Did you hear the latest about Trulia.com? Hat tip to the Sellsius blog for pointing out the Craigslist ad Trulia recently posted, looking for a “rockstar” salesperson to get ads from Fortune 500 companies.
The reason this is so fascinating should be obvious, but in case it isn’t: Trulia.com exists as a site for real estate listings, viewable directly by consumers, even the ones who are searching without agent representation. Homes posted on Trulia, though, compete with advertising for all kinds of other things—apparently sometime soon, they’ll be competing with products of Fortune 500 companies.
BUT, after all, the way Trulia makes its money is through advertising, so this only makes sense, right?
It’s a simple choice, really: 1) Invest in advertising on a site with only homes for sale, such as BuyOwner.com or another real estate marketing service, OR 2) put your property up somewhere where it will compete with the site’s actual income-producers. Which makes more sense to you?
After calling Buy Owner and having a Buy Owner marketing professional work with me to develop an advertising plan that I was happy with, my ad went live almost immediately. My rep sent some information into the office, and the written description went online within a few hours. Then they scheduled my photographer to come out and shoot pictures and virtual tours.
I’d say within the first week, I received the first call from an interested buyer, but this was in a very different market. To be honest, that first property, I sold within a month of buying my BuyOwner.com ad. The buyer found the ad online at BuyOwner.com, liked what she saw and called me. She came out to see it, made me an offer, and things just were that simple!
Over the intervening years, I’ve sold and bought a few other properties, which weren’t always as fast and easy. I currently have a home listed that’s been advertised for six months. I know that when the right buyer comes along, I’ll be ready: I have my home showcased with incredible photos and text, 360 degree virtual tours and lists of schools and nearby attractions. The interior is in showcase shape, everything looks gorgeous.
Thing is, it’s a tough market! Now, it makes sense to cut costs everywhere you can. That’s why I use BuyOwner.com!
As part two in my series on using BuyOwner.com, I’m going to tell you about the in-house meeting with a Buy Owner marketing professional. After I’d called the 1-800 number and scheduled an appointment, my sales rep came out to my home on a weekday afternoon. (He’s the same rep I ended up using each time in Illinois because I liked him, and I worked with another rep in Florida.)
For the sake of explanation, I’ll just relay the first meeting I had with my rep. He brought in a variety of materials to show me how the BuyOwner.com advertising works. We went online together, and he showed me the different sizes of ads, the professional photography and how the listings are placed in search results. He explained that I would be paying for advertising with Buy Owner, not an agent. When I found a buyer, there would be no commissions owed. All his statistics and figures had me sold immediately. As a former real estate professional, I was only too aware of how much money I’d be saving.
Essentially, everything I wanted was up to me. I chose one of the nicest ad packages, so that my property would show up first when people searched for my city and so that I’d get a lot of photos and virtual tours.
When I tell people about my experiences with BuyOwner.com, which I usually do whenever the topics of real estate or investing or buying/selling houses come up, they often ask me one thing: Jane, they say to me, how does Buy Owner work?
In an effort to answer that question here, I’m going to present a series of posts, each one explaining how BuyOwner.com helped me buy and sell properties. Think of it as a step-by-step guide to selling your home on your own.
Today, part one: Calling Buy Owner.
Using Buy Owner begins with a simple phone call to 1-800-771-7777. I guess you could also say using Buy Owner begins with a visit to their Web site: http://www.buyowner.com, as that will answer some preliminary questions you may have and will also provide links to testimonials of previous customers (you won’t see me in the videos, but I wouldn’t mind being interviewed, if you’re listening, Buy Owner!). At the site, you can also watch an info video that explains things.
So what can you expect when you call Buy Owner?
The person I spoke with was very friendly and easy to talk with. She asked me for some information about the property I wanted to sell: where it was, why I was selling, etc. Just got some background information basically. Then, working with my schedule, she set up an appointment for a Buy Owner sales rep to come to my house.
More to come in Part Two: The In-House Meeting.
Hat tip to Mike at the FSBO Blog for pointing out a recent Atlanta Business Chronicle article.
The article points out the record numbers drawn by Google and YouTube, as more and more people watch online videos. Here are some of the facts:
* 77% of American Internet users watch online video.
* October 2008 versus October 2007 saw an increase of 45% in online video viewers.
Taking these things into consideration, it just makes sense to include video in your online real estate advertising. That’s one of the things I love about BuyOwner.com—professional photographers came out to my home and created gorgeous virtual tours of the rooms in my house, and potential buyers could view those videos (complete with voice-over descriptions) anytime they wanted to online.
This recent article I caught in Forbes gives some pros and cons of selling FSBO, as well as examines the results from a Stanford study on the topic.
“A study last year by Stanford University analyzed housing transactions on its campus over 26 years. It found that using a broker did not significantly affect either the average initial asking price or the average selling price of a home in the sample - indicating that brokers did not ‘pay for themselves by obtaining prices high enough to offset their commissions.’”
The article goes on to include the story of a customer who chose Buy Owner, the FSBO help company I’m always raving about here:
“Seidel’s approach was unique, in that his father-in-law is a real estate agent and had access to the Multiple Listing Service. He paid a 1 percent commission to BuyOwner.com, which provided an online listing and connected him with a title company.
Seidel showed the house just one weekend, and in the end saved about $17,000 off the standard agent’s commission. He also learned a key lesson in sales - remove emotions from the process.”
Read the rest here.
