Some time back, I traveled to Florida to attend specialized training in marketing, selling and assisting with the purchase of luxury homes.

Offered by the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing, the training that is required to receive the Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist designation covers a variety of topics related to buying and selling high-end properties.

I was trained to understand the intricacies of the luxury home market — which is still quite healthy, by the way — and how the luxury market differs from other market tiers. We talked about pricing and positioning these homes to make them attractive to buyers while still getting a competitive price for sellers. I learned that selling a top-tier home often means thinking outside the box and finding those one or two things that I can do differently from anyone else.

The marketing training was one of the most valuable parts of the CLHMS program. We learned how to build an effective, comprehensive plan for your home that makes use of marketing tools appropriate for these types of properties. For example, because I hold the CLHMS designation, I can list your property in a publication that's distributed nationwide exclusively among buyers in the luxury home market.

Realtors with the CLHMS designation are part of an elite group of real estate professionals who have documented success in the top 10 percent of their markets. To even be eligible for the training, Realtors have to meet stringent top-tier sales requirements. As of this post, I'm one of only a few Realtors in the Roanoke and Smith Mountain Lake markets to hold the designation.

But the CLHMS training doesn't just benefit my upper-tier clients. Learning more about marketing and selling homes as well as serving buyers has made me a more effective Realtor overall. Whether I'm working with the owner of a $2 million waterfront estate or a first-time homebuyer looking at a fixer-upper, this is someone's home — possibly their largest financial asset. The worries and stresses are the same — and so are the hope and excitement. My job is the same, too: To make buying or selling a property the easiest, most streamlined process it can possibly be.  

I'd be happy to answer questions about the CLHMS designation and explain how my expertise in this area will work for you. Contact me at (540) 353-0123 or sonya@sonyadickinson.com. Browse my listings here and like my Facebook page.