How would you advertise your house privately?

Bella01

Bella01

I'm a web designer and I've been working on a relatively new website for selling homes privately - Housebroker - http://www.housebroker.com.au

Working on this site has got me thinking, what do people (you) think, in general, about the benefits of buying and selling your homes privately?

Does it work?

I understand that there was a similar thread made about this recently, but my questions a little different.

How many of you would use a site like this to advertise your house privately, or would you use a different style of advertising?

What have you found to be the most effective?


Personally, I've noticed that lately website use in this area has increased... maybe this is mostly due to more people having access to the Internet. Maybe it's simply because more of these websites are readily available to the public now.
Or maybe it's simply because less people read the paper, or trust a hand-painted sign left out on the front lawn of a property for sale?

What do you think?
 
why would someone wanting to sell their house privately not want to put it on the sites that receieve the greatest traffic?

If I were selling I would want to list my property with the major sites.

My two cents
 
Every place in inner-west Sydney that I've seen being sold by the owner has later been given to a RE agent to sell.

I believe it's because they're not getting enough exposure (or setting the price too high). Take a 4 br house in Newtown that I walked past - they were selling it through owner.com.au at some ridiculous price. There was no ad on domain etc, just owner.com.au. Hardly anyone would know it's for sale unless they walked past it or actually went on those private-home-selling websites. Now it's being sold through a REA.

does that make sense?
 
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andrew_de_a said:
If I were selling I would want to list my property with the major sites.
Click to expand...

You mean the major sites like realestate.com.au and domain.com.au? I'm not sure, but as far as I know they only list through agents, and not privately?

Or did you mean other sites...
 
I'm house-hunting and I only really look at realestate.com.au + domain. I think most people would be like that too??
 
tess85 said:
Every place in inner-west Sydney that I've seen being sold by the owner has later been given to a RE agent to sell.

I believe it's because they're not getting enough exposure (or setting the price too high). Take a 4 br house in Newtown that I walked past - they were selling it through owner.com.au at some ridiculous price. There was no ad on domain etc, just owner.com.au. Hardly anyone would know it's for sale unless they walked past it or actually went on those private-home-selling websites. Now it's being sold through a REA.

does that make sense?
Click to expand...
Yeah definitely. That's mostly what I was curious about. Are there many buyers out there that would actively look for other sources (other than the RE agent sites) for privately sold homes?
Or do you think it's possible that the idea of buying a privately sold home is dying out?
I know that some privately sold homes I've seen have gone for a significantly cheaper price than something of the same value through an agent.

But I suppose it depends on the person who is selling...
 
tess85 said:
I'm house-hunting and I only really look at realestate.com.au + domain. I think most people would be like that too??
Click to expand...

Yeah, I find with most people I know it is the same thing. And I suppose in that regard it - selling through an agent might open you up to a larger audience.

However it's probably better in some cases for both the seller and the buy to sell privately as they both (in most situations where the seller isn't really greedy) seem to get a better deal financially out of it.

In some cases it makes the whole buying and selling issue a little cleaner and easier to organise.
 
I just checked it out, I didn't realise that.
However it does cost near-on $700 to list your property... I'd think it would be a little off-putting for most people
 
Bella, have you done a google search and seen how many websites there are that advertise privately?

I think there are already too many.. and low traffic. So why start a new one? If you were somehow able to colaborate all these webpages into one, then you may be onto something.
 
I recently discovered Australian Private Realty. They actually come out to your property and do all the leg work associated with advertising your property, including blurbs, photos, print media design and booking, erecting signs etc Basically all the stuff agents do except they don't charge any commission. Apparently they have been operating successfully since the early 1990's which is a long time considering all the real estate agencies that have come and gone in that time. I find that pedigree pretty impressive.

There are always costs involved in selling your property. So saying that $700 is a lot to spend upfront is simply false economy because you will more than likely spend more than that with agent on advertising alone anyway. Even if you spent $3000 for a good campaign you would still be way ahead under the line by close of business.

But you must commit to doing it full heartedly. Because if you only do a half-arsed, under funded campaign you are setting yourself up for failure before you have even started. It's also absolutely vital to price your property correctly from the start. Selling privately shouldn't be viewed as a cheap-skate option and therefore you need to adequately fund the campaign from the outset. The rewards will be reaped at settlement.

When you are selling privately you can't blame the agent if things are going slower than you imagined so it's important that you mentally prepare for that. It happens to all agents and doesn't reflect on the fact you are selling yourself. Buyers are fickle and it may be just that your buyer, for what ever reason, didn't see your ad right away. So don't give up if things are a little quiet. Serious buyers actively search for property and if you are advertised eventually they will find you. It is exactly the same for agents. Remember no agent will guarantee or even promise to sell you property quickly. Just quicker than an other agent maybe, but how long is that exactly?

That's my 2 cents...
 
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If I was going to sell my house privately (which is actually fairly likely) I'd probably just put it on eBay, the local shop window and on some random private sale site/s, depending on their terms of use. No for sale sign in the front yard, that's asking for people to assume the house is vacant and break into it.

Not many SA listings on domain to make it worth the $700, and the local real estate agents take such phenomenally CRAP photos I swear they knock 20% off the asking price immediately. And then if your house doesn't sell instantly they reduce the price by $5000 every fortnight, which if you're only starting at $80k can drag you down to a pittance very very fast, and I'd be really pissed off at getting less than about $70k for this place.
 
See here for Domain's current special- $499 instead of the normal $699

http://selfservice.domain.com.au/public/products.aspx

Their prices have escalated since I sold my PPOR late last year- it cost me $297 per mth to list, with unlimited pics and complete control over copy. Then again, I'm not sure how long the $499 fee covers you for. Even if it were only for a mth, it's the best money you'll spend in terms of exposure as it's Australia's second largest site (and used by more NSW users than it's rival). Also take the time to put local flyers out, put up a sign and place a few ads in the local rag. This is how I sold my place (there's a long post over at InvestEd about it all) and it was most successful.

If you know an REA who's willing to list for you, but supply your contact details, then I'd be doing this as well.

Best of luck with it all
 
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