Many potential home sellers will consider selling their own home For Sale by Owner (FSBO). If you have the stick-to-it-ness and know-how you definitely should make this a consideration. However, as with any endeavor, it is best to count the cost in time-and-money before leaping in with both feet.
First off, I won’t go into pricing your home and staging your home and how to get it ready to show, we all know your home MUST be competitively priced and be ‘tip-top show ready’ prior to attempting to attract potential buyers, same even if you use a Realtor. …so enough said! The bigger question comes after you have researched your pricing and have your home ready to show; How will you attract potential home buyers?
It is not terribly difficult to sell your own home when the market is moving fast and inventory is snapped up almost as soon as it hits the market. But those days are gone and finding a buyer for your home these days can be much more difficult. Take a moment and step through the following Prezi to identify: Where your potential buyers are and What marketing efforts will actually sell your home.
First click loads Prezi, Nav pages one at a time, or pan / zoom on your own
Marketing your home on your own!
The community needs to know your home is for sale or simply put, you won’t likely be successful. Most FSBO’s do not sell and the reason is; market exposure …so you are going to need to decide upon your advertising strategy, Internet strategy, and Realtor strategy. Why? …because by addressing these effectively you gain exposure to approximately 85% of your potential buyers and that my friends is a good starting point for a successful home selling experience.
Yard Signs, Flyers, Neighbors, Friends and Family
This is by far your cheapest minimal strategy yet you can reach approximately 18% of your potential home buyers.
1) Signs can be purchased locally as well as online. You need one …for sure …they work for drive-buyers. Place a flyer box near your sign so that drive-buyers can take your information home with them, include a main outside photo and contact information.
2) Canvas your neighborhood and distribute your flyer, hand them out at work, place them on bulletin boards where-ever you can (work, grocery stores, etc), and mail some to friends who will help you distribute.
3) Consider using some technology at your yard sign that will give drive-buyers instant access to photos of your homes interior. One means may be to simply place a URL to an online photo page. If you have internet exposure use your sign or sign riders to point drive-buyers to more instant information. …Remember many of them are packing smart phones so exploit this capability.
FSBO Internet Marketing Strategy
1) There are a number of different websites that allow you to place your For-Sale Advertisement on their website for a reasonable fee and there are also a few websites out there that will let you list your home for free. You need to find them and get your home on every single one you can find and keep them updated, why? …the more exposure and advertising impressions you can muster the more showings you will be able schedule and the higher likelihood of success.
2) Consider setting up a single property website using your street address as the domain name. There are websites out there that will facilitate this for you for around $100-$150 for a year. Take lots of good photos and consider using your smart phone for a video. If you are somewhat tech savvy you can get the site set up using the these services with a day or 2 of work. This effort will likely rank your single property web-page on Google for any drive-buyer that later Googles your address.
3) One place where 90-95% of home buyers visit at one time or another is: Google. Your web presence won’t do you much good unless you can drive potential buyers to your home’s for sale information. So strongly consider opening a Google Ad-word account and buy some Pay-per-click advertising on all the major Huntsville keywords like: Huntsville Real Estate, Huntsville Homes for Sale, etc. This will bring you a steady stream of real estate searches to your home’s information.
Partner with local Realtors
I know this may be contrary to your explicit purpose of pursuing For Sale by Owner in the first place but please hear me out. Why? …because to ‘dis’ Realtors in your attempt to sell your home you are virtually eliminating THE major business arena where most home buyers buy their home, moreover there are still ways to save a few bucks and have a semi-working relationship with your community’s local Realtors.
1) Consider paying a finders commission to any agent that can bring you a ‘ready to purchase’ and qualified buyer. This may still save you up to half the standard commission fees for full listing services while opening up your marketing efforts to Realtors working your neighborhood. Why not place a rider on your yard sign that simply says, ‘Realtors Welcome’ indicating that you are willing to pay a buyer finding commission to those Realtors that are already showing your competition’s homes in your neighborhood.
2) If you are willing to pay a finders commission, consider listing your home with a firm that does fixed-rate listings …there are 1 or 2 in Huntsville that implement this strategy. This effort, for a flat-rate fee will advertise your home and its information to all local Realtors (not just drive-bys) and also distribute your home’s information through the local MLS internet syndication network which could dramatically increase your home’s internet exposure.
3) If you do decide to go this route, don’t skimp on this most important avenue of marketing exposure. Pay the going rate of 3% the buyer’s agent! Personally as a business, we never ever skimp on the buyer side where there may be months of relationship building and many hours of home showings across a wide geographical area, all monies out of pocket to the lowly buyer’s agent. So simply skip this part if you don’t understand all of the time and money invested in these clients.
Considering a Fully Qualified Listing Service?
If all this sounds a bit too much to take on, as it does with the majority of home sellers, please don’t hesitate to drop me an email or give me a call 256-425-1659 and let me share details with you regarding ‘the best home selling marketing service‘ in the Huntsville area, bar none, with no obligation whatsoever.
– Elizabeth
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