Seems to be the most effective way!
We have been noticing more and more over the past year or so that almost all of the response we get for our listings comes from buyers viewing our online advertising. We still use print media such as the Vancouver Sun colour ads and the Real Estate Weekly, Homes and Lands, etc (and the Sun does actually get some response) but it is starting to look like these methods of advertising are not worth the paper they are printed on...so in addition to being environmentally unfriendly, they don't seem to get the attention that we would like to see for our sellers' properties.
As most of you know, we are increasingly devoting more and more of our time, energy and money to advertising properties online. Today I received a copy of some information taken from a collention of studies carried out in the past year confirming that this is likely the best way to market a property in order to obtain the highest price in the shortest time. It is clear that just putting a property on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) is not enough!
According to the research done by the California Association of Realtors, 86% of home byers use the internet to look for a home before they contact a realtor to help them and before they purchase a home. The Association predicts that online advertising will become the number one way of selling a home in the near future. The Association retained comScore to look into this issue further. comScore analyzed results from over 1500 internet users who planned to be involved in a property transaction within the next 6 months and over 700 other internet users. The study determined that there are 67 million people actively engaged in real estate activities online; the typical online real estate consumer is 45 years old; and half of all online real estate consumers are between 35-54 years old. In addition, 72% of the online users currently own real estate. Almost one half had used websites to view property listings. The conclusions coming out of the study are directed at assisting realtors in reaching this huge segment of the population using the internet for their real estate transactions. Obviously realtors need to reach these people to market available properties. The study concluded that it is important to: -blog (here we are!),
-have a presence on many websites as users have their own favorites (see below for a partial list of sites you can find our properties/us on),
-work on search engine optomization (we have retained 2 leading companies, Ubertor and REACH'd to assist us in this regard and of course we work on our websites daily)
-provide information about the real estate market in general (as opposed to just providing information about listings and sales). We do this through our sites and also when articles we write are picked up by other sites such as the Vancouver Observer.
Fortunately, we are doing everything recommended by the study and it does seem to work! While I personally love perusing paper news, advertising, etc., the internet is here to stay so we will continue to increase our use of this valuable way of disseminating information!
List of sites we now use (please let us know if we are missing some good ones!)
www.kijiji.ca
www.facebook.com
www.craigslist.com
www.backpage.com
www.point2homes.com
www.vast.com
www.banzaa.com
www.househunting.ca
www.propbot.com
www.googlebase.com
www.worldwide-realestate-forsale.com
www.condos.com
www.northvancouer.com
www.westvancouver.com
www.waterfrontwest.com
www.luxuryportfolio.com
www.luxuryrealestate.com
www.activerain.com
www.homesbydesign.com
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