Is Craigslist the Right Place to Advertise a Luxury Home Listing?
We noticed not long ago that one of our local area competitors is marketing their real estate listings on Craigslist, including upper-bracket homes.
Advertising listings on Craigslist was a much-promoted strategy for real estate pros back in the mid-1990s and all the way up to late 2013. At that point, Craigslist changed the rules, getting rid of embedded links in property ads. Craigslist lost most of its value to those in the real estate industry almost overnight and things haven't been the same ever since that decision.
Apart from the 2013 decision to take away much of the SEO value that Craigslist once brought to online real estate marketers, there are other reasons to be wary of advertising listings on that site (or responding to Craigslist ads).
Craigslist has acquired a pretty negative reputation over the years, for various reasons. Some Craigslist users have complained about scams and spam. CBS news has reported on incidents of assault, robbery and fraud which targeted Craigslist users. Some consumers just plain consider Craigslist to be bad news.
You'll find a lot of inexpensive manufactured homes/mobile homes offered under "homes for sale" on Craigslist. You'll also see plenty of bottom-priced vacant land parcels for sale, often sold as "hunting land". The few upper-bracket listings you see there are surrounded by ads for pretty mediocre listings.
On Craigslist, there are homes to rent, properties advertised as "rent with option to buy" and timeshare properties. There are also foreclosures, FSBOs, contract-for-deed homes and distressed homes. Again, it's bargain territory on those ad pages, not someplace you'd expect to find a fine vacation home.
I've said it before. In luxury publications, you don't see ads for Rolex or Patek Philippe next to Timex. And you won't find Lamborghini ads next to Hyundai products. This principle is referred to as Luxury Brand Positioning. I am consistently astonished at how many real estate agents and brokers do not understand this simple concept or know how to implement it in their property marketing.
In the past, we've used Craigslist for a few of our lower priced listings. For a listing that's more suited to bargain hunters, or for budget priced properties like vacant land lots, Craiglist may have potential. But for now, until we see major changes in how Craigslist does business, we have suspended real estate advertising on that website.
For advertising luxury homes or homes priced over, say $150,000, I would not recommend Craigslist. Sure it's free marketing. But using Craigslist to showcase a fine home doesn't demonstrate great judgment on the part of the listing agent, in my opinion. It's similar to the questionable practice of advertising upper-bracket property listings in bulk, using a cheap tabloid "shopper" or a throwaway free community newsprint insert.
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