How to sell a home via an IM instead of Realtor

Set up a website and list it as a local business in the area with google directories?
Set up a Web 2.0 account profile with it as the blurb?

Find out some local niche real estate keywords that people are searching for in the area?

Good luck!

I think you have most of it figured out. You might consider getting a dedicated domain and just plaster it with pics and videos as well as written descriptions of all the work and upgrades recently done. Then go with Craigs List and eBay classifieds as they both have regional and local listings available for free.

Then do a search for free classified ads because there are many excellent sites offering similar services as CL and eBay. Get as many ads as you can on every free site out there. Most of them have listings for major cities around the US. Hopefully you're near one of them.

Then be sure to get ads in all the nickel and penny classified type publications in your area even if it costs a few bucks. Every ad should have the URL for your site with the pics and videos. And don't forget supermarket bulletin boards too. Good luck.

Sell it with the professionals. You don't "save" $5k as you'll spend a ton of time doing all this promotion (and that time has a value) and you're not a pro with an established network of buyers.

I don't sell real estate, but from a business broker perspective, you almost always get MORE value out of a broker than you pay them. You'll get more money, all of their expertise, save time and far less risk.

You can use craigslist & youtube ... You can also try putting up your own signs around town (busy intersections and such). I think you may end up putting in too much work to try to sell it yourself - especially if you guys aren't selling the home under market value.

It isn't as easy as it looks. And most of the "sell it youself" sites are lagging behind and still think it's 2004, where you put a house on a market and it sells within a week for list price or more.

Anyway, you must list your house in Multiple Listing Service (MLS) otherwise you are hoping to be one of those cases where you were walking your dog, and ran into a neighbor whose brother's friend's dog just won a lottery and was looking to buy a house..

Once you list the hosue in MLS (some companies offer "entry only" service where all they do is put a home in MLS for a few hundred bucks) it will automaticaly go into many of the real estate sites, which take a feed from MLS (this includes realtor.com zillow.com trulia.com as well as many other sites, local sites and any of the agent's/office's sites)
Additionally listing in MLS will let all the agents see your house, and most qualified buyers are working with agents now days.

BTW, even though you are going for sale by owner you better offer the buyer's agent a comission (depends on territory, around here it's usually 2-3%) not offering a buyer's comission pretty much guarantees no agent will ever show your home (so many houses to show, why would they show yours when there are 5 more just like it?)

A few other reasons for sale by owners tend to run into problems:
Overpricing a house - owners are usually too attached to their home (especially one they lived in) and feel it's better than the others, and so tend to over price it.
Can be difficult to show it - how will they handle appointment scheduling/showings?
Can be perceived as a lot of work by agents - a buyer's agent will look at this as her doing all the work of being dual agent, but only getting paid half comission.

Don't get me wrong, it can be sold, but statisticaly I think it's about 1 in 10 that actually sell for sale by owner, the rest end up working with an agent.

Anyway, as far as advertising it goes, get it inot MLS, craig's list is good, youtube is questionable (do you go on youtube and search for 2 bedroom home in town state? most people probably don't) things like personalized domain with virtual tour, qr codes and etc. are all OK provided you can actually get them in front of potential buyers - flyers, signs etc.

Of course, you have to ask yourself if all of this wil be worth it in the end. You are liable to spend a lot of time and some money, but will you sell your home?

J. Smith offers some great advice. I sold real estate for five years (and was consistently in the top of my office). There is A LOT more that goes into selling a home than just marketing it to find a buyer. The paperwork and negotiations alone are worth the price of hiring a professional.

get a realator and negotiate with them. they are hurting out there. they will negotiate. even if it 1 percent lower. i have been through it before. realator is the way to go.

