Ads for real estate in your local newspaper can be an effective marketing tool for selling your house. Prospective buyers usually look on the weekends. They will get the newspapers for an area they are interested in, tear out the ads for real estate and drive by any houses that sound like possibilities.
Ads for real estate are a more effective marketing tool for you as a for sale by owner seller than they are for the giant real estate brokerages. That is because the large real estate brokers are really competing with one another. They basically rely on their agents and restricted multiple listings to drive their sales.
In other words, if real estate brokers could all agree to stop these ads, they would, in an attempt to tilt the playing field further in their favor and away from you and other FSBO’s. After all, ads for real estate are like one person, one vote. The major brokerages do not get any leverage when their real estate ad is just like yours and runs in the same place. Placing a weekend ad for real estate in your local newspaper puts you on an equal footing with them. Needless to say, real estate companies do not like it.
Good Ads For Real Estate will have the following:
Location
A brief description of the house (brief, not bland)
Price
Telephone number
FSBO, (if this applies)
The Difference Between BLAND and BRIEF:
BLAND:
YOUR TOWN, 555 Main St. $310,000
Nice 3BR, 1.1BA.. 2.1c.gar.
FSBO (123)456-7890
BRIEF, but definitely not BLAND:
YOUR TOWN 555 Main St. $310,000
Updated Ranch! 3BR, 1.1BA, Eat-in Kit,
1stflr FamRm + Lndry, FinBsmt, 2.1c.gar.
FSBO (123)456-7890
A few extra words can make all of the difference.
REMEMBER, your goal with ads for real estate is to attract prospective buyers who want a house like yours and can actually buy it. Do not overdo the description. No one is going to buy a house without seeing it. The ad’s job is to pique buyer’s interest in order to get them to see it.
NOTE: There is a small difference of opinion about whether to put your actual address in ads for real estate.
PRO: Responses to your ad will be more selective. Only those people who are actually interested in a house like yours in your house’s location will respond. Also, by putting in your address people can drive by and take a look so that when they call they actually want to see it.
CON: If you omit the address, you will be able to prescreen prospects because they will have to phone to find out where the house is. You will also have a great opportunity to “talk up” the great virtues of your house and get them “fired up” about how terrific it is.
Real estate brokers often leave out the address of a house because they want to pick up new buyers just as much as they want to sell one particular house. klimt cairnhill