Selling: 4. Advertise Your Home

Get the Word Out

ByOwnerSantaFe.com is a great advertising venue - but cover your bases to sell quickly! Prepare to spend some money on advertising, even up to $1,000. You must let the market know your home is for sale.

Yard Sign
Included FOR FREE with your listing on this website is delivery, installation and rental of an attractive yet bold, unique-to-Santa-Fe redwood, colonial style crossbar yard sign, 6 feet high and 3 feet wide with your phone number and our website on it. Buyers can visit ByOwnerSantaFe.com and get all details about your property, send you spam-free email, or call you. We will deliver and install your yard sign at no charge! When your home is about to close, let us know & we will come and pick up the sign. We do have to hold onto a damage/loss deposit, but we give that back to you once you sell your home!

Website
ByOwnerSantaFe.com is a website made by Santa Feans for the benefit of Santa Feans. We are invested in this community, and have the image that supports Santa Fe. Our interactive, scrolling, zoomable maps are a great feature for finding FSBOs, and our detail pages allow for more detailed information and more pictures than other FSBO sites, the MLS, or any agent. People checking out other listings they've seen around town will also run across your listing. Click here to start your listing.

Info Box
You can use your own printer to print out your property's detail sheet once you create your listing on ByOwnerSantaFe.com - with a color printer if you have one! Keep these in a box next to your yard sign (or order one with your sign and we'll include it for you) and drive-by buyers will be able to get immediate information on your home, even if you're not around. It is a great idea to include a property 'plat' on the back of your detail sheet.

Classifieds
While the various papers, weeklys and real estate guides can be a consideration, we think there's really only one game in town when it comes to print - the local classifieds. If you're on a limited advertising budget, the Sunday New Mexican newspaper is your best bang for your print buck. To list ONLY in the Sunday New Mexican, you must be having an open house (some people get around this by advertising "virtual" open houses). Give it a shot once or twice. The New Mexican also offers FSBO specials - 10 line minimum plus color photo and accompanying web ad will run for 7 days for about $160 plus tax.

Your ad should give the basics of your home, including price and "create a sense of urgency" using words like "motivated seller." Buy a color picture if possible, and don't list on a holiday weekend. If you've used the FSBO formula from Step 1, then you should list your price as firm and as below market value or below appraisal. It's a good idea to list the size of the house, number of rooms, amount of land, street address, any available seller financing and that you're showing By Appointment (include your phone number obviously). Also give the top standout/unique feature of your home. Include "FSBO" or "By Owner." The web address to your detail page is great, and you can use tinyurl.com to make a short URL for listing, and don't forget your phone number, as an example, http://tinyurl.com/nkkw7 is the tiny URL for this page . Say "no agents" if you mean it, or say Agents OK (and get more inquiries!) if you're willing to negotiate or amend!

You may also consider publishing in a local "homes for sale" publication - at rates significantly less than the paper usually.

Word Of Mouth
You might be surprised at how much telling everyone you meet can do for your serious inquiries and eventually the sale of your property! Post at work, at the gym, in the grocery store, clubs, soccer games or whereever an appropriate bulletin board might be. Answer the question:  "Where do people find homes for sale in my price range?" Word of mouth and the resulting networking can be the most powerful advertising in real estate. As noted in the terms of use for this website, everything you do must comply with the Federal Fair Housing Act.

Directional Signs
If your street doesn't have a high amount of traffic, you should consider a "directional" (that means 'with an arrow on it') sign with metal stakes to put at one or more nearby intersections. Get permission to place them first, please. We'll give you one for the asking with your listing, or a directional open house sign. Additional signs are available as well.

Response from Agents
Before we get on to information about showings and open houses, you must prepare yourself for the (aggressive) responses which you will receive from real estate agents or brokers. They will use many tactics to either get you to list with them, or to "become" the selling agent. Very importantly, do not let an agent show your house, even if they tell you that they've got a seriously interested buyer. If an agent shows your house, they can make a strong case that you owe them "selling agent commissions," even though you've never discussed or signed a listing agreement. As listed in the terms of use for this site, you should consult a real estate attorney for advice on this issue - there may be documents you can sign with interested agents. You might want to let an agent know that a buyer is welcome to look at the property on their own without the agent, and that the buyer is solely responsible for payment of agent fees. You may also wish to negotiate a "selling agent commission" with an agent - especially if there are no buying agent commission fees due by you. Another advertising consideration with agents is the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) - see the FAQ below for information on this.

Frequently Asked Questions For This Page

Q: How do I get on the MLS?
A: You may want to list your home on the Southwest Multiple Listing Service, SWMLS.com. Realize that this is a resource used by agents for agents, so you will probably right off the bat be giving up 3% off of your sales price - meaning you'll need to lose money, raise your asking price and lose your FSBO advantage. Additionally, to get listed on the MLS requires a participating listing agent. While you can negotiate fees for the service, agents are going to want to get at least another 1% in addition to the buyer's agent's 3%. If you happen to list your FSBO with a "flat fee MLS" service, which still requires a licensed real estate agent to do the listing and you mention in your property description something along the lines of "no agents," then the primary users of the MLS listings - agents - are not going to pass along information on your property to their buyers. Even if you don't put that phrase in, MLS listings require you to list the listing agent and brokerage - and buyer's agents will know that the one you are listed with is just putting FSBOs up on the MLS - so the agents will know that you're a FSBO anyway. While getting on the MLS can be done - there's certainly a question of whether it helps you as a FSBO, or if it just puts you back into agent land with commissions of four to six percent still due!

See all frequently asked questions