Selling property through your own website

Hi everone

Just wondering if anyone has tried selling property directly through the Internet themselves? I don't mean just listing on one of the Private Sales websites, but developing your own website just to sell the property. If so your ideas would be welcome.

We are thinking of:
(1) developing our own website with information and photos of the property. Maybe pages linking to general information about the area, economic prospects etc. This website would be through one of the generic website builing sites, which does not cost a lot. Then just have to register a domain name and organise hosting
(2) driving traffic to this site through a combination of (a) YouTube videos: perhaps one of us having a great time at the property (it is a rural block, so maybe horse-riding, swimming in the dam (though too cold for that at the moment!) etc, another of general scenery, perhaps one of vegetation / fauna features of the block (there is a native quoll population) etc, and (2) blogs.

However, this is just ideas as we have not really used the Internet this way - just used Google to find information we want!

Any feedback from anyone who has done this? Or who is interested in websites and getting traffic to them?

Cheers
Ki
 
with all of the work with links and domain reg, would'nt it just be easier to add it to a currently working site? like you can on "allhomes' in Canberra?
 
how do you intent to generate traffic to the link???

without traffic you have no chance....ever

id stick with whats available now...waste of time otherwise..

most will go to current property websites and search from there rather than go to say google and type in parramatta houses for sale etc......

good luck.
 
Vaguely thinking of doing this but would be in the context of taking out an ad in the Advertiser next weekend or something and having a very short text ad with a URL in it, since you can't put much in the little text ads.
 
Don't see it working unless you have high drive by traffic for people to notice a sign on the property directing them to the website.

Otherwise you can have a whizz bang website, the property is well priced, there are 3 buyers on the market right now willing to buy your house at that price if they knew about it. How would they find out about your website? If I'm looking for a property, I go to rea.com etc - I don't type in the suburb name and 'houses for sale' in google and see what comes up.

You could put a newspaper ad in directing people to the website, but you'll still be cutting down your available buyers market dramatically.
 
I did this years ago (1998) for a friend who wanted to sell her $3m+ macadamia farm near Noosa. She hated REAs with a passion, and absolutely refused to let them get any commission for her sale.

So I did this website and advertised in The Australian in the property display section (not the classifieds). The adverts contained the website url.

Took her 9 weeks to sell.

Price was by negotiation.

I haven't uploaded the photos of the property......but this was a bugbear of mine....she told me she was going to get a professional photographer friend to do the pics and they were hiring a plane for aerials.....when I got the pics they were rubbish taken without polarizing filter and wide angle lens, and lighting and composition of interior shots was cr@p.....

(website is optimized for earlier version of Internet Explorer)
 
Id just pay the rea their com as they will prob get a better price and they are worth their wages.

Obviously only if you use a good agent not a cheap one.
 
Our local agents are both bad and expensive. The good agents aren't local and they're MUCH cheaper. I'm going to try for a private sale with *one* ad in the 'tiser before I hand it to an REA.

Every freakin house in my area has sold in the last 3 months (except the ones over $130k). EVERY one. Its unheard of. Here I was thinking it would be impossible to sell the house and look what's happening?
 
I have only heard of this being done on for the more expensive properties. if you can do it yourself then its pretty cheap - $60-90 should see you set up pretty easily which is about the cost of a single 1/16th page ad in the local.

saying that, the distribution is obviously a lot less which is where the problem comes about.

Personally i think for 2-2.5%, with a meadian price of mid 3's, that REA's are too expensive. $7-8.8k on average is a huge hourly rate at the end of the day. Then $1300-1500 for advertising makes it a $10k average in agents fees.
 
The site down thisaway! allows you to advertise and post your own home , that is i am 80% sure about it.
Have you checked the others or is it exclusivly for realestate agencies.
Because if it is , then there is yet,:D another idea for a buissiness.
you can call it" my home sold.com" :D
 
realestate.com.au is the biggie in SA and you can't post your own. You can on some of the others.

Lots of people have tried to make their own private sale websites but without the backing of the big boys - domain and realestate are both owned by rather huge media companies - they never go anywhere. Yes, there's an opportunity there but you need critical mass. This has come up a few times on this forum.
 
Speaking of setting up tour own webpage for a property, here's a great example: www.batcomp.com.au

The only people who would know about the site are the people who see his crappy makeshift sign in the front yard. Been on the market fir about 5 months, estate sale. All for the sake of saving the 2% rea fee.
 
