A Marketing Plan
10417 Holbrook Drive
Potomac, Maryland 20854 · Williamsburg Gardens
A Marketing Plan
Potomac, Maryland 20854 · Williamsburg Gardens
Mike —
We met at an open house. You walked into one I was holding across the street, we got to talking, and a few weeks later we sold Bradmoor Drive together.
That was nine years ago. You called me Friday about the house on Holbrook, so I spent the weekend building this — the plan for selling it, start to finish, with real dates on it.
I also registered 10417HolbrookDr.com for the house — this page is sitting on it now, and on listing day the same address becomes the property site buyers see.
Nothing here is final. Some of it I got from county records and the old listings, and records are wrong as often as they're right. Bring a red pen on Monday.
Section One
Here is what Montgomery County and the Bright MLS archive say about 10417 Holbrook Drive today.
The records contradict each other. These five answers change the pricing and the marketing more than anything else on this page, so let's settle them Monday.
Section Two
A. 10417 Holbrook Drive
The sellers you bought this house from priced it where they wanted it to be, then spent nearly a year finding out where it actually was.
Nearly a full year on the market and 19% under the opening price. You came into this at the end — the second listing, in the spring of 1997 — so you may never have seen the first half of it. Two price cuts, a cancellation, a new company, and a third cut: the market spent eleven months saying the same thing, and it finished $75,000 below where the sellers started. Nobody talked them down. The calendar did.
B. 8706 Bradmoor Drive
I want to be straight about this one: the house sold for $19,000 less than the price it had been carrying since September. I did not find a buyer nobody else could find. What I did was stop the clock — and look at the dates. We listed November 18, adjusted December 2, and were under contract December 4. The adjustment came on day fourteen. That is not a coincidence. It is the commitment directly below this, and it is the same one I am making to you.
On day fourteen we go through the showing count, the agent feedback, and what our competition has done, and we decide together. If it's working, we hold. If it isn't, we move that week. What I will not do is let this house sit while the market repeats itself louder.
Section Three
I am not going to put a number on this page.
I have not been inside your house since it was somebody else's. Until I have — until I know whether that basement is finished, what the kitchen looks like now, and what you have replaced in twenty-eight years — any figure I printed here would be a guess dressed up as an opinion.
Agents quote numbers before they have seen a house for one reason, and it is not to help the seller. A high number wins the listing. Then the house sits, the price comes down in stages, and everyone acts surprised. That is the first chapter in this house’s own record, and it ended with you buying it for $325,000.
Here is what happens instead. Monday you walk me through it. Tuesday I pull every Potomac rambler and every Williamsburg Gardens sale from the last twelve months — what is active, what is under contract, what actually closed — and I adjust each one against your lot, your square footage, your condition, and that basement. By the end of the week you have a written range with the comparable sales attached, and we talk about where inside that range we want to be.
The county assessment is $1,120,733 for 2026, which tells us something and not much: assessments follow the market rather than lead it, and this one is built on old records that call the house "average" condition.
Section Four
You have the guide already. This is the same advice with days attached, sized to what two weeks can realistically accomplish. We may be able to shortcut some of these items, depending on what has already been done. Everything here is judged by one question: does a buyer standing in the room notice it?
Thirty percent of what's on the surfaces, packed and out. Collections and family photographs first — a buyer can't picture themselves in a room that is still visibly someone else's. It's advance packing you were going to do anyway.
Warm neutral through the main level, semi-gloss in the kitchen and baths. Front door and trim get a fresh coat regardless — buyers stand there waiting to get in. Then the small list: door knobs, light fixtures, any faucet that drips.
Shrubs trimmed, beds mulched, driveway clean.
Matched, bright, nothing yellowed or dim. Eight hundred lumens in lamps, eleven hundred in the kitchen and family room. It is the cheapest thing on this entire page and it changes how large the house feels.
Full professional shoot — interiors, exteriors, twilight, and aerial. See the next section for the shot list.
MLS copy, the property site at 10417HolbrookDr.com, the neighbor postcard at the printer, the broker-open invitation, and the social media schedule. All of it finished over the weekend so the listing goes live Monday morning complete, not half-dressed.
Finding the problems on your schedule instead of a buyer's is the difference between fixing something for a few hundred dollars and negotiating it for a few thousand. On a 1984 house it usually pays for itself several times over.
Section Five
Ninety-some percent of buyers meet a house on a screen first. These are the frames we shoot on day eleven — empty here, because we haven't shot them yet, and I would rather show you an honest plan than a picture of a room I've never stood in.
Empty rooms photograph smaller and colder than they live. We stage them digitally after the shoot, at a fraction of what it costs to move furniture in. These are two rooms from a recent Encore Team listing, not Holbrook Drive.
Your rooms are furnished, so we may not need this at all. But if a room empties out during the two weeks — or the basement shows better with it — this is how we handle it. Every virtually staged image is labeled as such when it goes on the MLS.
Section Six
A listing gets one first week. Everything above exists so that this one goes right.
Syndicated within the hour to Zillow, Realtor.com, Redfin, Homes.com and the rest. Full photo set, floor plan, and 10417HolbrookDr.com live at the same moment — not the following week. Going live Monday gives the house a full week of being new before its first open house.
Tuesday is the day agents in this county tour, and lunch is why they stay long enough to actually look. Personal invitations to every agent who has sold in Potomac in the past year. The agents who walk through Tuesday are the ones who bring buyers Sunday.
Signs out at the Falls Road turn. You and I met at one of these — you walked into an open house I was holding and we are still working together nine years later. Open houses still work, and they work best while the house is new.
The conversation I promised above.
We have been collecting Montgomery County buyers for months through our market reports and guides. They hear about your house before it reaches the public sites — occasionally that is the whole sale, and it never costs anything to try.
A just listed postcard mailing will go out to your neighbors. Neighbors are the most motivated marketers you have — they all know someone who has wanted into this neighborhood.
Facebook and Instagram to a Potomac-area audience, boosted through the first weekend, plus the twilight photo and a walkthrough reel. Refreshed with new creative if we're still on the market at day 14.
A written update each week: showings, feedback in the agents' own words, online traffic, and what the competing listings did. No guessing, no chasing me for it.
Printed and mailed the week the sign goes up. Every neighbor on Holbrook is a potential source of the buyer, because the people most likely to move onto this street already know somebody who wants to be here.
Built on the same artwork, once we have your photographs.
Section Seven
Debbie and I have been doing this together a long time. You have met us both.
We fill in every field in the MLS, correctly. It sounds like nothing. It isn't. A buyer searching Potomac for a two-car garage will never see a house whose garage field was left blank — and that error follows the listing to Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com and every site that pulls from Bright. We have watched houses in every price range lose buyers who never knew they existed.
Written testimonials are easy to write. These are past clients on camera, by name. Two of them sold with us, two bought, and the Pizarros did both.
“It sold so fast, and you got us the best possible price. It was more than expected. We are thrilled! I interviewed three other agents and none offered what you did.”
Iris Bograkos“Because of Charlie and Debbie's experience and attention to detail, they made my home sale process smooth from start to finish. They showed me an aggressive and innovative marketing plan.”
Silver Spring seller“I have been in the metro area for the past 18 years and have dealt with many real estate folks. You two are exceptional. Your marketing plan was second to none.”
Montgomery County sellerMonday, 2:00 p.m.
Walk me through the house, answer the five questions, and we'll discuss what your best outcome looks like. If the timing turns out to be wrong for you, we'll say so out loud and I'll still help you think it through.
It's a good house in a great location on a half acre, and it has not been on the market in twenty-eight years. Buyers are going to be glad to see it.
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