DIY real estate - any experience ?

[steamingbill]

Hello,

Following bizarre experiences with real estate agents am wondering about selling our house ourselves.

The main issues have been

1) Agents seem to have little control over how the house is presented on the different web sites. After appropriate feedback and editing they can do a reasonable job on their own websites but they seem to have little control of how the data portals extract and present the same data on other sites. Some shocking misrepresentation is possible.

2) Data Formats - If the estate agents could clearly define a specific data format to ensure a good clean data flow from us to their database that then feeds brochures and web sites that would be great, however its like the death of a 1000 cuts and we learn a new thing every week ie "no semi colons in the text", "must be less that 513 characters", "that photo is too wide/tall", "photos in the downloadable brochure must be the first 4 photos on the website", "no bullet points in the text"

I find it unbelievable that real estate agents cannot specify a data format that would avoid all of the above problems

3) Basic QA - ie checking that whats on a brochure is correct, following up to ensure that what was promised last week has actually been done - ie putting a card in the shop window, changing some text on a web site.

4) "Chinese whispers" - with our instructions being relayed from our primary contact and being changed slightly until whats finally put in the shop window by "the boys/girls out the back" is nothing like what was discussed or given to the agent.

I wont rant on any further. Believe me I could. Very similar experiences with 2 different companies. I won't name them.

So has anybody had any positive experiences with presenting their house themselves ?

Google reveals various companies that will allow me to use their editing facilities and graphics packages to get the house listed on realestate.com - is there anybody who has used them that could comment on them please ? Do the same broad problems listed above still occur ?

Any recommended reading or recommended web pages for DIY sell your house ?

[Master Splinter]

The trouble is, the standard (for a website) is whatever the operator of the site wants it to be or whatever the programmers say it can be, and doing this sort of thing properly can be time consuming and can't be done by 'this afternoon'.


Often, the website may be sub-optimal because it's done by a graphic designer with no real programming knowledge, or it was outsourced to the cheapest possible provider (the boss' sister's 15 year old kid) or because there was a knee-jerk reaction by management to some potential hack attempt years ago.

And of course, sites may deliberately make it hard to have their content 'scraped' by other sites (very few sites supply API's - application programming interfaces - that allow you programmatic access to their data).

It's like how you can attempt to have a common password across many sites you visit, but as they all have different ideas on what constitutes a secure password and what characters they consider valid so you end up with a horrible mish-mash with no common base.

As in:
Site 1 - Password Master Splinter accepted.
Site 2 - Password Master Splinter rejected. Your password needs to contain a number.
Site 3 - Password Master Splinter 1 rejected. Your password cannot contain spaces.
Site 4 - Password Master_Splinter_1 rejected. Your password cannot contain numbers.
Site 5 - Password Master_Splinter_One rejected. Your password cannot contain the @, #, _, *, % or ! symbols.
Site 6 - Password Master$Splinter$One rejected. Your password is too long. Please keep it to a maximum of 10 characters.
Site 7 - Password Master$One rejected. Your password contains dictionary words. Please use non-dictionary words as well as non-alphanumeric characters.
Site 8 - Password e&jeo(M+wj4!qq~lwPcn2%3,:sM5Pj^8E2o8b]hU6e>Cb5QJ?NBe# accepted. But you're never going to remember it.

[rrich]

Realtors seem to run contests based upon who can take the worst photos of a home listed for sale. This observation is from looking at homes for sale on a several web sites. I think that you are almost always better off taking and editing your pictures.

There are a few basic rules.
Use the widest angle lens setting possible.
Always use landscape mode unless you need to show the floor and ceiling of a narrow hallway.
Use a digital camera and avoid using a smart phone. A camera is designed to take pictures while a smart phone can take pictures.
Before taking the picture look at the viewfinder in a sweeping circular motion looking for anything that will detract from the picture.

Other common sense issues:
Straighten up and clean the house as if your in-laws were coming to meet you for the first time and see the home you're providing for your spouse.

You don't need to show off your ugly shower curtain. The new owners will find an uglier one to replace it. Show what is behind the shower curtain.

Is the trash can knocked over? Pick it up before taking the picture.

Don't take pictures that show views through windows. Pictures of your neighbor's trash cans only detract. Nobody wants to see the neighbor standing her bedroom wearing a white bikini. (Use your imagination. Yes, it was on the web.)

Most web sites here allow up to 25 photos. That doesn't mean that you have to supply 25 pictures.

