Editorial
Front Page - Monday, December 07, 2009
Listing on Craigslist
Ethan C. Nobles
Special to the Daily Record ecnobles@att.net
Regardless of market conditions, Realtors are constantly looking for a way to get homes in front of as many potential buyers as possible.
Craigslist – located at www.craigslist.org – has only been around since 1995 but has grown considerably past its San Francisco roots to the point where people throughout the United States can find Craigslist content gathered toward their communities. In Arkansas, people can view Craiglist content that is local to the Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Jonesboro, Little Rock, Memphis and Texarkana areas.
One of the main features of Craigslist is that users can post classified advertisements for free. There is a section set aside for real estate and some area Realtors have found some success posting ads there.
“I like it,” said Little Rock Realtor Christine Ragar. “It’s free and it gives exposure.”
Ragar said she noticed that a lot of people look at listings around the country on Craigslist and figured she’d put some properties on the service in hopes of connecting with potential buyers.
“It’s amazing how many people look for real estate on it,” she said. “It’s additional advertising and there are lots of hits on Craigslist.”
Of course, tracking just how many hits a Cragislist ad gets can be a bit of a chore. How many hits does an ad get and from what areas of the nation are they coming.
There’s a free service located at www.craigscounter.com that allows users to insert a counter that will keep track of traffic counts. The service features, among other things, a live map that shows where clicks are coming from and keeps up with traffic counts.
Ragar said one of the reasons she likes posting on Craigslist is that sellers appreciate a Realtor who uses even nonconventional venues to generate interest in a listing.
“It’s additional advertising and there are a lot of hits on Craigslist,” she said.
Ragar said another nice feature about Craigslist is that users can renew ads every 48 hours so she can keep her listings near the top of the real estate category on the site.
North Little Rock Realtor Mike Zanoff said he has also found some success with Cragislist. He said one thing to keep in mind is that ads must be renewed every 30 days and Craigslist sends no notices when the expiration date approaches.
Still, he said keeping up with ads is worth the trouble – Craigslist gets results. Zanoff said he’s found Craigslist so effective that he’s “working on putting more ads” on the service.
Zanoff said he listed a house in Jacksonville that had gotten little interest from sellers. He put the house on Craigslist and quickly sold it to a couple moving from out of state for jobs at the Little Rock Air Force Base.
He agreed with Ragar that Craigslist is very convenient for people from outside of Arkansas who are looking for homes in the Natural State on the service. While it might have once been uncommon for people to shop for houses on Craigslist, that practice is growing in popularity and Zanoff said he wants to capitalize on the traffic heading to the service in hopes of finding houses.
North Little Rock Realtor Dayla London said she hasn’t been using Craigslist for long, but is encouraged by the service. She posted a house there and started getting calls on it almost immediately after placing her ad.
“It’s working real well,” she said.
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