Whether your luxury home is in Kirkland, Bellevue, or downtown Seattle, selling a luxury home in this market is a tough proposition. You have to be 100% sure you use an agent who knows how to market a luxury home. Not only in a normal market, but especially in a down market. I’m writing this blog as I live in Kirkland. There are at least four Luxury Homes on my block that have been sitting on the market for the past eight months. The amazing thing is the listing agents are not doing hardly any marketing to help get the homes sold.

I don’t mean to put these realtors down, but even in a normal market, you have to put some dollars towards marketing the home. It’s no different than any business selling a product. If you don’t market to buyers, you won’t have anyone coming in the door. The realtor listing a brand new $1.8 million home right next to my house has not had one single open house. The house isn’t even listed in Luxury Homes magazine, Wall Street Journal, or anywhere else. When deciding to list your luxury home on the market with a realtor, you need to at least ask the agent how they will market the house. It’s best to even get it in writing.

Here’s how a Luxury Home needs to be marketed:
- A big marketing SPLASH the first day the house goes on the market. Open House, Brokers Open, newspaper ad, etc.,
- A luxury home should have numerous brokers opens the first few days the house is on the market.
- I would hold an Open House the first weekend where I would send out special invites to those in the area with household incomes exceeding $250,000 per year. I would have a digital presentation of the community, including the schools, shops, restaurants, etc., in the area. I would make it a special event.
- I would hold Open Houses a minimum of every other week for the first three months. Open House will at a minimum draw more attention to the house. Most agents view them as too much work and boring. But, they work.
- I would send hand addressed direct mail to the residents around the house to let them know it’s for sale and if they know of a buyer, please send them to the next Open House. Offer a little incentive to find a buyer. (something within the law).
- Run newspaper ads to attract attention to the house. If it’s a special, or historic house, offer to write an article about the house and have it published in the newspaper. Or, better yet, get it on the news. Maybe it’s the most expensive or largest house in the neighborhood.
- Keep consistent marketing going throughout the time the house is on the market and until it sells. If no one knows it’s for sale, no one’s going to buy it.

It’s frustrating seeing realtors who list homes, especially luxury homes and then they move on to the next listing without putting hard work into selling the listings they have. You can avoid a lot of these problems by making sure you list with a hard working realtor in the first place.