Make Money Online With John Chow dot Com

June 26th, 2007 by julia

On my pure FSBO blog I write how to sell property by blogging about it and profit from selling it online. Here’s one more way how to make money on the internet.

Bookmark this blog if you want to make money online and if you wish to get a link from PR6 site, just review his blog. This is great way to get linked back to your blog!

Make Your FSBO Blog Unique

June 26th, 2007 by julia

Once you created your own FSBO blog at For Sale By Owner site, here is a nice color picker called AdesClrPicker, try it! I found this cool color picker at AdesBlog.com

AdesClrPicker is a very easy to use, yet powerful color picker application. It allows you to capture colors anywhere on the screen with a single click of the mouse and output it in either HTML, RGB, C++, VB and Delphi color codes.
color picker

Haven’t created your own FSBO blog yet?! Do it right away and don’t forget to download powerful color picker application :)

Open House: Open Concept

June 26th, 2007 by julia

The picture of the day :)

open house cartoon

See more funny catroons at www.CartoonStock.com

Can a Blog Sell Faster Than a Realtor?

June 26th, 2007 by julia

I believe that you can sell a house (without any prior real estate sales experience or training) using your own Blog faster than with the help of a realtor who uses traditional methods of advertising. When you are selling a home FSBO, a blog will generate more interest in that home. By blogging about your home and increasing traffic to your online listing, you increase the chances of selling your property faster.

I was browsing the internet to find you one more example proving that the Internet is an effective marketing tool and came across Morgan Carey’s Blog . Read about Morgan Carey who believes that he can sell his house faster than his realtor. In a battle SEO vs. Realtor, I’m sure the the seo guy will win!

Enjoy!

How to prepare for an open house

June 19th, 2007 by julia

Although open house tend to attract a lot of “browsers,” if your home is clean, attractive, well-priced and in good repair, it could turn a “browser” into a buyer. Some purchasers want to get the “feel” of several neighborhoods before they begin working with a Realtor. Open houses will attract these potential buyers.

Most open houses for the public are held on a weekend afternoon when potential buyers often have more time to drive through neighborhoods. If you have pets, we suggest that you should remove them from the home during the open house, since their presence could be distracting.

I also recommend that your family was away from the home during the open house as well. If you remain home, prospective buyers may feel compelled to rush their visit to avoid disturbing you. You want them to feel relaxed and to take the time to really see the features of your property. Potential buyers may also feel uncomfortable commenting on your home in your presence.

open house planner

Here are some general tips to help you prepare for the big day:

Read the rest of this entry »

Do Open Houses Work?

June 19th, 2007 by julia

What is the likelihood that your home will sell at an open house? Open houses are an integral part of the home sale business. But, do they work?

openhouse.JPG

An effective open house can afford potential buyers the opportunity to get a true sense of a home. Since buying a home is one of the most important, and expensive, decisions an individual or couple can make, an open house can not only provide a physical tour of the property, but also an emotional connection with the potential buyer.

Some open house visitors will be neighbors. This is not all bad. Some neighbors have friends or relatives who may want to relocate into the area.

Most people who visit open houses are directed there by the “Open House” signs. This means they don’t have much information about the house when they walk in the front door. So even when open house visitors are legitimate buyers, they may not be well-qualified for the house in question. They may need a larger house or a smaller house, or something more or less expensive.

As a FSBO seller, give your home as much exposure as possible, as often as you can. By putting your house on the market, you are presenting it to every buyer as their potential next dream home. Therefore you’ll want to prepare and stage your home to convey the very best impression.

Homes do sell at open houses! Do you live in a high demand neighborhood with lots of drive by traffic? Will families be passing by on their way home from church or on their way to restaurants and shops? Is your home priced correctly for the neighborhood?

If you can answer yes to these questions, an open house may be an effective marketing tool for your home. Potential buyers who like specific areas will stop to see what is available. If the home is well priced, I have seen buyers write offers on the spot.

If your home is well off the beaten path or you were the only one in the development to add all of the upgrades, open houses might not be successful. Buyers won’t follow more than 3-4 directional arrows and travel more than ½ a mile out of their way. Likewise buyers are frustrated when they do stop but realize that the price tag is $60K higher than the rest of the neighborhood because there are granite counters, cherry wood flooring and custom birch cabinets. If your home falls in either of these categories, open houses might not be successful.

Timing and Duration of Open Houses

For most homeowners, I suggest one open house per month and not longer than 2 hours. (I will do two per month, if the homeowner’s schedule allows.)You should schedule the open house at least one week in advance. This allows time to place ads in the paper as well as on the internet.

Open houses are a valuable tool in selling your home. To be effective, they must be combined with other tools in a complete marketing plan to sell your home.

