Selling real estate online

The way that real estate sales have been influenced by the growth of internet marketing is staggering.

Most real estate agents had almost no internet presence 10 years ago, compare that to now where every real estate agency will spend a large percentage of their marketing budget maintaining and developing their agency web site and online promotions.

This is because recent statistics indicate that 85% of all new buyers for real estate start their research for a new property by looking online.

Big benefits for buyers looking at real estate online

As buyers have dramatically taken up the benefits online marketing provides, real estate agents who want to compete and provide the best marketing to their sellers have been forced to provide property information online.

At this stage a lot of the property information provided will probably be a simple property description and photographs but this information is available at any time for the potential buyers they can conduct their research at home or at work at a time that suits them.

Some things will not change including the fact most buyers will buy based on area and location, but as they research a particular area they just search properties available in suburbs or areas they may be interested in.

The convenience for buyers to start their research online is fairly obvious they can gather facts get address's have a look at photos and then make decisions about which properties are suitable for them and which properties it may be appropriate for them to view internally.

This scenario is not new the only change is perhaps in the past the buyers would have to wait for the weekend papers to view any new properties onto the market now as properties are listed for sale real estate agents simply upload the property information to the real estate web sites and buyers can find out about new properties almost instantly.

Just scratching the surface of selling real estate online

It appears the promotion of real estate online by Australian real estate agents may only just be scratching the surface of possibilities with online marketing.

The majority of properties still just being promoted on the major real estate portals such as the news corporation web site www.realestate.com.au or the other big player the fairfax owner www.domain.com.au.

Just scratching the surface because with the evolution of online marketing new inovations such as property video and online virtual tours are surely the next standard that would be included in every real estate marketing promotion.

Further development of online marketing could include individual web sites being created for individual properties to and marketing of individual properties through the major search engines, through things like google adwords or yahoo search marketing.

The convenience of this type of online marketing seems obvious with information able to be accessible at any time day or night.

The advantages of selling real estate online for owners

The advantages of selling real estate online is obvious to buyers but there are also many benefits to sellers.

As general rule the main benefit is if the real estate agent does their job properly they can provide the seller with interesting and insightful information into how their online marketing is working.

As visitors or viewings of each web page are recorded the real estate agent can provide the owner with an accurate record the numbers of visitors that have looked at their online promotion of their home, this type of information can also include what type of property the buyers are searching for and how long they remained on any particular page similar to any web site statistic records.

If the real estate agent is doing online promotions properly they should also have email records of possible buyers for particular areas and the type of properties these buyers are looking for so emailing buyers with updates and information about new properties on the market is again an advantage for sellers as any effective promotion could help them realise their goal of selling.

As a rule it will be very unlikely that a buyer would buy a property after only seeing its promotion online, although i have heard of this happening it is rare and it is logical that 99% of buyers will need a physical inspection of a property before they consider buying it.

The realty of selling real estate online is that it is probably very important tool to attract buyers as they are searching for information about what is on the market for sale.

As a tool online marketing will probably attract genuine buyers to inspect your property after inspecting it if they still feel it is what they are after you will have a chance of selling it to them.

Most buyers start their buying experience by researching properties for sale online make sure your online promotion is going to catch potential buyers interest at this early point in their search.