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Selling a Home Via Social Media in 72 hours

I just saw a Tweet go by on Twitter from @TyDowning:

Plz RT Let's help our own @TimMoore sell his home in 70 hours via ONLY SoMe!! - http://bit.ly/uf8bk - What a great LIVE case study!!

Taking a look at the Craigslist Listing and subsequent Facebook photos it seems that for a guy who knows Social Media he really hasn't spent a lot of time really trying to figure out how to really get this home sold.

Now I'm not saying that the idea is a bad idea but having thought about this subject for the last seven years and having read countless books on the subject of marketing and then comparing that to what actually happens in the trenches there are some glaring challenges for FSBO's no matter what method of marketing they choose.

Value of their time. On the surface this seems like it might lean in the FSBO's favor. They market a property themselves and save on the commission, however there is a significant discrepency of the actual returnable investment on the time invested.

What do I mean? When I as a real estate agent market your home you are typically getting a large number of people and technologies marketing your home for you. Most FSBO's don't sell because it is virtually impossible to compete with the MLS. Your advertising dollars are worth less then an agents advertising dollars.

What do I mean by that? When you spend money (if you choose to): You buy an ad to advertise your home in the newspaper, or even for that matter taking the time to put your home up on Craigslist, Zillow or other places and you get an inquiry on your home and invariably your home doesn't work for the buyer who inquired, what do you do with that buyer? Ultimately you do nothing with them. There is no opportunity for revenue if you don't have a home that specifically is looking for your home. An agent. Different story: Advertising a listing which 5% of the time may lead to the sale of the listing, ultimately have a marketing vehicle to generate buyers and sellers. Keep in mind that most agents are not making a significant income in the current market, so if you take into consideration the amount of dollars spent by an agent and them compare that to the one home that a FSBO has to sell its easy to see how a FSBO in order to create the enthusiasm necessary to sell his/her home may actually spend more (before a home is sold) then they would have paid an agent (after the home is sold).

How do 80+% of consumers search? They search via sites like REALTOR.com, Major Real Estate Portals. It turns out that the portals with the most homes are from websites that are extensions by membership of the MLS. Craigslist may get the occassional investor or tire kicker, but serious buyers want to be able to bookmark and sort and visit a number of homes to make a decision on one.

Who represents most of the buyers in the marketplace? Well its agents. They are the ones working with clients to put together the list of homes to see, giving their opinions before even going into homes and for all intents and purposes nixing homes where they don't have a way to get paid for their efforts.

FSBO's are simply on the losing end of the marketing equation. No matter how good you are at "Social Networking" the power of the coordinated masses (agents and their clients) will out perform the efforts of the one.

Are there cases where this isn't the case. Of course there are. But this is like pointing out that people win the lottery and suggesting that is a good reason to spend lots of money on lottery tickets. Since we've heard about someone selling successfully FSBO we think we can sell on our own and less then 10% of the time the FSBO sale is successful.

Who watches over the pricing of a FSBO? It's obviously buyer and seller, however in order to get a home sold doesn't the home have to be priced at a bargain price relative to other easier to view properties in the marketplace? So does the seller actually net more?

Anyway enough comments on this prior Tweet.

All the Best,

Glenn Sanford
--
Founder / CEO
BuyerTours Realty LLC
Bellingham Real Estate

Posted by Glenn Sanford on 05/12/2009 04:16 PM

Comments (4)

Selling via Social Media in the Sales Strategies / Tactics Channel

fsbo, twitter

Post is included in group: Marketing Using Craigslist

4 Comments on Selling a Home Via Social Media in 72 hours

MAY

Hi Glenn,

Nicely written. You make good points, except where you blend in selling with social media, that is where there is a misunderstanding exisits. In the social atmosphere (much like at a cocktail party) as soon as someone introduces himseld and begins to try and "sell" you, we all want out of that situation as soon as possible. In the new buying environment, people don’t like to be sold to and will not tolerate it anymore. Anyone who thinks this is a fad or hoping things will simply return to the 'good OLD days', is really missing it.

The more you contribute, socialize, add value to the community (NOT noise and tired old sales and marketing pitches) the more you will become part of the new party.

Just my two cents.

Tim Moore
twitter.com/TimMoore
sayitsocial.com

Tim,

Maybe I'll need to re-read what I wrote however I wasn't talking about Sales (or at least I didn't mean to), I was talking about Marketing other then the ultimate outcome of a Sale. I was really talking about effective marketing along with a couple of contrasts.

First Contrast: Only having one home to sell and the marketing budget (Time, Effort and Real Money) necessary to get one home sold vs an agent who with the same marketing budget directed at the same home has an opportunity to recoup that investment by helping would be buyer's (and in some cases sellers) find a home if the current one that is being marketed doesn't fit what they are looking for. Using the the idea that less then 5% (let's use 5% for simplicity) of consumers buy the home that they specifically inquire on and that 20% of these consumers would be open for help to find a home that means that someone selling their home themselves has 25% of the efficiency with the same dollars spent as real estate agent. Efficient in terms of % of consumers that represent ROI.

Second Contrast: FSBO tend to alienate real estate agents from showing their home by simply being FSBO. Past experience by most agents has proven to them that its harder to manage expectations in the sales process with a FSBO vs a represented seller with clear standardized information in the MLS. This opens up the door for many agents sometimes thousands of agents to match up their buyer's with your home through the MLS. If real estate agents are alienated then you are alienating most of the potential buyers in the marketplace.

This translates into: Higher up front marketing costs and with less demand (fewer prospective buyers) usually settling on a lower price and with fewer buyer's usually over a longer period of time then if it was listed at a competitive price through a competent MLS member agent/REALTOR.

Glenn