Those are some of the keywords people have been typing before finding my site. This clearly indicates that vendors are confused and don’t know what to do.

Driving past my local streets, I can see houses for sale changing from one real estate company to the next every few months, hoping that each one will be able to do what the previous one couldn’t do: Selling their property.

Others start the private way first and if they don’t see any result fast, they sign with a company only to realise that it’s not any better.

Providing your property is attractive, well priced and the right marketing has been implemented, nobody is to blame if you don’t find your buyer.

We need to separate 2 things here. The 1st one is our ability to expose the property to a large audience. Some companies are better than others,  but know that they are not better than you. You can do a much better job because your motivation is optimal and your attention focused on one property.

The 2nd aspect is finding this buyer among the people who view your property online and make an inquiry to visit it. This aspect has nothing to do with marketing anymore. Your marketing job was done for that particular buyer since they found you. What will happen after that will depend on the most simple equation. Does the buyer love the property and can they afford its price?

If the answer is Yes to both questions, chances are you may have your buyer. If the answer is No to one of the questions, you will have to wait for the next inquiry.

Other than a decision to modify the price or renovate the house, you don’t have a big say into the 2nd aspect. So your focus should be on the 1st one, the marketing.

Read my view.net.nz website suggestions for some ideas. It’s pretty simple and cost effective. Real estate agents in New Zealand will not do more than what I suggest unless you are prepared to pay for a big campaign in national and local newspapers.

In the online world, there is what’s called ‘a Qualified lead”. A qualified lead is a prospect who is already looking for what you have to sell increasing the probability of becoming a buyer. People visiting your property online are more likely to be in the market for what you have to offer than paper readers. Even if they visit your property online -translating into an increased traffic- the qualified leads will be at their lowest. The big spending incurred by paper advertising is -I believe- not justified considering the low return.

So who is to blame?

If your property hasn’t been exposed to a large audience, you’ll have to take responsibility for it. Even if you put your trust in an agent and they haven’t done their job properly, you’ll still have to take responsibility. It was your choice to follow this path.

On the other hand, if you’ve done what’s required and haven’t found a buyer, you may want to look at your site stats and tweak a thing or two, may want to look at your asking price, but overall you can relax, you’re not to blame. The economy and factors out of your control may be to blame but what would be the point in blaming anyone or anything? Simply enjoy the time left in the house you once loved because when it does sell, everything will speed up and you’ll be gone for good.

Silent auctions by private sellers

A Silent auction takes off the immediate pressure of an auctioneer with a hammer ready to drop any minute on buyers and allows you plenty of your time to think, discuss and be clear of where you want to go with your bid.

At silent auctions you have the time to think...

A form is set on a table with a starting bid. The auction runs for 30min, where viewers can view the property, ask any questions to the owners and view relevant documentation i.e. code of compliance, cert. of title, Lim report, etc and have the time to think before placing a bid. Each potential buyer can view the current bid at any time throughout the 30min period.

It is the seller’s choice to have a reserve or not. If there is no reserve the property will be sold after the 1st bid.

If a reserve has been set, a coordinator may write that the bid is at 20% of the reserve informing bidders that they are close to the selling price. When the reserve is met, the coordinator writes “Reserve met” and the property is now selling.

5 minutes before the end of the auction, the bidding sheet is handed to each participant for a last bid before the auction closes and providing the reserve has been reached, the highest bidder wins the auction.

I can’t think of a simpler and attractive way to conduct an auction. It costs nothing and anybody can do it.

I did entered it, then went to my stand and decided to do the same. Fortunately for me, I had come quite prepared with 3 displays and containers to enter 3 types of draw but very few would have approached me to enter if I was not ready to approach them first.

It’s how a sentence I made up on the spot was repeated in my perfect French accent endlessly during the 4 hours the exhibit lasted. This way, I got what I wanted. Names of people in each of the draw box that I later contacted with prize winners and more information on our services.

Comparatively, someone across the alley had a stand offering “customer service training” and she didn’t approach people as much and didn’t have a prize draw system in place, so unfortunately hardly no one stopped at her stand.

This is what I learned from this experience.

People will not stop at a stand unless they have a very good reason to do so. They may miss something of interest because they don’t want to appear interested and keep walking on a slow but nearly unstoppable momentum. I had a monitor displaying a Powerpoint presentation but nobody stopped long enough to see it. If I hadn’t prepared those draw boxes, it would have been a complete flop. But thanks to them and my inviting people to get in the draw, I got names I could work on later on.

I also realised that the best way to assess people’s interest and therefore potential clients is to offer various prizes, one of them being your services.

I hope you find my tips useful, it worked for me. Keep in mind I am a complete newbie, for pro advice try Access displays and tips on artwork.

Underneath it says: “You may have noticed that we have just put up a SOLD sign on this property. If you would like to see the same on yours, please feel free to call me …” bla bla bla

Very well you may think. Hey why not telling everybody that you have finally sold a house. But wait.

Underneath, in small print it says: “The above information has been furnished to us by the Owner. We have not verified whether or not that information is accurate and do not have any belief one way or the other in its accuracy. We do not accept any responsibily to any person for its accuracy and do no more than pass it on. All interested parties should make and rely upon their own inquiries in order to determine whether or not this information is in fact accurate.”

I re read it twice wondering if I had misunderstood the statement somehow. But no. They were really insulting their potential clients’ intelligence and making a fool of themselves at the same time.

Not only they admit that they have not sold this house themselves, otherwise they would be certain of the accuracy of the SOLD statement but they also subtly hint that the house may have not been sold at all.

Why on earth would anyone contact this real estate agent after she admits that she put the SOLD sign only for the benefit of her advertisement?

It’s beyond me. They may think desperate times call for desperate measures but this real estate agent only showed her dishonesty while trying to disclaim all responsibiliy for her actions.

Please comment if you have any similar stories.

This particular sign didn’t even show a photo of the house, just the face, name and contact of an agent as if he was the one up for sale. The house simply didn’t matter as much as the agent himself.

I know why they do it but I just can’t get used to it. The benefit for the agent is two fold. He not only gets the calls from potential buyers passing by (providing they manage to notice the house) but also and above all shows his smiling face to any potential vendors wanting to find an agent to sell their home who will themselves contribute to more advertising for the agent. It simply snowballs.

In the meantime, the house owner is promoting the agent while losing any chance to sell privately to the buyers passing by.

You may think that if the sign is great with beautiful pictures of the property, that’s alright then. Well think again. The people passing by will indeed notice the property more but who will they call if they want more information and ultimately buy the house? The agent of course. The sign was put up on the house owner’s own turf. Consequently, they deserve to sell without giving any commission away if the buyer finds them this way.

It’s a bit like having a car for sale and driving around with the name of a dealer on it, so people call the dealer and you pay them a commission !!! How crazy would it be?

Yet, the real estate industry has been indoctrinating us with the belief that only they can sell real estate and therefore all vendors ans buyers should always go through them.

The truth is that however successful an agent may be at selling properties, he will never be the reason why a buyer buys a house. A house will sell because there is someone who likes it and can afford it. There is no point for agents to show off how many houses they have sold. These are not convincing credentials, they are merely the consequence of having advertised themselves more than the others, thanks to their generous clients.