Hi, what a surprise to see my name up there in the headline!

I know what you mean about Craigslist and News ads. A big zero, unless you count the nuisance calls about somebody wanting to offer you 25% below the value of your house, or a mortgage guy wanting you to put signs in your yard. The FSBO sites always seemed to be a real rip-off, too.

DH was saying just this evening that he has learned that during such a slow-down, you need an agent to represent your house so that other agents will show it. In a good market you may not need to participate in the REA system, but in our market, you need the exposure. Then again, we don't know that it would have sold last year if we had not waited until August to enlist an agent. We were FSBO for March-July. Who can really know? You make your choices and take your chances and don't look back.

My agent is with Century 21 Town and Country:
Tom Farago
Clinton Township
Office: 586-286-9548
Direct: 586-201-6265

Tom has done the open houses and put us in the C21 book they give away in grocery stores. They are not buying ads in the papers. I really cannot judge if these are missed or not! Tom had been calm and willing to change pictures if I asked. He knows the area well, having been a Mt. Clemens High School teacher for many years. He has sold a few houses during this drought. I like him personally, just don't know enough about what a real go-getter would be doing to market the house in this climate to judge his work.

My good news is we have some interest in the house. A nurse I know at a nursing home I visit for work told me that two of her coworkers were looking in our neighborhood. I dropped off two copies of my old fliers, crossing off the old info and putting Tom's info there instead. One of the nurses wants to lease for a year, then buy. Tom says that he does have info on these kinds of deals, so if we get an offer from her, we will sit down with him to learn about it, then hire an attorney to look at the contract he uses (Tom would be representing both the buyer and us). Someone represented by another realtor viewed the house tonight, it may have been the other nurse. We are holding our breath!

At least the headline didn't start with Macomb County Woman...!!
Thanks for responding. I'll give Tom Farago a call. I'm interviewing a team this morning and am going to schedule a few more before making a decision. Our first agent, although very pleasant, just wasn't working for us. At least now we know what "style" of Realtor we're confortable with. Experience really is the best teacher.

Good luck and I hope the "viewer" turns into your buyer.

Sorry to cut in here.

I am selling in an area with a slow market also. I listed with a discount MLS service, which allows me to sell on my own and owe no agent commision. (the other options is allow agents that find it on mls to show, and give them commission.)

Well....mls agents showed it and also I showed it. I got MANY, MANY inquiries from Craigslist. Also got drive-bys that saw the sign and got the flyers out front.

The home is under contract and the buyers came on their own(drive by). If these buyers fall out of contract, there are other "pure fsbo" buyers that are very interested and expressed interest to offer if the contract falls through.

I cannot express how much I was shocked at the interest from Craigslist. What I did there was repost every few days (and delete the old post.) I noticed as soon as I would repost the new ad, I would get more calls and emails. I got showings from craigslist too but many inquiries, serious buyers too. Had someone travel from out of state just to see the place and they found it online on a local classified site.

So use every method of marketing and don't rely on one. I did not pay for any on-line fsbo sites(just used the free ones, but craigslist is the jackpot), and also did not post classifieds in the newspaper.

Hi Sweet Tea,
Are you in Michigan, too? If not, I believe there are huge differences in how well these different resources work in different parts of the US. Here, Craigslist is known by very few people. Even searching for homes on your own on the internet is done by fewer people than in other areas of the country. It is very interesting to see these differences and I have theories about why people here use the internet so much less. Lots of people my age (late forties) do not know how to use it yet!

I'm just reporting in on the craigslist here - no interest from my craigslist ad and very little from the paper. (I didn't not have a big ad with a picture). Craigslist does not seem to be very big here.
Mary, Nebraska

Definitely differences in craigslist depending on your location!!

I recently sold in the Detroit area and monitored craigslist to see if it'd be worth placing an ad...it wasn't. (I mean it's free, so of course it's worth it, but there wasn't anything happening there.)

Things are different in our new area, though. After losing the flyer to a FSBO we were interested in calling about, on a hunch I looked I was able to find it on craigslist. The difference here of course is that our new area is a Silicon Valley suburb. Craigslist gets quite a bit more use here.