Marketing Tips for Selling Home - Promoting Your 'For Sale By Owner' Campaign

The way you promote your house is probably the single most important part of your 'For Sale By Owner' campaign. You can leave an appalling colour scheme in one of your bedrooms, make loads of typo errors in your written house details, and not take heed of any of our advice about preparing your house for a showing, but if no-one knows it is for sale, and nobody comes round, you are getting nowhere.

The more qualified prospective buyers who visit your home for a showing, the greater the chance of one of them making an offer to buy, so you need to promote your house as much as possible.

So what do I mean by a 'qualified' prospective buyer?

Well, the last thing you want is to use up valuable time with 'time-wasters' - people who have no real intention of buying a house like yours, but who are just curious to see what it looks like inside. These people you can do without. So the main thrust of your promotional campaign must be to reach those people who are actively seeking a new home.

It is inevitable that you will attract a few time-wasters, and you will have to decide how to deal with them tactfully. Not allowing casual callers to view and insisting on an appointment whilst obtaining their particulars can help.

If someone says they are 'only looking', then you could point out that you only have time to deal with serious potential buyers, and fob them off with a copy of your house particulars. But you never can tell. You can only make a value judgement on someone's sincerity when you are on the spot. Just be prepared though, to have some of your time used up by a few time-wasters.

Let's consider some of the ways to promote your house.

How to promote your house for sale by owner.

The Internet

A good way to promote your house is through one of the many web sites offering a 'for sale by owner' listing service. Home selling on the internet is well established. You get your property seen right across the internet and in a very professional looking format, and get to reach a lot more potential buyers than you would otherwise. 

You can add and change details and photographs, and receive enquiries by telephone and email. They can often arrange for you to get an FSBO sign to go outside your house, and to provide other promotional material. This should form the foundation of your promotional campaign.

A 'For Sale' sign

If you need to arrange a sign yourself, make sure that it includes 'by appointment only'. You need to maintain complete control over your viewings diary

Advertisements

Advertise locally.  Most homes tend to be sold to individuals that are already living in the area or the surrounding area. Place advertisements in local newspapers. If there is a special property section or property issue on a particular day of the week, slot your ads in there. Don't put too much information in the ad. Keep it brief and factual. Give your telephone number - not the full address at this stage - and remember you are after appointments for people to call and view, not trying to sell your house with the ad.

Using your PC again, print out some cards that can be put on notice boards and in local store windows. Keep the information brief and relevant - type of house, area (but not actual address), number of bedrooms, other rooms, main features, your asking price and telephone number.

Network

Tell as many people as possible that your house is for sale.