Today I had a listing appointment with my newest clients. They are a referral from a recent client (their former neighbor). The young couple is quite internet savvy and mentioned to me they had attempted to rent their home on their own via craigslist and facebook. The former I expected, but the latter surprised me. I had yet to hear of anyone attempt to sell anything (other than perhaps a service) via facebook.
They told me they had successfully sold some furniture via facebook, but there wasn’t much response to the rental listing on facebook. Now, I’m attempting to be as hip and internet savvy as anyone in Phoenix, with regard to the use of social media sites to market a home, so I’m asking all of my real estate colleagues, have any of you used facebook to market a home for sale or lease? If so, have you had any level of success? To be honest, even just a showing would be a good measure of success, whether the showing resulted in a closed deal or not.
I’ve said before, 60% of my inquiries regarding homes for rent come from my craigslist ads, and 90% of the time, the tenant that gets placed in a home, first found me via craigslist. Those are compelling statistics to be sure, but am I missing an opportunity with facebook? No matter what, I’ll be using facebook for their listing, as well as the next few listings. And this isn’t to appease them, they feel it was a waste, after all, but rather I would like to know personally how effective facebook can be. I’m looking forward to giving this new marketing approach a serious trial.
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IMHO, no, you are not missing out on anything. Both of my listings received ZERO traffic from facebook, nor calls, nor nor nor nada.
Facebook has a long way to go before it can contribute in any significant way to the marketplace. I’m going to give it a thumbs down compared to the rest of the methods we have to convey our marketing messages.
@Jon – Thanks for your results. I suspected as much, but I’m still going to give it a shot.
Hi Steve, I’ve actually had a few showings for properties I’ve listed on Facebook. The caveat is that they have to be near the University and/or well priced; I’ve listed several general type homes with no response.
Keep in mind that the Facebook community is growing quite rapidly and should be bringing a wider audience to the table in the future. Best of luck!
@Michael – Excellent info to know. The owners of this house suspected that college aged folks would be likely respondents as well.
Steve, I hope you will keep us updated if you receive any traffic from this at all. I have not yet done it either but am curious to see how it goes for you.
Hey Steve…what’s the verdict? Have you added any listings to Facebook? How do the stats look?
@Dave – not yet. No rental listings at the moment. Next one is set for July 7th (taking a short “vacation” of sorts). I’ll find out more then. Thanks!
@Steve, sorry your comment was stuck in my spam filter, but I’ll definitely write an update post.
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