Hi everyone

Thanks for the comments! I'm not against using a realestate agent, and I agree with the comments that most people searching for a property would go to realestate.com or similar. It's just that there are about 20 or so agents in the small town (about 10,000 people) near the prpoerty (rural property), and despite asking some locals, we don't seem able to determine who may be best to list with - and they don't necessarily work together I'm told! So say 3 prospective buyers arrive in town: they are very likely to end up at the agents that we are not listed with. One big advantage of listing with an agent compared to private sale would be that they can list on realestate.com and also a good agent should be accessible, be able to explain the features of the area etc

Re the comments on how we would get trafiic to the site - if we do consider a website further, thanks for the idea of a short ad in the papers listing the website. I had also thought of YouTube videos (as in my first post), blogs perhaps (though not sure about this), and also access to a Lead generation program. A friend has a program that (somehow) identifies prople searching for certain items on the Internet - this friend actually sells the lists to real estate agents! So this may be useful.
 
realestate.com.au you cant list in unless you are an agent but domain.com.au you can pay for.
I reckon that would be the way to go. Plus some newspaper. There are a lot of other free (or not expensive) websites for listing private sales (owner.com.au - I think, and that sells signs as well to put out the front) I would give all that a go.
If you are not in a hurry what have you got to lose??
 
The only people who would know about the site are the people who see his crappy makeshift sign in the front yard. Been on the market fir about 5 months, estate sale. All for the sake of saving the 2% rea fee.
2%? Good god I wish it was that low. The lowest quote I've got is about 4% and that looks like the one I'm going to end up with. Show me 2% and I'm there!
 
If people want to head the avenue of hosting sites and advertising there own properties i can assist in either hosting a website they want to build or preparing signage for there front yard, etc.

Shoot me a PM
 
2%? Good god I wish it was that low. The lowest quote I've got is about 4% and that looks like the one I'm going to end up with. Show me 2% and I'm there!

I assume REA's will want higher % for lower priced property sales. Same way I pay more % for PM in lower priced area.
 
You might also consider starting a thread, with appropriate heading, on Somersoft about your property.

I sold property late last year this way. The buyer was not a forumite, and had googled his suburb of interest and property for sale. And the Somersoft thread came up in the first five listings.
 
I think this is a great idea, and I actually spoke on an investment tele-seminar about it a few months ago.

Here's the way I see it.

First, you have to ask if REAs are really the most appropriate people to trust such a high value transaction with. Most of them are young and low paid, and they work on commission so they generally represent their own interests well before yours.

Having met a few REAs, I certainly think I could do a better job myself.

Second, your budget here is whatever you'd pay in commissions. So if your commissions are $20k, the question is "Can I sell my house myself for full price for under $20k". Given that most REAs wont manage to sell your house for full price anyway, you need to consider that you'll not only save on commissions BUT get a higher asking price as well. So it can be worth tens of thousands if you can do it.

So, here's what you'd do.

1. Set up a domain, eg www.1smithsteetmelboure.com
2. Work out every single good thing about your house. Here are some examles...
- larger than average bedrooms
- you've used a paint that wont need redoing for 10 years.
- The kitchen drawers are deep enough for saucepans
- You've got room for an extra large fridge.
- You've selected easy to clean tiles in your bathroom
- The storage in your cupboards are deeper than most
- You've got 30 different species of plants in the backyard and they attract beautiful native birds
- Your garage holds a typical sedan with 3metres space behind it
- You can store heaps of things in the ceiling
- Carpet is coated with some special thing that means it wont stain

Go nuts. Every single thing that somebody might like, write it down. Go down into incredible detail. Then...

3. Hire a photographer to photograph every single thing you've listed down. Photograph it with the morning light coming into the bedroom, what it looks like all lit up at night, your family sitting around the living room watching TV etc to get different 'moods' of your house that create a strong 'emotional' connection. eg, sitting around a warm open fire with your family while the rain pours down on the windows outside.

4. Hire a professional copywriter to write about every single thing you've listed down. List every single benefit of every single feature of your house, starting with the big ones first.

5. Get a professional website developer to to put your website up, which will be an opening writeup, list of every single benefit of every feature of your house, and then heaps of photos of each of these in a photos section.

6. Put an ad in your local realestate section of your paper, telling people to go to your website. The ad would need to be properly written to get the correct response.

7. Organise to get multiple people through at one time to get a feeling of competition. Invite them for a viewing at a particular time of day if you feel it will show off your house better. That might mean when the sun is setting, night time or day time.

8. Get a sign made up to sell your house (basically a copy of your newspaper ad) for your front yard. It wouldnt cost that much.

You could do all this for a fraction of what you'd pay in commissions, PLUS you'd be able to make a much stronger case for selling it for your asking price than a REA can do.

There are also some people who can help you get a private listing on realestate.com.au (I believe) and you can post to those websites for selling your own home as well.

If anyone's serious about giving this a crack, let me know because I've wanted to investigate this for a long time.
 
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