Real Estate Articles

How To Buy And Sell Houses Using The Internet | By: Mike Jacka

The first time I used the Internet to sell a house, it was a revelation.  Usually when I ran an ad to sell a house, I would typically get anywhere from 20-30 calls a day.  I would plan which weekends I was going to be in town to run an ad so I could field all the calls from buyers...

But this time I ran the ad and got only 5 calls the first day and 3 calls on the second day.  Then on the third day I got a call from a buyer, and the first thing she said was, we want the house.  Now this came as a surprise to me because I had not talked to her nor did I put the property address in the ad.

The lady said she had gotten the address from my website... (Oh, ya that's right) I had posted the info for the property on my website and included my website address in the ad www.mhbuyers.com.

I met the lady and her husband at the house, signed a purchase and sales agreement, and collected a $5,000 earnest deposit.

After the sellers left, the next-door neighbor came over and asked me what was going on.  Over the last few days, dozens of cars were pulling up to the house.  And this was a dead end street.

I finally figured it out.  They saw the ad in the paper, went to my website, looked at the property and all the info.  They then drove by the house and looked around the property and in the windows.

I didn't have to field all those calls and the buyers got the info they wanted. Now I never worry whether I am going to be in town or not when I put a property up for sale.  I let my website do all the talking for me.  Sure I still get a few calls from every ad; some people still don’t have access to the Internet.  However, these days most people do and would prefer to look up the information on the website first.  I also put up at least one picture on the website so people can see what the house looks like.  I also include a map so they can find the house.

Today I use the website www.mhbuyers.com, to prescreen both buyers and sellers.  The main page is the same as my business cards.  I use a Special Report for sellers.  They can submit their name and email address and they get the special report with follow up emails set up sequentially.

Sellers can even fill out an online form to submit all their property information.  Things such as: the property address, property description, why they want to move and even how much they owe on their mortgage and if they are current or behind on payments.

So how do you get a website and how do you use it.  Those are good questions and very easy to answer.

First, there are a couple of different ways to get a  website.

1 - You can go through the whole process of buying a domain name and getting a hosting company to host your website.  Then you would have to either learn how to design a website, or hire a web designer to do it for you.

I use www.GoDaddy.com to buy my domain names: