Choosing a 'For Sale by Owner' Website
How do you choose which FSBO site to advertise your home for sale on then?
Cost is going to be a major factor; after all you are selling privately because you're smart with money! The higher the cost to advertise, the more you should get for your money. If you pay for your listing you should expect it to be listed on at least one if not more of the high profile property websites as well as itself. You need to be on at least one of these to give your house the best exposure. There are plenty of free sites to list on, why pay to list on one site only when many will add you to three or four others?
You can add your home to every free site on the web; just keep a record of where it is listed and all those passwords. When your house is sold remove the listing, as you don't want to be receiving e-mails months later from people wanting to view your property.
Nearly all sites list your property until you inform them that your property is sold, however some do not specify listing duration, so e-mail them and check before parting with any money. You don't want your listing to expire after only a few weeks if your property has not sold.
You want to add as much detail about your house as possible and some sites just don't give enough space to really sell your property. If you can link your own webpage this gives you the opportunity to give as much detail as a potential buyer would want.
You want to be able to add more than one picture to your listing, as everyone has at least one good room, a nice bit of garden or even just a good view which would help your home stand out.
A 'For Sale' sign is a good option if you live in a busy street. It could bring in a buyer who is not on the net, and helps a viewer to find your home.
Ease of site use and ease of search matter to you. Why? If the search facility is poor, or a buyer cannot find their way around the website they will not find your property listing. If your listing can't be found you won't sell your home. E-mail alerts to buyers are good for you, as it means your listing will be targeted at people looking for exactly your type of property.
E-mail protection is a great bonus. If you put an e-mail address on the internet it will be found by spammers. If you don't want tons of e-mail offering surgical enhancements or requests for help in illegal money transfers, this is a great idea. If you advertise on a website that does not offer this, sign up for a free e-mail account such as Hotmail and close the account once you have sold your property.
A telephone helpline is always useful and demonstrates the website owner's commitment to customer service. If they have also taken the trouble to gather some other useful information to add to the site they could save you some time too.