When a homeowner decides to sell their home themselves they can count on the fact that more than 20% of all home sale transactions are For Sale By Owner (FSBO) deals. They can also take comfort knowing that more than 80% of the home buying public start their home search on the Internet. What this means is the "level playing field" so many Internet experts talk about is going to work in the FSBO's favor. Home buyers will be exposed to a fsbo property online as often as an MLS property.
Property searches for the most part are local which means a buyer is looking in a specific location for a home and a properly marketed FSBO will garner as much Internet activity online as any realtor's listed home. Perhaps even more as the FSBO can control the amount of offline advertising that will direct buyers to their home information online. For sale by owner websites such as www.realestatemate.com are giving the private seller as much local exposure as possible as well as providing a national database search of homes. "It's about generating qualified buyers to our listings through a myriad of online marketing techniques targeted at home buyers and not shoppers in general" said Richard Embro-Pantalony, President of Realestatemate.com. "How you design your website and market it to search engines is imperative to seeking out quality home buying traffic."
Large realtor websites will generate hundreds of thousands of page views per week or even per day in some cases but what about the caliber of information available to the home buyer? "Only recently large national MLS websites and major national brokerage sites seem to be concentrating on their technology after years of operating "ghost town" websites. Even now many of these websites are well funded but the home information is still sorely lacking and that's because realtors want to generate sales leads rather than give as much information to home buyers as possible."
Most buyers want to search for a home without being pressured to purchase and the pressure is there even if the realtor means well. Buyers who spend time online researching their purchase can find what they are looking for at private seller websites and get ALL the information they need from the online listing then speak directly to the owner for further details before a personal visit. You are more likely to find multimedia presentations on a FSBO website since the homeowner is pulling out all stops to market their home to its fullest potential for a reasonable price.
In conclusion Embro-Pantalony added "If you offer the online home buyer generous information and make it easy for them to find your listings online, the private seller will be quite satisfied with the number of quality buyers visiting their listing. We're so confident we can bring our customers traffic we provide them with daily listing statistics. Home buyers researching on the Internet find our listings". Private home sellers are gaining a distinct advantage when they market their home on the Internet if for no other reason than buyers have become more self reliant with their online property searches.
Richard Embro-Pantalony is the President/CEO of www.realestatemate.com and has over 26 years experience in the real estate industry.
