For former real estate agent Kathryn Bryant, selling her East Greenwich home without a Realtor seemed like no problem. She and her husband decided in mid-November to put their four-bedroom home on the market, with an asking price of $325,000. Bryant thought it would be easier now than ever to sell the house – simply because she had posted a picture and description on the Internet.
“I have heard from some Realtor friends of mine that it is the ‘modern way of selling a house,'” she said. “I am not a computer buff myself, but I know that there are a lot out there.”
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Her home, along with more than a dozen others, is posted on the New England For Sale By Owner Website, a spin-off of the free magazine bearing the same name. Both are owned and operated by John Nataliza and based in East Greenwich.
More than three years ago, the magazine launched the Web page, but still Nataliza said, it’s been slow to catch on among both buyers and sellers.
“People with more expensive homes seem to understand how important it is to have your home on the Internet,” he said. “In the buying market, most of the calls we get come from the magazine, though we are starting to get inquiries from people in other parts of the country that have seen the Website.”
Stacy Tanionos of North Kingstown said though her former Exeter home was on the Website for more than six weeks, only a couple of people mentioned seeing it there, and as a result she returned to the traditional newspaper advertising.
“I just don’t think people knew it was there,” she said.
Bryant is having the same problem. Her house is still on the market. Though she knows she should be on the Internet, Bryant isn’t sure where her house should be placed on the Web, or how to direct people there.
“I have been trying to find other Websites that I would also be able to put my house on,” she said. “But so far it’s been a little frustrating.”
Ron D’Amico, a broker at Residential Properties Limited in East Greenwich said getting “traffic” to real estate sites is a problem for everyone in the business, and is especially hard for people trying to sell their homes without a Realtor.
“Building a Website is like building a castle in the desert,” he said. “There has to be someone, on an on-going basis, keeping up with the site’s placement on search engines, and assessing the clutter as more and more Websites come on-line. That is a very large task for individual home sellers.”
Another challenge D’Amico said is that many sites, similar to his, are linked with other real estate Web pages providing a network of opportunity that a single home seller might miss.
“It used to be that the Internet was an equalizer,” he said. “That the little guy could get as much exposure. But that has changed and now the guy with the deep pockets is more likely to get the greater exposure because he can optimize his search engines.”
Ronald Phipps, president of the Rhode Island Association of Realtors agreed.
“The honest answer is that the real estate community markets to itself 50 to 60 percent of the time,” he said. “With more than 2,800 real estate agents in Rhode Island there is a convenience that allows network. One house listed with one agent is on several Websites and has a broad ban of exposure. For sale by owners don’t have that tool.”
D’Amico said the best thing that people selling their own home can do, is create their own Websites and links.
And according to D’Amico designing a personal Website isn’t that expensive.
“People selling their home are often trying to save on paying a commission to the agent,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t advertise. This is one way of advertising.”
Bryant said even if she were to spend $3,000 in advertising, it would still be only a quarter of the commission an agent would get on the home.
