ByTheOwner.com’s customers are opening their doors to buyers. There were more than 300 open houses scheduled last weekend. Open Houses are a great way to bring buyers and sellers together. Here are two recent testimonials of a customer that sold by doing open houses:
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ByTheOwner.com’s website statistics for the month of April 2008:
Website visitors increased from 694,507 visits in April 2007, to 990,641 in April 2008. This is a 43% increase in website visits from April 2007 to April 2008.
Pageviews increased from 6.0 million page views in April 2007, to 8.2 million pageviews in April 2008. This is 35% increase in pageviews from April 2007 to 2008.
Unique visitors increased from 372,643 unique visitors in April 2007, to 506,925 unique visitors in April 2008. This is 36% increase in unique visitors from April 2007 to 2008.
Unique visitors and pageviews are the two most useful statistics when it comes to measuring the exposure you will receive from a For Sale By Owner website. Unique visitors is the number of individual people coming to look for properties on the site. Pageviews is the number of pages that those visitors look at.
Some websites claim to have a certain number of “hits”. This is not a valid measure of website activity, because a “hit” can be counted a number of different ways. For example, if a page has 30 images on it, and one person goes to that page, it could be counted as 30 “hits”. This would be like saying ByTheOwner.com received more than 200 million “hits”. ByTheOwner.com does not quote how many “hits” we receive because it is not a valid stat. Unique visitors and pageviews are the only real measure of website activity.
Stats provided by Google Analytics
So, you think you don’t need Home Staging?
You have decided to sell your property. You love the home decorating shows on TV. You have good taste and you house is well decorated. You are ready to put the property on the market. But, are you really?
I often hear this kind of thinking from certain home sellers, especially women. It’s perfectly normal, as home decorating is becoming an established hobby and is well represented all over the media (on TV, magazines, books, Internet, etc). That’s great!
But, please remember that Home Staging is a set of specific and very efficient techniques. The goal of Staging a home is not at all the same either; we decorate our house for ourselves, in accordance with our personal taste whether the Home Staging is decorating for others, namely the potential buyers! The point of vue is completely the opposite – instead of personalizing, we actually depersonalize the property for sale!
And, another important point: it’s very difficult to be objective about your own home. As long as you look at it as a “home” and not as a real estate investment, you won’t be able to present it at its best FOR SALE.
A professional and impartial Home Stager will execute an assessment of your property and will provide you with recommendations to make the property irresistible to buyers. The assessment may show more or less changes to be made to the property but, believe me, in three years, I have still to see a “PERFECT” house!
This article contributed by Sveta Melchuk, founder of Home Staging Montreal, a firm which specializes in Home Staging and Interior Redesign since 2005. Please visit www.home-staging-montreal.com for more information or contact us at 514-482-9776.
Advantages to having an Open House
There are many advantages to having an open house including:
Managing Your Time: People who sell privately need to minimize the time spent on the sale of their home. Open houses can be a great way to do this. Not everyone has the time to keep their home clean all the time or to show their home on a Wednesday night when they are trying to put their children to bed. You can use Open Houses to manage your time by inviting all buyers to come to your open house on the weekend. You can spend the morning of your open house cleaning and preparing for your visitors and then devote 3-4 hours concentrating on showing your home and talking with buyers.
Weekends Are For Buyers: Just as you can be busy during the week, so are buyers. Most buyers will search online during the week and then spend the weekend visiting homes and open houses. Making your home available during the weekend is an important way to reach buyers.
Open House Signs: Signs are one of the most important factors to selling a home. Imagine a buyer going to see an open house around the corner from your home. If you do not have your open house signs up, there is a chance that they might miss your home. Open houses allow you to place temporary signs in your neighbourhood on the weekends when all the buyers are out shopping for their next home. What an excellent opportunity!
Creating a Buzz: Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd. One important factor of inviting all the buyers to come during a certain time frame, is that they will hopefully see other buyers interested in your home and this will show them that they will need to take action if they are interested, because it will soon be sold!
Open House Tips
An Open House is your time to shine as a private seller! It’s also your home’s time to shine and get sold! Here are some tips to make your open house go great…
Be Prepared: Your Home
You can spend the morning before an open house making sure your home is in perfect condition – clean, vacuum, remove the clutter, remove personal photographs, light come candles for a pleasant aroma (or bake some cookies), set the table, make the beds… The goal is to make your home look clean, open, and simple. Basically, try to make your home look like a brand new model home. This is your home’s time to shine!
