Advertising - Craigslist

Craigslist - to use it or not????

Really, this depends on your market. In the area where I live (Utah), Craigslist is not commonly used but rather most people use ksl classifieds instead.  If you are not sure, ask a few of your friends, relatives, coworkers, etc. who have recently purchased a home and ask them if they used Craigslist.

If you do use Craigslist, make sure to use a link to your website that we discussed building here.  Other than that I would keep the amount of information that I put on Craigslist to a minimum.  I'd upload 2-4 photos and put the most basic and relevant info (price, square footage, number of bedrooms/bathrooms, and neighborhood or city) and a link to your website/blog.  Most scammers won't go to the trouble of going to your website and most truly interested buyers will.

Be prepared, Craigslist will get you a lot of phone calls or emails from people who either have no clue about purchasing a home ("Hello, what payment for this home are you requiring and what is the deposit?") or people who want to buy for pennies on the dollar, rent to own, etc.  You also will be contacted by real estate agents as well as possibly other tradesmen (painters, landscapers, roofers, etc.) looking for work.  The best advice I can give you is if these people leave you emails or send you texts you don't even have to respond (I never responded to the real estate agents and tradesmen) but if you do, be brief and polite, something like "We are selling this home without an agent, we are not interested in renting it or any other non-traditional arrangements, thank you."  If they call you, still, be brief but polite, you never know if they might turn out legit.

How to best use Craigslist to advertise your home

Keep in mind that Craigslist ads are in a "most current" format and move fairly quickly, so if you are in a market where Craigslist is used, you may want to post 2-4 ads per day, spread out during the day, especially on Thursday-Sunday.  Delete old ads to avoid violating their posting limits.  This is another reason for keeping the ads short and sweet with just a few photos and a link to your website/blog. Recreating large, extravagant ads with lots of details and photos several times a day is just too time consuming, you should have put all that effort into your website/blog so you can post Craigslist ads really quickly.