Yes you can. If you sign a general contract with an agency, you can also sell privately.

An exclusive contract generally means that only the agency signed or its nominated agent(s) are legally allowed to sell your home. Which means all potential buyer correspondance must go through that agency whether it would be a private contact of yours, a referral from a friend or somebody walking in off the street and approching you the owner. Once any contact by a potential buyer has been made to an agency, that person at any time in the future must go back to the agent who originally introduced them to your property. In an exclusive contract, the agent will generally require you to provide them with a marketing budget to advertise your property.
A general contract with one or more agencies gives you the benefit of wider exposure and at the same time leaves you the freedom to sell privately at any time.

A video is the dynamic version of still photography. Viewers will appreciate to see the layout and angles that only movement provides. The bigger and more interesting the property is, the more necessary it is to display a video on your website. It is particularly suited to overseas viewers who cannot easily visit the property. Some buyers will even buy a property without visiting if the information on the website is comprehensive. The very popular youtube.com also features properties for sale and your video can be displayed there at no charge.

If you're not sure of what you should ask for and not too much in a hurry to sell, you can either display a price on request or a slightly higher price and wait to see what happens. If you are keen to sell fast, it might pay to display a price which will attract buyers who would have otherwise overlooked your property. You can't display a price indication when running an auction. Generally buyers will consider more seriously a property that displays a clear asking price.

You need to reach potential buyers through different avenues and decide on how to ride those different avenues.

First, you need to expand your internet exposure with a listing on one or two popular home listing websites.

Secondly, you need to have your own website in order to promote your property wherever and whenever you can: mail outs, signs, brochures, cards, advertisement, etc. You can do it yourself if you know how or let View do it for you.

Thirdly, you need to have a street sign. There is no commercial sense in having a real estate sign in front of your house. If the buyer found your property this way, you deserve to sell yourself and save the thousand of dollars a real estate contract will cost you.

It's at this stage you can consider if you want to list with a few chosen real estate agents. A general listing is all you need to have your property listed on their website. You can stop your marketing here and it will have cost you very little and if you sell privately it's all what it will cost you.

As a comparison, in an exclusive real estate contract, you will be asked between NZ$3000 and $20.000 to market your property and a further $15.000 to 50.000 commission depending on the price of your property.

If you sell yourself following the formula recommended by View, it will cost you between $350 to $750 including your Trademe listing and it's all what it will cost you.

If you want to widen your net even further and your budget allows, you may consider some paper advertising in order to reach the buyers who don't have access to the internet and those who are not even looking for a property but read their local paper and find your property irresistible. Most real estate companies will suggest you advertise in papers but generally this will be at your own cost, so again it is to your financial advantage to have your own name and phone number in all advertising.

Any property can sell at any time. It only takes one buyer but waiting for better economic times or warmer season will bring more potential buyers. The down side of course is you have more competition, the upside is you have more buyers around.

My advice would be to apply different marketing strategy at different times.
When the market is slow, have an underlying marketing strategy going on (a street sign and your own website mainly). You can even keep your website dormant until you're absolutely ready to promote it. When the market improves a little bit, you can list your property on Trademe, Youtube and a few selected real estate websites if you don't mind paying the commission later. Finally when the sun shines and everybody is looking at buying, you can choose to advertise in papers every week for a month and let the chips fall. If you need help with your layout, please ask us.