Advertising & Ad Budget [back]

The days of selling a property by posting a FSBO sign on the front lawn (and doing only that) have long since past. Today, 85% of the U.S. population first find the property they end-up buying online. Given that important fact, to sell as a FSBO, it is imperative that you have extensive Internet exposure.

There are many free web sites where you can post your property but if you really research this, you'll find the most effective sites usually charge a fee. One very effective free site that I would recommend is Craigslist.com. Craigslist.com (Real Estate category) is a great place for a FSBO to list their property as it has an extremely large audience and is set up so that users can pinpoint a specific city or region.

Still, marketing a property effectively (both print and online) can be a very costly venture which is one of the reasons why most FSBOs ultimately end up using a Realtor.

Below are four easy steps to calculate a budget for the most basic Real Estate ad campaign:

Step 1: Determine individual ad costs

Average cost of Internet ad (current prices can range from .25 cents to $2.00 per click in an effective campaign)
Average cost of local newspaper classified ad (current prices are minimum of $84.00/2 days/5 lines or $54.00/1 day/7 lines)
Average cost of metropolitan newspaper classified ad (average 23-50% more than local)
Average cost of display ad (print) per inch ($73.00 per inch)

Step 2: Determine weekly/monthly ad costs

Cost to run an effective Internet (pay-per-click) campaign per week/month
Average number of lines for effective ad
Cost to run print ad per week/month (local)
Cost to run print ad per week/month (metro)
Cost to run display (print) ad per week/month

Step 3: Determine marketing time

Average market time if selling as a FSBO: 220 Days
Number of weeks the ad would run: 31 Weeks

Step 4: Determine total ad costs

Multiply the average cost of ads by the total estimated marketing time
Total cost of advertising = x

Brian Serpone can be reached in the Harwich office of Today Real Estate at 508-568-8104.