Using Video to Sell Homes

June 15th, 2007 by julia

Many home sellers think that it’s difficult to create a video tour, and they simply decide not to do it.Video is not hard to do and many just feel that way because they have not personally done it. A good camera can be bought for around $400 and simple editing software is not too pricy either(if you are editing on a Mac, you may use Final Cut Express). Uploading video to YouTube is easy and embedding a YouTube video into your FSBO listing on the website is a simple cut and paste job.

I can say all of these things because I have personally done them, and trust me, it’s not as hard as you might make it out to be. At the end of the day, photos have their place. I truly believe if a FSBO seller today would learn to integrate video into their home marketing plans, they would have more success than similar sellers who chose to not do so. Just my opinion, a video tour gives the buyer more of a feeling for the home. It takes about 1 hour for the shoot, and 2 - 3 hours for editing.

An ideal video tour is almost like a walking tour. How do people usually view a home? They walk in, scan left and right, and tend to head to the kitchen. Then they walk to the master, master bathroom, check the closet, etc. 90% of the people viewing homes follow the exact same path. No panning and zoom over a still shot, but actually walking through each room and focusing on what people want to see.

One more tip: filming the local community is a good idea for a video tour, go and shoot shopping areas, parks, libraries, schools and other points of interest with real people moving around. It will add a lot more interest. If done tastefully and professionally it can be a fantastic FSBO tool for a home seller listing his/her house.

Can a Blog Sell a House?

June 15th, 2007 by julia

Blog is an excellent marketing tool. Why not use it when selling property by owner? You can start a blog to promote your house right away after you read my post. I just want to tell you about this particular usage of blogs by very small companies — yourself — for a while now.

house for sale

So the question is, can a blog sell a house? Here’s the story which proves that FSBO blog is a powerful selling tool:

“When Mesha Provo, an avid gardener, decided to sell her home in El Sobrante, Calif., she wanted to showcase her property — with its arbor blanketed with wisteria — to appeal to other plant lovers. She started a blog detailing her garden’s story through passionate postings and vibrant close-ups of her flowers, and eventually added pictures of the house. A gardener found her blog — through a flyer put together by a real-estate agent — fell in love with the house, and ultimately paid $612,000 for it, $43,000 more than the asking price.

What the blog did was take a buyer, before he walked through my door, and sold him on my house,” said the 53-year-old Ms. Provo, national sales director of Ballentine Vineyards in Napa Valley.

Cool, isn’t it? This story proves that more and more home sellers turn to blogs to make properties stand out among traditional real-estate listings.

Check out also what Joel Burslem wrote about blogging in real estate Using A Blog to Market a Property on Inman’s blog.

Video Tour vs. 360 degree Home Tour

June 15th, 2007 by julia

The Virtual Tours you generally see on real estate sites are a static 360 degree distorted view of a room that simulates motion. Photos are stitched together in a 360 degree circle, and you can virtual “tour” around the room. But when was the last time you walked into a room, stood in one place, and spun in a circle? Common virtual tours are distorted, usually blurry, and always unrealistic.

Read the rest of this entry »

Property Video Tour Helps Sell Your House

June 15th, 2007 by julia

Video Tours is a powerful new marketing tool for FSBO sellers and a fantastic time-saving breakthrough for buyers. If people are not seeing your property for what it really is maybe you should consider a video tour. A picture might paint a 1000 words but a video will give you the whole book.

If you are selling your home for sale by owner, video tours allow you to showcase your property to potential buyers 24 hours a day, seven days a week, while you get on with you life. If you are looking for a new home, video tours offer a realistic viewing experience from the comfort of your home, workplace, friend’s house, or Internet café. Simple yet powerful!

Current marketing practice utilise photos which vary in quality, virtual tours that offer a slightly skewed view of the world and schedules that offer essential specifications about your property but very little visual information that can inform the buyer.

It can be an amateur video tour, which you can simply upload to YouTube.com or you can find a professional.
The bottom line: If you can, definitely hire a professional!

How to Hire a Local Videographer…I highly recommend using Wellcomematt.com to search for a videographer by zip code.

For years, brokers, agents, and sellers have been torn over the impact the 360 degree virtual tour has on selling property. I admit that I was impressed when it first appeared on the internet but was always puzzled as to why we weren’t using real video images to entice buyers. Most of those whom I have asked about there perspective of the “virtual tour” have indicated that they felt it wasn’t an accurate portrayal of a property. Video just seemed to make more sense to me. It turns out that although I was on track with the concept, I had no concept of the capabilities of the web. Now that streaming video has become a reality, so has the video tour. Thanks to companies like WellcomeMat, the days of spliced fish eye lens pictures are becoming a thing of the past and actual guided video tours are becoming a more accurate way for buyers to preview property.

Bernice Ross seems to share the same opinion about the video tours in the post Cheaper than Cheap? on Inman’s blog. Indeed, how can real estate ignore a service that allows such amazing presence on the web? Hope FSBO sellers will use this powerful marketing tool and sell homes faster. Great video tour gives a good feeling for your whereabouts.