Marketing Your Home
Two crucial elements of selling a property are the property price and the exposure. FlatFee.com has designed our site to create maximum exposure for your property and to offer you other property marketing ideas that you may want to utilize.
Where should you list your home for sale?
This pie chart represents the total of homes for sale that are listed online. The large 94% yellow portion represents the Multiple Listing Service and the public MLS websites. The MLS is the private network that Realtors use to list homes for sale. Most cities have their own local MLS systems and all Realtors use this resource to locate homes for sale which may be suitable for the buyers they represent. Each local MLS will feed their listings to public MLS websites like Realtor.com, Homefinder.com, Trulia.com, Zillow.com and Google.com so that buyers can search through these listings themselves.
The remaining blue 6% of the chart represents all For Sale by Owner websites on which owner sellers will list their properties for sale. As you can see by the chart, all For Sale by Owner websites combined are only ten percent of all online listings.
With these numbers, it stands to reason that buyers will focus their online search efforts on public MLS websites as they will obviously find more variety and results on these sites.
Are buyers looking online?
According to Realtor.com, the leading real estate public website, at least 84% of buyers search online for homes. It is completely illogical for any home seller not to have a plan for placing their home for sale online and in as many sites as possible.
List your property on the FlatFee.com public website... for free!
You may list your property on our public website yourself. Simply complete the simple listing form, upload your photos, compose a paragraph describing the features of your property and for security….set up a password so that you may make changes at any time to your website listing. Since this website is public it is not required to follow typical MLS rules.
You may include your email address and contact phone numbers. People searching our web page may view your listing and photos, then contact you directly by using your email address or calling you directly. This is unlike the MLS which forbids such items by being seen from the viewing public.
- With placing your listing on this site it will be uploaded to Trulia, Zillow, Homefinder and Google automatically! More benefits for using FlatFee.com for your real estate sale. These public websites give you, the seller, enormous exposure in the real estate market place. Plus, it is free from FlatFee.com
- A Buyer viewing your listing may not be working with a Realtor and you may save all commissions.
- From our website you may compose and print flyers for display on your kitchen countertop for all people viewing your property. You may use them for an outside info tube or as mailbox stuffers around the neighborhood.
What other marketing tools are there?
Yard Signage
One of the least expensive home marketing tools that you absolutely should utilize is a yard sign. Do not, however, use a "For Sale By Owner" sign that you can find at any hardware store. Please look at our “ REALTOR’s Welcome “ signs. The advantages are many.
Open House
One of the favored marketing techniques of traditional Realtors, open houses, are great for agents because they often pick up new clients that way. Most of the visitors who attend open houses are neighbors checking out the house competition or people looking for home decorating ideas. If you would like to host an open house, you can certainly host one on your own. Other interested viewers are those with poor credit scores and no concrete financing tools in the works. You will have to weigh the pro and cons for yourself.
Newspaper Advertising
Newspaper subscription rates have been decreasing dramatically for several years. For selling a house, newspapers have been replaced with online exposure. This means that you should not worry about placing an ad in the newspaper when selling your home. It is expensive, and most often you will only get calls from investors looking for a great deal or people who cannot qualify for a traditional loan. However, some local papers such as the Penny Saver do offer local advertising at fair rates.
Real Estate Magazines
You'll find most of these publications in the supermarket towards the exits. They are created by real estate brokerages and touted as great advertising for sellers. Check with your Network Broker to see if he/she has any promotions working that may help your listing.
Online Advertising
List your property on FlatFee.com at no charge. Your listing will be uploaded to Trulia, Zillow, Homefinders and Google.
Personal Advertising
Place flyers at the grocery stores where accepted. Network with friends, neighbors and co-workers about your listing.
The most important thing you can do to market your property for the least monetary investment is to purchase a Flat Fee MLS listing for $295. Your property will be listed not only on your local MLS, but also on hundreds of MLS public websites across the nation.
