Making a website to sell your house

Zapho

Like many people, my parents haven't had any success in selling our house. We've had it on the market for over 2 years now and in that time we've had about 5 viewings. We live in County Clare, about 15 minutes drive from Limerick. The house is only about 7 years old and its probably the price tag thats scaring away most people.

Anyway, my Dad has asked me to make a webpage about the house in order to help sell it and maybe even attract some international interest. This makes sense to me, considering that web-hosting is so cheap and we are free to put up as many pictures, videos and information as we want onto it.

My question is has anyone ever tried this? Is it recommended or not? Does anyone have an example website for me to look at to get ideas?

Thanks!

Bigcheeze

Zapho wrote: »

Like many people, my parents haven't had any success in selling our house. We've had it on the market for over 2 years now and in that time we've had about 5 viewings. We live in County Clare, about 15 minutes drive from Limerick. The house is only about 7 years old and its probably the price tag thats scaring away most people.

Anyway, my Dad has asked me to make a webpage about the house in order to help sell it and maybe even attract some international interest. This makes sense to me, considering that web-hosting is so cheap and we are free to put up as many pictures, videos and information as we want onto it.

My question is has anyone ever tried this? Is it recommended or not? Does anyone have an example website for me to look at to get ideas?

Thanks!

If people are scared by the price why not ask a price that people aren't scared by? Making a website won't make any difference if it's over priced.

mikom

Zapho wrote: »

Like many people, my parents haven't had any success in selling our house. We've had it on the market for over 2 years now and in that time we've had about 5 viewings. We live in County Clare, about 15 minutes drive from Limerick. The house is only about 7 years old and its probably the price tag thats scaring away most people.

Have they got it up on DAFT?
Any link?

odds_on

As I see it, the problem with that type of "one off" websites is to get people to find it. I think anyone searching for houses in Ireland will find daft quick enough.

If you think that the price is the problem - there is only one answer. You started selling thge house two years ago - it will be valued at less now.

Gone West

:roll:

Very very few houses are unique.
90% of houses are for sale on DAFT, and if you can't sell your house it is because of one reason only, and we all know what that reason is.

TwoShedsJackson

The fanciest website going will not make a damn bit of difference in selling it if the price is too high.

Spiritofthekop

Zapho wrote: »

Like many people, my parents haven't had any success in selling our house. We've had it on the market for over 2 years now and in that time we've had about 5 viewings. We live in County Clare, about 15 minutes drive from Limerick. The house is only about 7 years old and its probably the price tag thats scaring away most people.

Anyway, my Dad has asked me to make a webpage about the house in order to help sell it and maybe even attract some international interest. This makes sense to me, considering that web-hosting is so cheap and we are free to put up as many pictures, videos and information as we want onto it.

My question is has anyone ever tried this? Is it recommended or not? Does anyone have an example website for me to look at to get ideas?

Thanks!

A friend of mine eventually sold his house on this website.

thebubbleisoverreduceyourpriceandsellatafairpriceandstoptryingtorippeopleoff.com

Zapho

TwoShedsJackson wrote: »

The fanciest website going will not make a damn bit of difference in selling it if the price is too high.

Well ok, price certainly is one aspect but unfortunately I don't have any control over that myself. No doubt the house is worth a lot less than when it first went on sale. But the point of the website isn't to make the house look good with nice flash features - rather to increase awareness.

Looks like I got my answer though - I guess anyone looking to buy a house is going to hop on Daft first so I'd just be wasting my time putting a website together.

Thanks for the input!

the_syco

Mow the lawn, tidy up the flowers, and take the outside pictures on a nice sunny day. Makes the house look nicer. Take photo's of all the rooms, and the back and front.

Carter P Fly

Having a house on Daft.ie and the selling agents website will give it as much exposure as its going to get. A website just for this house wont add anything IMHO.

Mr. Loverman

odds_on wrote: »

As I see it, the problem with that type of "one off" websites is to get people to find it.

