Marketing Your Property

Role Of Marketing In Real Estate

If you want to sell by owner, you will have to take on the role of the marketing department.

Many for Sale by Owners only rely on free listing websites or the MLS to market their property. Depending on the market we are in, this can work in your favor. However, remember your home is now amongst hundreds if not thousands in your market, all trying to do the same thing.

Additional Marketing For Your Property

Additional marketing for the property is a common service for experienced realtors to do. This is where a majority of our time and expenses come in. A few examples are neighborhood mailers (yes they are still a thing in the digital age), advanced web marketing, email blasts and digital marketing on all the social media platforms.

Marketing Your Property As A For Sale By Owner

You should start by deciding an advertising budget and how you would like to use it toward selling your home. There is no magic number when it comes to budgeting and selling your home.

Lets start simple and work our way through some marketing options and you can start to decide in your head what you feel is appropriate to spend on the sale of your For Sale by Owner home.

MLS Only Listing Marketing

This markets your property on the MLS of your local area through a Broker, but still allows you to sell it For Sale by Owner. MLS Only listings are a common and inexpensive way to get seen by the Realtors in your area. You generally pay a small fee or flat fee, and the Broker will list your home on the MLS.

MLS Only Tip

MLS Only listings should have your name, number, and e-mail as the contact information (some MLS systems have different rules, but you should have at least your number). You should also be set up with a showing application that will help you receive and reject REALTORS who have clients to see your home. These showing applications are used only with licensed Realtor/agents.

There are many companies that offer this service which ranges between $199 and $499 for the basic service. Check out  www.RealEstateFlatRateListing.com and click on the coverage by state to help list in your area.

Social Media Marketing

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and many other platforms draw people to them every day for personal and professional reasons. They are good platforms to market your property and be seen by people you know and people you do not know.

Posting on your personal feed will get people to know you are selling, but it will take expanding your network to get your For Sale by Owner home noticed. To do this, you can boost an ad or create an ad. When you boost or create an ad, it will ask you where you want it seen. It will have you choose a city and how far out. Your ads will show up on the social media you are using for people who are registered within that distance. You can narrow down some demographics more, but usually a general radius is best.

Social media marketing allows you to set a daily or total budget for the ad. As you move up and down it will show you an estimated number of daily and total people you could reach.

Website Marketing

Making a website specific for the home is useful when it comes to showing people more than what they can find on the MLS, social media, and flyers. With a For Sale by Owner website, you can add as many pictures as you would like, videos, more descriptions, and it does not fall within the rules of the MLS.

You can get a domain from Godaddy or another web domain seller. These companies usually have easy to build website templates. Basically, they are drag and drop websites and very inexpensive.

You can also get help building one on our site here. We can make a website for you,  just provide the photos, video links and text for $249.

E-Mail Blast Marketing

For Sale by Owners typically do not have the database of emails for real estate professionals and others who may be in the market for a home (if you do, then you are way ahead of the game).

You should still email your flyers out to family, friends and business associates and encourage them to pass it along. You never know.

Open House Marketing

As a Realtor myself I am torn as to whether an open house is worth the time and effort. Many real estate professionals use open houses to collect names, numbers and email of people who are buyers looking, but may not be interested in that specific home they are doing an open house for. Open Houses bring more curiosity from neighbors and window shoppers than actual buyers.

When your house first hits the market, it is not a bad idea to try marketing your property with an open house. If anything, you can ask for feedback from those who come on price and the home itself. Feedback itself can be valuable.

Mailers And Flyers Marketing

This can be an old school method in the world of digital marketing, but it can get the word out. By letting your neighbors know your home is for sale, you could run into someone who loves the neighborhood so much they would pass along the information to friends and family.

Flyers are also good to put up around town at places people gather. Please ask for permission before placing on bulletin boards and other public spaces. You do not want to spend money printing to have it thrown out.

For real estate professionals, e-mail blasts can sometimes be the biggest part of the budget.

Word Of Mouth

Tell everyone you are selling! Word of mouth self-marketing is a tool that will always be useful. You never know who is looking to buy. From your dentist to your dog groomer to your hair stylist. They speak to people all day and are a wealth of information and connected to a whole different network of people. They can be your boots on the ground marketing team.