I recently visited a house located 1 block away on the same lake, and I would have missed that house listed if the rental agent didn’t mention the words “the view”: lakeside view from the deck.

I hope David Hobby sees my comment to see how well he did this. Congrats – I hope he sells soon.

Pictures, descriptions, sizes, maps, and nearby attractions are all important. (Conversely, homeowners who lie about features in ads will be met with angry home-hunters).

Having a link to a website the homeowner has constructed can be a major enhancement to a listing. He can give a lot of inside info about the house and neighborhhod, along with a host of pictures. Still, for maximum benefit, it ought to be kept businesslike, without including too much personal emotion in it.

Two thoughts – Tim and Daniel are right – it’s about price. *Everything* is about price in this market.

Second, a lot of MLS’ (such as mine( prevent these single-listing websites from being put into the MLS because they don’t want to have links to *anything* outside of the MLS.

Luckily, if you do the blog/site correctly, when the buyers google the address, your site should come up pretty high.

GThis is a post a client of mine wrote – step 7 in her research process is driving/walking by the house.

*I’m not posting the link for any reason other than I think it’s a great explanation of how an active buyer is using the web

With a decent digital and a little time, you can create the optimal marketing brochure (blog) and market it through social networks and search engines. If your state allows FSBOs to upload to the MLS, then you will still get traffic that way.

I have used realtors and done the FSBO thing, and I prefer FSBO. Much cheaper and I was able to sit at a table with the buyer and negotiate face-to-face.

Of course, if you are moving to a new area, then I could see using a realtor to buy. Just remember, realtors only get paid if a deal is done. So they aren’t completely working in your best interests. The housing bubble confirms this fact.

http://www.talltree.us/1300Livingston

Anyway, I can see how this blog could improve their chances of selling their house, because this would really appeal to me as a buyer. I like to do preliminary research online, and I might skip over a listing with one or two blurry photos and little information.

If you price a property correctly, it will sell. I don’t think you need to be a rocket scientist to figure that out.

Bozo

@Manvsdebt: An idea for gaining qualified leads might be to print up some business cards with contact details and the blogger address to give to people who might be interested in your house.

You can set up a contact us page on Blogger using a free wufoo.com form that requires text, email, phone and name (more if you need it). This could help you to qualify potential buyers much more quickly through the filtering process.

@quinsy, you could use a custom template to give blogger a nice professional look within 10-20 minutes. I recently did this for my own blog, and am very happy with the results.

Interesting to see how people are becoming creative given the current economic climate.

but I am sure that a blog would do a better job if set up nicely because you can format them again without any knowledge of web design.

I sold my house on craigslist and it was great. I was really irritated that I had even spent the money to put an ad in the newspaper when my buyer came from a free ad. But then I patted myself on the back for not losing 10% of the value to a realtor.

I’d put another 10-20% or so on having the home in good condition (give it a fresh coat of paint, clean it up, maybe even stage it, etc.).

The remaining 70-80% of getting your home sold is price. No amount of marketing, through blog or otherwise is going to move a poorly-priced home. Period.

This real estate agent puts the concept into a succinct 2-minute video: http://realestatezebra.com/how-to-sell-your-home-in-black-and-white

i started reading strobist about a year ago (after a USA Today article) and Davids photography thoughts/tips are amazing!!

i forget how i stumbled upon GRS (Im a CPA and love some good personal finance reading) but keep up the good work!

We’re using also using Blogger and Twitter to help get the word out about our home in Bluffton, SC (between Hilton Head and Savannah).

Here’s the blog: http://1fairwaydrive.com

Here’s the Twitter: http://twitter.com/1fairwaydrive

We now have a renter in place for a year. With the price where it is and rates where they are, 1 Fairway Drive is a great buy.

This could be a good idea, but if you are going with an agent rather than a FSBO, they should be handling all of this for you. Most people are quite bad at photographing, staging and generally marketing their house (there are exceptions of course).
We just sold our house (2 days ago) and had a great experience due to an outstanding agent. A professional “stager” helped setup our house (remove lots of furniture and personal affects to temporary storage), a professional real estate photographer took the photos, and a good marketing campaign, all paid for by the agent – prior to it even going on the market. We also invested a few thousand dollars to update the house and make it more attractive.

That, plus correct pricing, helped us get our house under contract in 3 days in a bidding war between 2 parties that got us 5% more than we were expecting when we first thought about selling.

On the flip side, we bought a house that had it’s own website, but was staged and photographed poorly, overpriced originally – and therefore sat on the market for a year. We got a great deal and the seller sold for 65% of the original asking price.

Ask for recommendations of agents – don’t go with a friend or an acquaintance… It’s the biggest purchase you will make.

This is one reason why it’s great to use a real estate agent and a listing service. Your realtor should be screening to make sure people or qualified.

Non-qualified buyers can waste a lot of time and also cause a lot of emotional stress. They can lead you on and potentially cause you to make decisions based on the fact that you thought they were serious buyers.

It’s not that this is a horrible idea, but you have to ensure you are prepared.