There is a principle in psychology called scarcity -- it's the desire that's in all of us to want something that we can't have.

There are some strategic ways that this principle can be applied to a real estate situation.

That's right I said applied -- you can actually control it..

Often, the illusion of scarcity can be orchestrated and often appears in real estate situations without people even knowing that it's there.

Have you ever heard of a situation where a home was on the market and more than one person was interested in it?

In most cases like this, the house will sell for more than the owners are even asking for the house -- and the buyers feel great about it because they won. Someone else wanted the house, but they got it.

Situations like this are called the auction effect.

To create this powerful situation requires creating an environment where as many buyers as possible are made aware of the property at the same time and under the right circumstances.

As you know now, most of the time when a property is advertised in a traditional way, it's almost impossible to create this kind of environment, because your property is just another property on the market.

You need to be able to reach buyers in a way that you are presented as "new information"...

One of the things I do to create this situation is profiling your house in my MarketWatch database before you even put it on the market.

I started looking for the buyer for your house about 180 days ago and I keep in touch with these buyers through an exclusive bi-weekly report that I send them to keep them up-to-date on all the new houses that come on the market -- and new houses that will be coming on the market soon that they would have no other way of finding out about.

We may be able to find the buyer for your house without ever having to put it "on the market"!

By the way, Scarcity is just one of the six weapons of influence that can be skillfully applied to the marketing of your home.

I'll tell you about the others when we get together...