If you're planning on selling your home in Baja, one of the first things you need to think about is internet curb appeal. According to studies done by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and the Mexican Association of Professional Realtors (AMPI), NAR's Mexican affiliate, over 80% of all completed real estate transactions begin on the internet! If this is true within the United States, imagine how much more so for those purchasing a home in a foreign country.

Buyers of Baja real estate are perfect examples of NAR's research findings as they tend to begin their Baja home searches online, then come down later to look at what they found and liked online. Thus the importance of "internet curb appeal" is born.

So what is internet curb appeal, and how do you achieve it? The idea is simple: a home for sale must be visually pleasing on the internet, or it will be overlooked. This is especially true because of the vast supply of impressive homes for sale here in Baja. As the inventory of beautiful Baja homes for sale continues growing, internet curb appeal becomes more important than ever for achieving results in your selling efforts.

Internet curb appeal consists of two important aspects which are mutually dependent upon each other. If you eliminate either of them, your online home for sale listing may go stale or simply die in today's competitive selling market. The two elements you must have to achieve success are a 360?? virtual tour of your home and a professional photography shooting.

First, get a professional photographer to make a 360?? virtual tour of your home. Why is a virtual tour so important? Today's educated buyers know that you can leave out a lot of information in real estate photos. They don't allow you to see the big picture. With a 360?? virtual tour, you take away that uncertainty and give your potential buyers greater certainty that they will not be wasting their time when they come to visit your home in person.

According to the NAR, 85% of all buyers used virtual tours before spending time looking at properties. This means that only 15% of buyers looked at homes without first viewing a virtual tour. Also, you must consider that within those 15% are those who did not have the technical capability to view the virtual tour and those who viewed homes that did not offer virtual tours.

The other integral component of internet curb appeal is a good collection of professionally-shot real estate photos. If a picture is worth 1,000 words, and your home doesn't look good in the pictures, why would a potential buyer waste his time looking at it in person? Be sure that within this portfolio of photos you have one high impact "cover photo" to put on your listing page. This will be what grabs the attention of the potential buyer, enticing him to look at the rest of your pictures, the description of your home, and finally the virtual tour. Without this eye-catching cover shot, your listing and your home will probably get overlooked, replaced by the next home on the list that does have a captivating cover shot.

Real estate picture taking is a tricky task, so be sure you hire someone who knows what they are doing. There are many lighting issues to deal with, especially through windows or with ocean backdrops. Angles are also very important to make your home look as big and inviting as possible. Only a technically experienced real estate photographer will have the eye to portray your home the way it ought to be seen.

Here in Baja, professional real estate photography is still a very unexplored art. This could have to do with the costs of time and money involved, or it could be that the agents and brokers are not willing to experiment with improving their marketing plans. Either way, don't let this untapped potential escape you as well. Especially in today's slow market, you need every advantage you can get over the competition to get your home sold.

Having a 360?? virtual tour and eye-catching professional pictures will easily get your Baja property for sale viewed more often by more buyers, reviewed more often by the same buyer, and recommended more often by more area agents. This is the benefit of good internet curb appeal. Since most Baja real estate for sale has a collection of horrible online real estate photos and no virtual tours, yours will stand out in front of the rest. Make sure your Baja home for sale does not fail in this category. Request professional real estate photography and virtual tours from your agent, and your home for sale or rent will receive the attention it deserves.

The bottom line is that if your home looks bad online (or simply unimpressive), it will be overlooked; if it looks good, it will sell. It doesn't matter that the property is exactly what they are looking for; it doesn't matter that the description exactly matches the buyer's search criteria. Put forth the effort to make your home look good online, and you can get it sold - not just fast, but maybe even with a full price offer!