100% agree. I've been making websites for 16 years and the biggest issue nowadays is search engine optimization which is a fancy way of saying "if your website doesn't appear on page 1 of google when someone searches for clare house for sale (or whatever) then in all likelihood no one will visit the website or know it exists".

As others have said, reduce the price.

I've been saying this for years now, but the longer sellers remain in denial the more money they will lose. There are loads of examples of this, people who have been trying to sell their house for 4 years; they are slowly knocking 10k off the price every three months. But if they had of just knocked 50k off the price 4 years ago they would have sold probably immediately.

TwoShedsJackson

Yes, the worst thing they can do is chase the market down. Get them to knock it down to a price that will sell NOW, rather than slowly decreasing it every few months and still being forever at an unacceptable level.

DoesNotCompute

Zapho wrote: »

Like many people, my parents haven't had any success in selling our house. We've had it on the market for over 2 years now and in that time we've had about 5 viewings. We live in County Clare, about 15 minutes drive from Limerick. The house is only about 7 years old and its probably the price tag thats scaring away most people.

Anyway, my Dad has asked me to make a webpage about the house in order to help sell it and maybe even attract some international interest. This makes sense to me, considering that web-hosting is so cheap and we are free to put up as many pictures, videos and information as we want onto it.

My question is has anyone ever tried this? Is it recommended or not? Does anyone have an example website for me to look at to get ideas?

Thanks!

Why re-invent the wheel? Just put it up on Daft or MyHome.ie.

Carter P Fly

Id also suggest that your parents contact the selling agents of similar properties and view them.

I went housebuying with my dad in my own estate and it was a real eye opener to find that I woudn't buy my own house!!!

Diddler1977

Just reduce the price.......

A fancy website with an overpriced house will just bring traffic and mocking from the pinsters

www.thepropertypin.com
Hop over here, they are fairly good for advice

the_syco

A site for the house, no, but maybe a site that redirects to the daft.ie page that lists your house?

My way of thinking that instead of having to goto daft and look for the house or they somehow remember daft.ie/1631046 or even worse, search for the house and find a better one before they find your house, that they goto www.houseincork.ie that redirects to http://www.daft.ie/1631046 ?

Simple example: www.houseincork.ie

Rhys Essien

OP,I think you will just have to say to your Dad that he must be in fantasy land with his price,and that If you were to put the house on 100 different sites,If the price aint right it wont sell.

Did the auctioneer put the value on the house or was it your Dad?

dazberry

Rhys Essien wrote: »

OP,I think you will just have to say to your Dad that he must be in fantasy land with his price,and that If you were to put the house on 100 different sites,If the price aint right it wont sell.

Agreed, the 'ol get an international buyer ideal because no one locally in their right mind would pay the asking price.

It was done before, and even under the lure of the W.B. Yeats connection I think it eventually ended up on a property website. FYI: the actual website is well gone but I remember they priced it specifically in Sterling, for the international market...?

D.

robd

Getting back to the OP.

As said a website is useless unless it appears on 1st page of google which requires huge time and some money to get it there.

Price is number 1 factor.

Apart from that agent needs to advertise house correctly. You'd be better investing your time here. Here's some tips. House should be renewed on Myhome and Daft every few months. You need to get proper professional pictures to go with ad and you need pictures of every room and gardens. You need a proper floor plan of house. The blurb should be well written and above all detailed.

And then it's back to price. You need to reduce it every 3 months if no interest.

Duckjob

Actually, given that house hunters would generally be targeting property in a fairly specific location it might not be that hard to achieve a good ranking for some location specific keyphrases.

Still not worth it though, if price is the problem it's not going to sell whether people view it or not - just drop the price and save the hassle...

Mister Dread

I have to laugh at this. 2 years of chasing down the market and the big idea is for more marketing with a website. Quit the messing about and halve the price, get interest and get it sold.