In Houston the lions share of buyers are going to find the home they want on www.har.com. That's our local MLS. Here are some examples of "advertising" that I've never seen work. It isn't to suggest it doesn't work in other markets, but I've never had a buyer say...
Greg, If found this home in the local newspaper and I'd like to go see it.
Greg, I found a home in the Homes & Land Magazine & I was wondering if you could tell me more information about it.
Greg, I attended a "Realtor" Open house and was given a list of homes I have some questions on.
Other examples include:
Just Listed post cards, bench advertising, school bus & city bus advertising, neighborhood newsletters.
I've never had a buyer make mention to an Open House they "went" to and say.. they wanted me to show them similar houses in the same neighborhood. Nor has somebody called me about a house they saw listed on Zillow.com.
This isn't to suggest that exposing your home on any of these outlets won't assist with exposure. The more hooks you have out there the better. *So long as you are realistic about expectation.* Most successful Realtors will promote themselves on social media outlets which in turn brings heavy traffic to their website and voila! this is where your listing is also listed!
What about having your home on Craig's list? Some agents have had success selling their listing because a buyer has "found" a home here. I can tell you of all the examples above that this one seems to be the best, with exception to the MLS of course.
Many Realtors have an average to an okay MLS around the country. In Houston we have the Cadillac of all MLS systems. Just compare to other markets. This may be why our MLS has such a commanding presence on the Internet.
HAR.com December 2009 Statistics
1,139,538,797 Hits
48,666,886 Page Views
3,241,304 Visitor Sessions
943,580 Unique Visitors
00:09:21 Average Minutes Spent
29,171,736 Total Visitor Minutes
9,756,558 Times Listings Viewed
10 Homes Viewed Per Visitor
Here's my personal stats on HAR for 2009:
Your listings were viewed 122,523 times on HAR.com
439 email leads were generated by HAR.com and forwarded to you
Your HAR Realtor website was viewed 1,346 times
And that's JUST December. Just wait until the Spring time. The visibility on our MLS is enormous. It's paramount that when you select a Listing Agent that you find one that knows how to market to both Buyer's agents AND Buyers! You need somebody that can take awesome pictures, somebody that uses descriptive words to promote your home.
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