Craigslist.com

[Rich_in_CT]

Anyone here using Craigslist? How are you finding the results? It's free so obviously it seems like the ROI is infinite but I wonder just how popular it is in some areas of the country. I know in my area it wasn't too popular a few years ago but it seems to be catching on and it seems to be gaining credibility as a good site to add to the list of places to market a house. What do you think? What are your concerns or comments? I know some people have mentioned the biggest issue they see is that they sometimes get flagged by competition, are you seeing the same?

[Codythebest]

Flagged and removed in less than 3 minutes in most case if the ad is legit.
If it's spam, less than 3 sec :rolleyes:

[Krazza]

I dont agree totally there about being flagged. I used it (as an owner) to draw more attention to my property. I actually believe it was the catalyst in finding my buyer. (im not an agent btw)

I had this website built, (sorry cant post it here yet) and with regular craigslist posts got 100 -200 direct hits each time.

For free its a steal!

[agentstealth.com]

We have clients that use CraigsList for advertising all the time. It proves to be very efficient if you advertise specific tools for buyers and sellers to use. If you just advertise another real broker's name or personal site, I think you will have troubles.

[gjtrafl]

I post all the time and have never been flagged. It has produced a decent amount of leads. Nothing has converted yet but I am encouraged with the results.

[rama1]

Didn't work for me very well but I am consistent and I got couple calls. I assume that people watching what is going on over there.

[kelsheikh]

I was constantly flagged and removed. It would only be good if you showed that you are not commercial and not a scammer.

[professional-lists]

If you post spam, it will be flagged and removed. If it is a legit posting, you may get good results. I believe I've received some incoming traffic before.

Not sure if I've capitalized, however as they say...

no such thing as bad publicity

What would your goals for craigslist be?

[Daniel Richardson]

Craigslist is a joke...the whole flagging thing is out of hand, along with the Spam, I definately get inquiries about postings I have made on Craigslist but of course my area does not have tons of postings like other US areas do. However as individual searches for homes I don't think it is very useful because you cannot really narrow down your search so well, you have to go through a ton of postings to find something you are somewhat interested in. Thumbs down on Craigslist. We need a new listings site that is free that generates the same amount of traffic that Craigslist does.

[cgmaker]

Flagging is a problem. Especially with competitors. But if you know how you can generate alot of traffic and leads from it. Also use professional graphics depending on what you are posting about. It makes you look more legit than someone using plain text.

[charlieberry]

Flagging is a problem. Especially with competitors. But if you know how you can generate alot of traffic and leads from it. Also use professional graphics depending on what you are posting about. It makes you look more legit than someone using plain text.

I generate alot of traffic by posting in html allowing for dirct follow links. I haven't sold anything from it yet, but for free, what the heck.

[athand]

I totally agree that there is one of the biggest database . But unfortunately there are a lot of websites advertising. I mean that if you need quality leads, craiglist.com isn`t the best site to search.

[VegasRealEstate]

I totally agree that there is one of the biggest database . But unfortunately there are a lot of websites advertising. I mean that if you need quality leads, craiglist.com isn`t the best site to search.

What would you say is the best site to search?

[rama1]

You could subscribe to direct leads. You could a research who is the best in this area. However, what is worked for me, visiting meetings and gatherings and being there. Trying to present yourself and create your own network. It is not easy but you will have your own personal database of people in any industry and influence.

[John Cobb]

I just posted to craig's list for the first time today. I used classifiedads.com to create a free flyer and then posted it. I'll try to remember to come back here and let you know how it worked

[RobM]

For those that are using Craigslist to advertise tools, etc as opposed to listings, what do you find as the most effective way of doing that...if you could give an example, that would be great.

thanks

rob

[brechtp]

I get boku traffic to my site from Craigslist in the boston area. I don't know how it will work where you are but I do direct response style marketing on CL and the results are worht the 5 minutes of posting

[RobM]

My curiosity is about the ad itself...could you give an example or pm me with the example....please

[brechtp]

"For details on this property and a free list of bank-owned homes that meet your criteria, click here"

Landing page has property details and a call to action where person can input their criteria. Write good sales copy.