Be Prepared: Your Information
Feature Sheets: Your buyers will most likely be looking at a few homes over the weekend. You want to make sure that they receive a feature sheet with your photos and info. After looking at 5-10 homes, some buyers might forget the special features of your home. You want them to have something tangible that they can take home and look at later. The ByTheOwner.com feature sheets will have a link to your listing so that the buyers can go online and see the photos and info again and again!
Legal Info: Along with the feature sheet, it is a good idea to have your lawyer’s information available for buyers. If they would like to submit an offer, they will need your lawyer’s information. You can attach your lawyer’s business card to the feature sheet and let the buyers know that they can bring you an offer and you will review it with your lawyer.
Your Knowledge: Buyers will look at 20-30 homes before they buy. They will most likely be knowledgeable about what is going on the neighbourhood. This is also your chance to show them that you know what’s going on. If you are prepared, you can discuss other properties in the neighbourhood. You can ask the buyers about other properties they have seen
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It was a long hard winter: Record snow falls, cars stuck, streets closed! Those days are all behind us and Spring Is Here! The birds are back, and the grass is green so it’s the perfect time for an OPEN HOUSE!
MAY IS OPEN HOUSE MONTH ON ByTheOwner.com
Open Houses are a great way for private buyers and private sellers to connect. Private Buyers spend the week looking at homes online and then spend their weekends going to see homes in the neighbourhood’s of their choice. Private Sellers are also able to use open houses to get their house it tip-top shape and invite all the buyers to come in at a convenient time.
ByTheOwner.com is inviting all our sellers and all our buyers to come together during OPEN HOUSE MONTH on ByTheOwner.com.
Our OPEN HOUSE promotion is also combined with the launching our new and improved OPEN HOUSE section of our website. Buyers are now able to choose their OPEN HOUSES, plan their itineary, and get instant driving directions to all the homes they want to see. Check it out:
Canada.com has a interesting article on a home that was listed with an agent for 2 months with no luck. “The real estate agent’s strategy was that I reduce the price”, but instead the owner decided to sell their home privately and also use a home stager. The home sold in no time at all!
To read the entire article please click here: “Paint brightens home seller’s prospects”
For more information on Home Staging, you can visit: http://www.home-staging-montreal.com/
ByTheOwner.com recently reached 6,000 properties for sale in Canada! This is a significant milestone for us, as we only reached 4,000 properties for sale in June of 2007. In less than 1 year we have increased our online inventory by 50%. At this pace, we should reach 10,000 homes for sale in 2010.
For ByTheOwner.com, the number of properties for sale is almost as significant as the number of properties sold. We know that buyers only visit websites that have lots of listings. The more listings a website has, the more buyers the website receives.
Our success rate ranges between 55-60% (which compares to agents with a success rate ranging from 62-65%). It takes a lot of volume in order to maintain a large inventory of homes for sale because many of our properties sell, which reduces the number of homes that we have for sale. Currently ByTheOwner.com advertises 270-330 new properties each week.
In Today’s Toronto Star, Ellen Roseman writes about some of the potential hazards with 40-year mortgages. To read the article you can click here:
An article in today’s Toronto Star reports that MLS sold properties in the GTA dropped 22% in March. This is in addition to an 11% drop in February, and a 2% drop in January. So far this year MLS sales in the GTA have dropped approximately 13%. Some of the reasons given for the drop in MLS sales include weather, the new land transfer tax, and the economy.
On the contrary, ByTheOwner.com’s sold properties in the GTA have increased 66% so far this year: Sold properties increased from 91 in the first quarter of 2007 to 151 during the first quarter of 2008.
Selling privately allows owner much more freedom in the stable market. For example, if you consider two similar homes being sold for $300,000, one being sold ByTheOwner and the other with an agent: The ByTheOwner.com seller is able to accept $300,000 and KEEP $300,000. However, the home being sold with the agent for $300,000 would result in the owner keeping less than $285,000 (assuming 5% commission). The ByTheOwner seller would even be able to sell their property for $295,000 and still take home $10,000 more than the home sold with an agent.
