This article is first in a series to demonstrate to sellers, real estate professionals and auctioneers creative ways to use technology to market real estate effectively.

The reason most sellers go the For Sale By Owner route is usually financial - “Why would I pay 6% for an agent to plant a sign in my yard, make a flier, put it on the MLS and list my house in a newspaper ad with 30 other houses?”

Good agents provide more services than that, but as with all professions, good agents are the exception rather than the rule. Even among the “good” agents, marketing online has become their primary way to promote your property. But the reality is, you can do it yourself, and even do a better job, without spending more than a 100 bucks.

For experienced internet marketers and real estate pros, this article may seem a bit simplistic. There is no mention of launching a full-scale PPC campaign, capitalizing on social networks, or even mention of print advertising ideas. That will follow in later articles. This is intended for FSBO situations where the seller has little time, knowledge or money to invest in a campaign, but isn’t ready to list with an agent yet.

Though every property, community and situation differs, here are 10 things you should do to market your property regardless of your situation:

1. Clean, declutter and get your house ready to sell. This should be a no-brainer, but judging by the ridiculous images agents and sellers actually display to the world, apparently it’s not. See http://reagentinct.com/category/bad-mls-photo-of-the-day/ for examples of these. For more tips on easy, inexpensive things you can do to get your house market ready, read this helpful post from FSBOJane.
2. Take tons of pictures!. I won’t go into the finer how-to points, because some excellent real estate photographers have already done that for you. Check out the list of pointers at http://www.geekestateblog.com/top-10-photography-for-real-estate-posts-in-2007/ The main thing to remember is that few online real estate listings do an adequate job of portraying a property with photos. This can be the deciding factor in a buyers decision to schedule a showing.
3. Build a flier at ClassifiedFlyerAds.com. This is a great, easy to use service that will allow you to build a stand-alone property website without needing to have any programming skills. As long as you have some good quality digital images, you should be able to whip this out in a half-hour or less. For premier ad posting features, $5.95 will you get the same syndication capabilities and tracking reports that savvy agents are using to market listings around the country. Essentially ClassifiedFlyerAds syndicates your listing to the top real estate marketplaces on the internet like Oodle, GoogleBase, Trulia, Zillow, HotPads and a bunch of other sites to get your listing out there where the online buyers are. Related to this, gather all your information BEFORE building your flier. Even though you probably don’t need to list your utility costs, when the water heater was replaced or the depth of your well, this is good information to have at your disposal when prospective buyers call. Also, the more info you have in front of you, the more creative you can be in describing your property.
4. While you’re paying for your ClassifiedFlyerAd, take advantage of the option to buy a custom domain name that will point to your flier. This will give your home it’s very own website and it only costs $19.95. So if your address is 123 Tornado Alley, you would want to get 123tornadoalley.com as your custom domain name. Don’t fret if you’re a technophobe, ClassifiedFlyerAds will set all this up for you. Also, have your local sign shop make you a Cor-Plas sign rider with your Domain name on both sides. It will only cost about $10, but this will allow drive by prospects an easy way to find your online listing.
5. After you’ve designed your listing, copy the provided Craigslist code and then use your text editor and paste it in. (Use Notepad, under Accessories in the Start menu of Windows) Save this to your computer for future reference.
6. Go to your local craigslist and open a free account. Though an account isn’t required to post to craigslist, it allows you to repost more frequently. Posting ads is easy (& FREE) and since you’ve already designed your flier, just copy the code you pasted into your text editor into the item description field on craigslist. After posting you will be sent a confirmation email. To confirm, click the link in the email and voila!….your property is now visible to a huge, buying audience. Bear in mind, Craigslist is just catching on in “fly-over country”, but it’s a fantastic venue. Though Craigslist lists items in specific categories, they are arranged by date, so be sure to log in to your account every three days to repost your ad to keep it toward the top of the listings.
7. Make sure you have a high quality, metal FSBO sign in your yard. I don’t know that there’s any definitive research on yard signs, but in my opinion, you’re better off spending a little extra to buy a nice metal sign on which you can attach your flier box or InfoTube, than you are using some cheap little corrugated plastic sign. Ace Hardware, Lowes and Home Depot all have nice metal signs and flier boxes for sale. Your custom domain sign rider will attach easier to a metal sign, too!
8. Make a nice paper property brochure and keep your flier box filled. Nothing is more aggravating to home shoppers than driving around and finding a home that looks nice, only to see the flyer box is empty…or worse, finding a flier that has virtually no information on it. Here’s an easy way to make a nice paper brochure without having to do any extra work than you’ve already completed: After you design your ClassifiedFlyerAd, just click the Print PDF link in your dashboard and you’ll be able to print off fliers at your convenience to fill your box and prevent drive-by prospect from getting frustrated. Very simple, very professional and very cheap……just the price of ink!
9. Contact local brokers and agents to let them know about your cooperating commission offer. Obviously, if you’re not willing to pay a cooperating commission, there’s no point in doing this. However, you may want to consider offering a commission or referral fee to those agents who are working with buyers. How much should you offer? That depends on your market. If the available inventory is smaller than the pool of buyers, you can effectively offer less. In some cases a flat fee works, but you’re probably better off offering the standard buyer agency commission for your area. Ie: If the average commission in your area is 6%, offer a 3% buyer agency commission. Why do this if you’re selling By Owner? Because some buyers are completely dependent on their agent to find them a house. The only way these buyers will even know about your place is if their agent tells them about it. It’s up to you to decide if you’re willing to pay a cooperating commission, but it can definitely increase your pool of potential buyers.
10. Hang your fliers on bulletin boards at area grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants and other places where potential buyers might be visiting. Related to this, if you live in a small town, deliver a flier to your local city office and chamber of commerce. They are on the front line talking to potential newcomers to your community and can be a valuable resource!

Optional Ideas that Could be Worth It!

1. Consider taking advantage of ClassifiedFlyerAds GooglePageOne placement service. It costs $29.95 but they guarantee that they will get you page one search rankings for the top keywords related to your property. So, if your home is in Miami, Oklahoma, your custom website would show up on the first page of Google search results for “Miami Oklahoma Homes for Sale” or something similar.
2. ClassifiedFlyerAds can also post your listing to Homes.com for $24.99. This is a top real estate search site home buyers use.
3. Pay Yahoo $49.95 to list your home on Yahoo Real Estate. Yes, it’s expensive, but Yahoo Real Estate is one of the most widely used real estate sites available to home sellers.
4. Use a Flat-Fee MLS service like FizBer.com to get your property on Realtor.com. In some areas, nearly all buyers depend entirely on local agents to find properties and/or reference the MLS through Realtor.com. For $349.95 you can get your property on the local MLS, but remember, this only works if you are willing to offer a cooperating buyer’s agent commission. (See #9 above)