[bronsonb]

I use craigslist to advertise and it seem like it is a hit and miss.

Sometimes it is great and other times I don't get any thing.

[brechtp]

I ran this ad, which is probably the simplest ad I've run in CL. http://boston.craigslist.org/nos/rfs/594125576.html I got 46 people to my site (so far) 2 leads and 7 new subscribers to my blog. For FREE. This would have cost me $120 in the Boston Globe and I'd have no new subscribers. It would have cost me about $100 in google adwards to get 46 people to my site.
Don't knock FREE, just figure out how to use it. If your website stinks or you don't have lead capture mechanisms in place then anything you do is useless.

[brianlaughlin]

We've had good success with Criagslist. One thing that helps is to have software that posts for you and to post about specific properties.

If you get flagged then just rerun the posting software. I don't remember the program's name off hand, but you can google it.

Regards,

Brian Laughlin

[RobM]

I have used Vflyer. Very easy to use, creates all of the code for you for ebay,craigslist, backpage, etc and you just copy and paste and looks great. They give you 5 free, or you can pay something like $12/month for I think unlimited and some other nice stuff

[Codythebest]

I do my coding myself, so I guess I save 12 bucks every month...:D

[Executive Home Buyer]

WHY is eveyone so fixated on Craigslist?

Have you tried ebay? Or a combination of both?

[kytine888]

Think alot posting to craiglist and having good result or great chance of at least knowing your market info. I think that you should update your postings here if not everyday maybe 2x a day to keep your ad on the list visible :P

[Codythebest]

WHY is eveyone so fixated on Craigslist?

Have you tried ebay? Or a combination of both?

More leads from CL than Ebay...and freeer :D

[Portland Real Estate Guy]

Craigslist is great. But they have committed flaggers going through ads full time.

[Codythebest]

Craigslist is great. But they have committed flaggers going through ads full time.

I'm not surprised. And they bomb click lots of ads...

[kytine8888]

Think this site is popular. People watching the site, the offers. Maybe some are tired of reading ads postings over and over those spammers. So when your ad is kinda cathy for sure u will have a good result.

[Portland Real Estate Guy]

Craigslist is great. I've used craigslist in a time of crisis sometime and it was a big help. If you can do it right. Dont worry about the Flagers to much, study the ads that stay up and learn from them.

[karyljm]

Craigslist is a very good way to advertise property for sale, or anything as a mater of fact. I know losts of people that look through it to see whats available. :cool:

[realestate360]

The thing about Craigslist is that you have to understand it and know how to use it correctly. That doesn't mean you have to post thousands of ads just to get some through (not as much of a numbers game as some might think). You just have to know how to structure unique, quality ads.

My company provides managed classified ad campaigns as a service, and I have not had problems with flagged/removed ads yet (and you can imagine we post far more ads than the average person, especially multiple ads per property). We also post to far more sites than Craigslist to keep things going. One thing we do is work to make each ad unique. We use different photos, HTML and different links for each ad (of course, it helps that we do the photography also, so I always make sure we have an abundance of photos to work with for each property). We change up the titles (sometimes we list the price where it asks, sometimes we don't), we change the text of the ad slightly, and we have various email addresses that we use specifically for this function (rather than using the same email address for each ad).

The thing about Craigslist is that too much consistency is considered spam. Too many posts from the same email address or IP address, the same website links being used too many times, the same pictures being used over and over...to the flaggers, it's easy to see that every ad using the same info over and over is spam, just as it's easy for you and me to see. The system is there to keep the results fresh for those searching. Personally, I start to get upset when I see the same property listing (in the same way) over and over. I want more variety than that when searching for a home, and the system Craigslist has in place understands that and works to keep that variety going.

