Anyone Have Suggestions on How to Market My House "For Sale by Owner"?

How much time do you have? My suggestion is to really hoof it. Take some nice pictures and go to Kinkos and get as many color copies as you can. Put as much data about the house as possible and list some open houses you will do on the nights and weekends. Now take at least a couple hundred of these flyers and put them up in apartment buildings, laundry mats, and any place you can think of that people will see them. You could even sneak them into the house magazines in places that you see them set up outside. Just grab them up and put them inside the magazines. It's a little sneaky. But it will work. They are free and outside in wire racks.

Another thing you could do if you was able to spend a little money... For approx 100 dollars you could get some magnets made for your car with a picture of the house and a for sale sign. There are all kinds of sign shops that would make them for you. Then you are advertising every time you drive.

Another thing you could do is send the flyers to lending brokers. Brokers work for themselves and represent all sorts of lending institutions. They do draw a commission and they only get paid when they get mortgage loans for people. So they should be happy to pass on the flyers when people get pre-approved through them. Of course, they will probably try and send all sorts of realtors your way and they are going to hound you no matter how you do this.

How much is the start charging these days? And of course there is craigslist and backpage.

You could send the open house announcements to the lending brokers and ask them to let their clients know.

Then there is telemarketing. When I sold real estate I would call and ask people if they were considering buying or selling a house any time soon. You would just ask if they are considering buying.

There's a place online called vista print. They do business cards and all kinds of printing cheap. They do magnets cheap too. You could possibly get some small business card magnets with the address on them and put them on peoples cars in apartment buildings and in town home areas.

There is no easy way to be a fisbo. I am sure you already know you need to have the house spotless, have good curb appeal, make some sweet treats and or bake bread on open house days. When you talk to the clients, always refer to it as a home. Realtors call their selling clients houses in order to help them to distance themselves from their house they are selling. But people buying are looking for a home. So you want it to be as inviting and homey as possible.

I can't think of any other ways right now. It's not cheap to market a home. That's why realtors make the money they do.

Suzi

Hi, I'm an investor in the area and one suggestion you could try is to go to Home Depot or Wal-Mart or any place similar and purchase a few 'for sale by owner' signs. Each sign may cost you around $3-$4. The more signs you get the better, but placing 10-15 signs in the area near your house could be sufficient. You can get fsbo directional signs and put them off the main street to point to the direction of your house. Then put about 3 signs in your yard, one facing each direction of traffic, and one in front of your house. You can also buy some red, white, and blue flag streamers to connect from your house to the sign to help draw attention to your house. Typically, the FSBO sites will give your house more exposure, but buying your own signs and placing them is another alternative. Of course, a realtor would give you the most exposure, but then there's a commission as you already know. You could also post your house fsbo on craigslist.org and backpages.com for free. Another option would be to lease your house for a period of time and then give the renter the option to buy anytime during their lease period. The benefit of this option is that you could potentially get more for your house in the next year or two if the housing market improves; right now its a buyer's market, two years from now who knows, maybe it will be better for sellers. If you want to know how to do this effectively I can help you with that. Another option is to just stay in your house for now until the market improves (perhaps you could sell for more if you wait it out, but who knows how long it will take for the market to turn around , some predict 5 years) but reduce your mortgage by 30%. I can refer you to someone that can help you with that as well. Hope this helps.

Just use a realtor. They'll get it sold faster than if you do it on your own, and that may mean one or two less house payments. My brother just sold his house in less than a week with a realtor. You just may have to suck it up and pay the 3% to the realtor.

I have a great agent who is helping me. She will listen to what your needs are. I met her while looking at houses one day...so this is a true referral...not a friend. She is helping us get ready to sell our house & look for one to buy. I've also heard that if your buyer has an agent...they will ask you to pay the commission.

Hope it sells fast!

Her name is Celia Huneycutt ###-###-####

well... being a past RE Agent you know the trick is to get on MLS... but I don't belive it is the only part. FSBO are everywhere now... and buyers are conidering them a lot more. I think the sign idea from Home Depot is a good one. A good web-site for cheap marketing products (signs.. car magnets...etc) is www.VisaPrint.com

I belive the trick is to be totally willing to work with a Buyers Agent and market it as such. That way those with BA don't feel like they can't look becuase that would cut out their agent who they want to use. So that means be prepared to pay the 3%. I would offer a Home Warranty, in that area... that is key. Most of the home warranties if you buy in advance will have signs they can give you as well saying it's covered by a warranty.

Flyers by the house are nice...a 800 number for them to call is even better... you get to track the response and amount of people that are intersted - flyers are tricky to track, practically impossible. Plus people can't leave a message if they want to ask a question. Your chances of finding a buyer from an Open House are stat. slim.. but I still think in this market it is good.. you will most likely get nosey neighbors but use that .. "hey here is your chance to pick your new neighbor - know anybody".

Best things when selling a house... Be HONEST... be priced correctly... and be staged well...be ready for showings at any time... and qualify your buyer ASAP.

I hope this helps... fellow ex-agent and SAHM now :)

Craigslist.com

kansascity.com

pitch.com

Create a simple web page for the house with lots of info and great pictures - then place small ads directing people to the web site. However, it is hard to sell houses these days and you might end up needing to bite the bullet and get your house on MLS.