For bedroom pictures, go into the bedroom, stand in a corner and show the closet and entry door. Every bedroom has a window and anything outside the window will detract from the bedroom.

As you take the pictures, you are giving a prospective buyer a tour of the house. Start with a view of the front of the house. If the entry to the house is spectacular, open the front door and take a picture through the doorway. Make it obvious that to the viewer, they are looking into the house.

Step inside the front door, take a picture that shows off the best assets upon entry.

From the entry go to the kitchen, laundry room, master bedroom and finally the master bathroom.

Try to show continuity from kitchen to the eating area or dining room. Then the family room and living room.

Next is the bedrooms and any other bathrooms. Remember that a bathroom mirror is an asset showing odd shaped bathrooms. Don't include yourself or flash in the mirror.

You're trying to get the ladies interested. If they are interested, then the guys are going to want to see garage and shed.

For the garage, stand in the driveway with the door open and take the picture. In the picture include both sides of the doorway and leave a few things visible that allow the viewer to estimate the actual size of the garage. If there is a shed, use the same technique.

A single picture of the back yard is usually enough.

Most important is to edit your pictures. Find out how big in pixels the pictures are permitted.

If you can start with a canvas, 800 by 800 pixels. Save the picture as .jpg and around 35% or 40%. You will get a picture that looks good on a 300MM wide screen. Crop your pictures for best views. Ask your spouse what could be improved in the picture. Take the picture over again if necessary.

Remember your objective is to get people interested in your house so that they come and look at your home in person. Today, people look at 200 or 300 houses via the web and might actually go see 4 or 5 of the homes viewed. You want to be in that 1.5%

One other thing, homes with a view. A picture will not do the view justice. People are looking at a house that is soon to be their home. That is their mentality when viewing houses on the web. A picture of the street with cars parked on both sides of the street and mountains in the background is NOT A VIEW. Standing in front of the house saying, "aren't those mountains pretty?" is a view.

[Poppa]

We sold a block of land last year via an Australian website called propertynow.com.au. We paid a flat fee for a list until sold package, and also paid for a sign to put in the yard. They listed the site on realestate.com.au (you can now also get it listed on domain for more cost), and they were easy to deal with, and you get to edit the text of the ad yourself. We uploaded photos and a plan with no problems. The site and service was recommended to us by a friend who'd sold their house the same way. Worked pretty well for us, we got quite a few inquiries and sold for about what we were hoping for. All in all we were very happy to save the agents fees. I reckon we saved over $5k which went to house renovations...

Hope I'm not breaking any rules giving the web addresses. If I am I apologise...

[steamingbill]

We sold a block of land last year via an Australian website called propertynow.com.au. We paid a flat fee for a list until sold package, and also paid for a sign to put in the yard. They listed the site on realestate.com.au (you can now also get it listed on domain for more cost), and they were easy to deal with, and you get to edit the text of the ad yourself. We uploaded photos and a plan with no problems. The site and service was recommended to us by a friend who'd sold their house the same way. Worked pretty well for us, we got quite a few inquiries and sold for about what we were hoping for. All in all we were very happy to save the agents fees. I reckon we saved over $5k which went to house renovations...

Hope I'm not breaking any rules giving the web addresses. If I am I apologise...

Poppa,

Thanks for the response .................... seems like there are now quite a few companies offering this sort of service ............ sounds like it worked well for you.

[Wongo]

We sold our townhouse 10 years ago. We did 4 things,
1) Got a solicitor
2) Put an ad on Domain dot com. (I don't believe in putting the same ad on multiple websites. Buyers usually look at all the websites anyway. So there is no difference between seeing your ad once or 5 times. And it is cheaper.)
3) Open house
4) Dealing with buyers

It took us 6 weeks and the price was even higher than other 2 townhouses sold in the same complex that month. Was it luck? I don't know and I don't care.

I remember this lady who was a real estate agent. She basically made me a laughable offer and told me it was a good offer. She knows what she is doing, blah, blah .... She came in 2 times and she even sent her mum in for the 3rd time. I saw her standing in the corner 30m away through the window. Guess what she is getting it.

The buyers were a lovely young couple. They loved the work I did to it. After they bought the house they came to visit us with their parents. It was a lovely moment. They even sent me emails a few months lately saying how much they loved the townhouse.

[rrich]

Wongo,

I used to keep a list.

Telephone / Post
Cable TV
Real Estate agents

You can only imagine the name of the list.