Just making a few simple adjustments like the ones I mentioned above can help to eliminate the flagging issue. Once you're past that, I think you'll find Craigslist to be an excellent tool for generating leads. Just a few hints: if you make your ads specific, you'll receive more targeted traffic. Including the price, essential property info such as square footage, # of bedrooms/bathrooms, subdivision or neighborhood etc. Will help. You'd be surprised how many properties my fiance and I have seen in our search that barely included any of this and even less photos. Needless to say, we skip right over those. also, if you have something like a virtual tour or photo gallery, make sure to make that known in the ad. Buyers like seeing MORE of the property (and without having to give their personal info to get it). If you're marketing as you should be, providing the necessary info and going a bit above and beyond to show more of the property, the leads will come, and they'll be much more serious!

Hope that helps some. Getting creative with ads is key. No one likes seeing the same thing over and over, or just seeing text. If you have photos, use them, and change them out from ad to ad (if you can take one or 2 photos, you can take 10 or 15. Don't get lazy, give yourself enough variety to work with). If you know HTML, change things up a bit (maybe create your own flyers as some here are doing and post them using HTML), or if you don't, get connected with someone who does! Just remember, when it comes to Craigslist, repetition isn't looked upon highly. Change it up, and you shouldn't have problems!

[Pinehurst Real Estate Guy]

Thanks for the 360 view of CL, I'll keep this in mind for later.

Let me ask everyone this, other then placing a property on CL is it possible to place a service?

I was wondering if anyone ever had success promoting buyer agency on CL, or if it is even possible?

I'm a proud papa of a Duke grad which will be receiving a masters degree there in a couple of weeks in Durham. If you're open on Saturday 360 maybe I'll stop by unless you just have a virtual office.

[Good Neighbor Home Buyers]

I have had great success in using craigslist to find good tenants.

[realestate360]

Thanks for the 360 view of CL, I'll keep this in mind for later.

Let me ask everyone this, other then placing a property on CL is it possible to place a service?

I was wondering if anyone ever had success promoting buyer agency on CL, or if it is even possible?

I'm a proud papa of a Duke grad which will be receiving a masters degree there in a couple of weeks in Durham. If you're open on Saturday 360 maybe I'll stop by unless you just have a virtual office.


You can promote services; we promote our virtual tour & photography services all the time using CL. There are specific categories for services, so you just need to be sure you promote in the right place.

Mine is a virtual office (though not for long), but perhaps we can meet for lunch when you're in the area! Congrats on your son's graduation! How awesome!!!

[Pinehurst Real Estate Guy]

......Congrats on your son's graduation! How awesome!!!

Thanks, we think it is awesome too and we're very proud of her and her accomplishments ~ She worked hard to be where she's at and deserves all the accolades she has received. She will continue at Duke for another degree while her husband finishes his Law and Divinity graduate degrees next year. Of course, we have 3 other children and all have done very well in their respective fields as well as their spouses. My wife and I have certainly been blessed and only by His grace as we certainly didn't do anything special to deserve these rewards. Ah heck, back to work ;)

[realestate360]

Sorry about that, didn't mean to call her a guy! Well, congrats to her on her accomplishments! I know how hard it can be to finish school once you've started these days, so well done!

[cgmaker]

Craigslist has been the best in regards to driving leads and signups for whatever I promote, but there are other free classifieds out there. backpage.com and kijiji.com are a couple, however I rarely get any leads from them. You never know though.

Why discount any type of free classified? It just might reach the eyes of a single signup.

[soldbychris]

I have seen traffic to my site from craigslist but nothing serious. Never has a ad flagged, yet. But all it takes is one get a ROI.

[Trutzrose]

I have seen traffic to my site from craigslist but nothing serious. Never has a ad flagged, yet. But all it takes is one get a ROI.

....nice tip...thaks...TJ

[Desmond]

Yeah, just don't place a personals ad there, no matter how desperate you are. My sister still has that restraining order...:D

[Sarge]

For the about a year my wife has posted on Craigslist. About a month ago we have been flagged almost every time. I am assuming it is someone who is just being rude - everything is up front, unlike some that post there she makes sure that it is evident that she is a Realtor.

As for any leads from it - none yet - alot of hits on the visual tour site but no leads.