Felipe Foo45588

Having spent the last few years running several web sites I can speak from some experience as to the problems facing both people who are trying to sell or rent properties online, and those seeking to find places to buy or rent.

Due to the international nature of the internet vacation and holiday properties are more popular for the owner or small agent to offer, whereas traditional home sales and lets tend, in many countries to be dominated by agent or realtor based web sites where thousands of properties can be listed from hundreds if not thousands of agents.

Buyers and Renters

People who are looking to buy or rent want CHOICE so a web sites needs a large portfolio of properties on offer, a few hundred as a minimum - and ideally thousands. A few thousand properties world wide is still limited as the numbers in each country or region is likely to be small, whereas the same number in a state or county could be considered vast.

Next they are usually seeking LOCATION - usually a town or city, or locations close to the sea, an airport and similar strategic needs. It's all to easy to find no listings at all for a need, so a big put off for the seekers for sure.

Next they seek VALUE assuming they can find any properties at all, and often the advertiser fails to indicate a fair price, or in some cases no price at all - information on the offer may be sparse so this hard to find listing is in itself a major put off.

Given the lack of patience with the average web surfer finding a web site offering properties to rent or buy can be a waste of time if numbers are low (as may occur with a new web site) and choice limited. The stop over on such a site may be seconds, never to return. A site with more choice and some good numbers may at best warrant adding to your FAVOURITES in your web browser ideally under a properties folder.

Sellers and Renters

The life blood of a web site offering vacation and holiday properties are the advertisers, here the site itself can put off the advertisers and the advertisers put off the customers or clients by the way they present their offers, here are the typical sins owners and their agents commit, I assume in an effort to save time and money.

1. site charges a high listing price so unless the sites audience is vast and thousands of places listed the risk of even a few dollars will not be worth it.

2. No bothering to list on FREE web sites which are new to the web or have limited listings in some areas, free is good business and taps on to the (growing) audience of the web site, so for the sake of a few minutes adding a listing can pay great long term dividends.

3. Not bothering to REGISTER with a site to keep in touch with its developments - passing by a site which is half decent in many ways but fails to pass your critical test could be worth dropping back to in a few months or even next year - signing up FREE is worth the few seconds it takes and ensures you get newsletters and details of special offers from the site.

4. limited information - all too many advertisers write one sentence and expect to sell a 200,000 dollar property, or write a load of bull about how great the place is and the location. People want FACTS where is it, are shops or entertainment close by, where is the sea, how many rooms, how big, is there a shower etc. In fact all this stuff can be SAVED on your computer and pasted in and edited where needed.

5. No or just one photo - people need to SEE the place from a number of different views to highlight its advantages - all too many advertisers highlight the DOWN SIDES via lack of, insufficient or just plain confusing information and photos.

6. Bad photos - with digital cameras the normal there is little reason not to be able to take great photos of your place from different angles and get buyers and renters keen to book or make a viewing. Avoid people in pics, or shots of toilets and other great put offs, instead highlight things like views of sea or mountains, pool, large lounges, bedrooms, shower rooms - try and put yourself in the place of the person you are trying to attract - what would YOU like to see.

7. Not giving prices - web surfers do not have TIME to ask for prices and wait perhaps hours or days for replies yet a lot work on the idea "if they are interested they will ask" believe that and you will not sell or rent many or more likely NONE.

8. Not spreading your promotion wide enough - some use one web site and expect massive results, others run ads on hundreds of only free web sites and classifieds working on the idea if I throw enough "mud" some will stick - the real truth is you need to TARGET your ads to a few maybe 10 at most top web sites - free or at low cost based on the sites ease of use, and audience levels, including giving a new site a chance to prove its value to you in the long term.

The moral to this tale? Most property advertisers who avoid using agents or realtors to sell or rent their properties direct (and save commissions) are making serious errors with listings. There is a HUGE demand from web surfers who are wasting a lot of their INITIAL TIME in finding both good web sites and more ideally good properties to short list.

Maurice S Clarke is founder of the online vacation and holiday property and accommodation auction and trading web site http://www.bidvac.com and lives in Rugby, UK. This article may be freely republished provided it remains intact.

posted by felipefoo60930 @ 5:35 AM 0 comments