Selling Homes Online

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – The real estate market is growing right now and so are ways to sell homes.

There are more ways for people wanting to get their property to potential buyers than ever before.

We go online to find and research almost anything we want to buy online, whether it’s social media, or specific real estate websites, it’s easy to find listings.

Realtors and for sale by owners both benefit.

Realtors have more advertising avenues now, than ever.

Teresa Brooks has been in the business for almost thirty years and says online growth has helped the housing market.

“When I started in this business, we had to fill out forms and send them off to another state and get books printed and then, when the books came back to us, they were already out of date, so the computer system is much better.”

It’s better for realtors and more convenient for people who chose to sell their homes themselves.

“You know it use to be, they would just put a sign up in the yard, and you know, that was just about all they had to do, other than advertising in it the newspaper, or whatever, but there are websites now that are especially geared toward for sale by owners and a lot of people use those,” says Brooks.

Brooks says although for sale by owners use social media and websites to post listings, it’s not greatly affecting sales in Starkville.

“I would think that the percentage of for sale by owners in Starkville is relatively small, as far as the number of people who sell their house on their own. There are a lot of people that just don’t have the time and they don’t have the expertise to do it and they don’t want to do it on their own.”

However, Buddy Staggers is a part of the for sale by owner group.

“I mostly advertise just word of mouth and putting a sign out at front and I occasionally have used Zillow for sale by owner.”

He’s a retired banker who buys homes, fixes them up, and resales them.

He says online is a great tool for sale by owners to use, but doesn’t think it overshadows the experts.

“Realtors have such a good way of showing properties, the MLS and exposing it to a broad market and it’s hard for those owners to get to those markets. Being in banking, I knew a lot of people and so I’ve had that advantage.”

Brooks says one common mistake made by for sale by owners is under pricing their property.