing.

Even if all the property data has been input correctly, enabling comparison to competing properties, and assuming there is at least one photo of the property, the reality is that a multiple listing service is just that: an ever-evolving, growing list. It is a set of data regarding the particulars of properties within a market. Granted, the Internet has made it possible to distribute those lists to a wider audience, but this assumes again that all the information has been input correctly, that there are multiple, useful and appealing photos, and that a modestly competent copywriter has taken the time to write some decent lines about the property so that the average prospective buyer might be at least compelled to take a look. My experience says otherwise.

I was introduced to a property three weeks ago by my partner when he recommended I take a look at "this awesome piece of real estate." On the way back from another appointment, I stopped by to see what he was talking about and was fortunate to find the sellers home. They gave me a tour of their beautiful grounds and the spacious, if somewhat dated, home. The property was to die for. The home needed some attention to bring it up to current decorating standards, but the primary issues were flooring and paint which are easy fixes. The sellers acknowledged they had been banking on the appeal of the property and were slowly realizing that our current market is not the ‘run and gun' model many sellers have come to expect from the past few years.

When I got back to the office, I pulled up the listing and was surprised to find that the home had been listed originally for 27 days with a single photo-shot from 1/2 an acre away-slightly blurry and not at all descriptive of the park-like grounds. When the property was canceled and relisted with the same blurry photos, the sellers gave me a call to ask if I would be willing to meet with them to discuss taking their listing. We set a time to meet, and I began assembling a customized listing presentation book, specific to his situation and property. The morning we were to meet, he left a voice message saying he wanted to postpone as they had decided, after receiving feedback from a few folks, to replace the vintage red shag carpets and needed some time to get that done. We rescheduled for the following week.

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