It is worth it to give your idea a try. Nothing ventures nothing gains. I'd put a website with house street name as domain???? and do long tail keywords and put up tons of street name youtube videos around your main domain name - well if a buyer wants to buy a house in that area - they will google it maybe for the city name - so maybe using city name and state is a good choice for domain name --

very very accurate and clear descriptions as well as pictures - so buyers can see exactly what they want to see wherever they are. do not try to hide nothing as it wastes your time as well as theirs.

I am always impressed with the feedback on WF... all very helpful. I am along the lines of thinking with "successproducts" post with nothing ventured nothing gained. We have had the house appraised for an odd price range from three different realtors. We heard 159k from two guys and then two others came in at 130ish range. (Buffalo real estate is very inexpensive).

I am going to try and get it sold on our own... my Dad has a lot of experience with selling and buying homes as this is probably his 10th property or so. I am not worried about the attachment issues or not knowing the legalities and things of that nature... I am worried that Realtors might be turned off if we don't offer a commission and selling without them could be difficult. I think getting on MLS is a must, does anyone have a service they recommend for that?

Here is the beginning basics of the website I made for him... keep in mind I am a beginner but I would love any positive or negative feedback. The house is located close to the city of Buffalo, NY so I put Buffalo in the domain.

the domain is buffalo-houses dot com for anyone that wants to check it out... i havent posted enough yet to post links!

These are just pictures my Dad took but I have a wide angle lens with a DSLR and I am going to go out and take proper pictures and add them. One thing I would like to change is the call to action is poor. I have a contact forum but I would like it to be easier for people to send me an email who are interested. Thanks again for all the feedback.

I'd love to sell the place through IM as a type of experiment and share the success or failure on this thread through those tactics. Who knows, maybe tweak the site and work my realtor and create a lead gen site through SEO. Thanks again all!

Do what you already suggest plus put it up on Zillow and Trulia and pay a couple hundred to have it listed in MLS. You can definitely get buyers from Craigslist, YouTube, Google, etc. but the most people are searching MLS for houses and it's crucial in my opinion to be there.

I just want to say thank-you to everyone who put their thoughts out there on this. We went live on the house last night around 6 PM. I put together a website and real professional looking video. Then put out Craigslist Ads, Ebay Classifieds, Zillow and a few local advertisements. (Trulia required me to be with a Realtor to list a price)

Well the first open day on the market my Dad hosted 6 different potential buyers. One was a guy who drove by and saw the sign and the other 5 came from CL and Zillow. I am hoping I installed the Analytics correctly and that it takes a day to for them to deliver the information because I also ran a Google Adwords campaign. Tomorrow I will post the results of the analytics. The youtube video recieved 54 views in one day as well (prob about 20 of them from me and facebook friends).

All in all he already has one offer on the table for full price at $144,900. By not going with a realtor and selling on his own he saves $8,694 if he sells at that price. I love internet marketing but this is by far the most rewarding client I have worked with. It feels good to use a skill set to help out my parents who have done so much for me through the years. Thank you all!

I need 15 posts to post a link... sooo...

Here it is the Video Tutorial of the home using ScreenFlow which was a huge hit with people checking out the home.. (in the next post)

Video Tour -
Website Simplified Thanks to Bill Farnham's advice - Buffalo-Houses.com

I am a real estate investor and can tell you that if you value your time, Stay Away From Realtors. Realtors are Deal Killers. They most often do Not work in the best interest of their clients. They work in the best interest of their paycheck. This can lead to you never getting offers you should be getting. I do work with realtors but it's always under My Terms and Conditions. They either work my way or they can hit the highway. I only use realtors to bring me deals and they have the option to then retail that deal if they can produce a cash buyer. You have to go through about 50 realtors to find 1 that is not a time waster. If you are doing this on your own and don't have that much time to waste, I highly recommend selling yourself.

Offline gambits sell Faster than online. Especially if you are in the location of the property.

If your property is over financed or behind on payments, PM me and I'll get you some info on how I can buy your home.

I would invest 500$ to make a nice and professional video and then i would use the power of social networks. Ebay is also user friendly for this..

Consider Craigslist.