Another FSBO Portal: buymyplace.com.au
November 30, 2008 by Emma Sorensen
buymyplace.com.au is the latest For Sale By Owner (FSBO) portal to hit the market.
buymyplace.com.au is a privately owned company based in Melbourne, and at the moment the portal only covers the state of Victoria.
Currently in beta form, the company plans to hold an Australia-wide launch in early 2009, and have big hopes for the site’s growth, saying:
“Buy My Place is an online real estate advertising company that represents the future of real estate Australia. They provide you with the choice of selling your own home online without the worry of paying high agent commissions.”
“Just as eBay changed the way ordinary people buy and sell goods, Buy My Place will change the way real estate is bought and sold in Australia.”
buymyplace.com.au might look slick, with illustrated cartoon style characters, and well-thought out design, but it’s not the first in the Australian market. It will face competition from existing FSBO portals like owner.com.au, smartvendor.com.au, onthehouse.com.au, and zeroagents.com.au.
Behind the website are a team of industry professionals from real estate, marketing, technology and customer service.
As well as FSBO property listings, market value information, and a customer service team, the website also contains a knowledge centre with resources for owner sellers and buyers alike.
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- NetMovers Offers FSBO Option
UK-based real estate agency and website NetMovers is now giving its users the option to manage the sale of their own home through a partnership with auctionmove.co.uk. auctionmove.co.uk is somewhat similar to eBay in that it allows sellers to set a reserve price on their listing and the highest bidder is obliged to pay a deposit on the property. But unlike eBay, auctionmove.co.uk does not charge sellers any fees. Buyers pay the website a fee of three percent of the final sale price plus VAT if they win an auction....
- Another Private Portal: bethemiddleman.com
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Nice writing style. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Chris Moran
Yet another! prob a reasonable concept ,but how do people find them???
100 uniques a mth wont sell houses
correct snoop, it is a great concept and one that has taken off world wide, indeed we are well aware of the importance of being top of mind for buyers and sellers.
come end of February buymyplace wont be hard to remember!
Peter Butterss
Well said scoop. My company PropertyNow gets more organic uniques in a day than they get in a month if your figures are right.
We also have the highest ranked Australian real estate website outside domain and the REA and yet we aren’t mentioned in the stiff competition list given above.
We don’t just outrank them, but also every other private sale website, plus all the real estate heavyweights like Ray White, Raine and Horne, LJHooker ect.
It seems zeroagents and owner dot com has me beaten. Damn it
Andrew Blachut
Owner
PropertyNOW
Ubs are the measure here
A high percentage of organic visits means nothing.
Are you guys all Kidding!!!!!!
Yes I am a real estate Agent and know that the exposure that the sites we use
like realestate.com & Domain outnumber the amount of visitors to all of your fsbo websites combined then multiplied by 10 and then doubled. While you are all talking hundreds of visitors per month they are talking in the millions.
The advantages of using a real estate agent outweighs the saving of commission 99% of the time.
DONT WASTE YOUR TIME SELLING PROPERT YOURSELF
I have listed my home on homesales.com.au, it has been there for 3 weeks, I have had good enquiry, and I get to speak to the potential purchasers.
Previously I had the property listed with at local agent, who told me when he listed the property that he had 40 people on his books looking for a property like mine, he had it for 2 months in a peak market, promised 2 opens per week, I was lucky if he opened it 4 times in 8 weeks, and he only brought 3 people through, I asked him what happened to the 40 he told me about, he said he sent them an email, how lazy can you get! He did not even take the time to call them, that is not relationship building.
He tried to condition me down from the first few days. I found this astonishing considering he knew that I had worked as an agents rep in the area in the past.
I am not out of the realms of the local market, based on bank valuation and market movement, in fact, I am asking under market value.
I would never treat a vendor (or another person) the way this agent has treated me, I felt as if I was being bullied, I would hate to be a little old lady with no real estate experience selling, he would have manipulated me to sell for any price.
what happened to trust, compassion, service, and down right treating people with respect.
I and am astonished at what I believe is his lack of ethics.
As for the comment from the agent on this blog, that is the kind of attitude that attracts a bad reputation, not respecting the right of a person to sell their own home, and belittle their wishes, throwing mud on a wall and waiting for some to stick attitude, one home needs one buyer. If agents adjusted their commission, showed some compassion, they would get more business, and there would be no need for self sell.
My neighbour advertised his house on buymyplace 3wks ago. I have as yet not seen it on the site.going by the homepage it appears to me that they are more interested in selling ad space than the actual house. i found it frustrating to navigate. the’ houses for sale’ needs to hit you in the face not the package deals,that should be the page you navigate to. norry.
Hi Norry,
Thanks for your comments. It seems a little strange that you would not see this on the buyMyplace.com.au website. Can you give me some details and I will look into this.
With that said there could be a number of reasons that you have not yet seen the property on our website. It may have been sold and removed from the website, however the owner has not yet put the sale sticker on the board (they could be waiting for settlement to occur). We have found that some owners prefer to remove their property from the website when they get a contract of sale, leaving only the board as a matter of caution (it is smart to do it this way just in case the sale is conditional on finance).
Finally, we are constantly getting properties sold in 1 and 2 day periods. Not unusual when you are not running to a agents schedule. Properties do not take 8 weeks to sell and we have a stack of testimonials that we would be more than happy to share. You can see most on our website, however we have a lot we are waiting to have posted on the site.
Hope some of this helps and I look forward to receiving your information.
Peter
I had a chance to read some of the other comments and thought I might clarify a few points.
Google Rankings
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buyMyplace.com.au ranks higher than propertynow.com.au on most quality private sale search terms. Things turn quickly on the web and I am sure the highest ranking will change many times over, however, as an example try searching “sell my house privately”. buyMyplace.com.au ranks 3rd. Try also typing “real estate for sale in Melbourne” buyMyplace.com.au we ranks much higher than propertynow.com.au at 15th.
Major portals & traffic
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buyMyplace.com.au does not directly compete with realestate.com.au as you are not allowed to post directly on REA without being an agent. That makes our properties unique (can’t be found elsewhere). This means a property buyer has no choice but to come to buyMyplace.com.au to see the private sale properties. This would explain why we are getting into the hundreds of thousands of visitors a month rather than the 100 or 200 as you claim (not sure where you go that number from). It also seems a little odd to compare a “new” website with an established player.
Selling yourself
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Technology, such as the internet, has made selling things easy and simple. Just like selling a car or your personal items on eBay you can now easily sell your home.
You would be crazy to sell through an agent without trying to sell yourself through any number of private sale websites available in Australia first. The savings are just to great.
Here is a way to prove agents are beginning to realise the gig is up, next time you sell your house make sure the contract the agent gives you lets you sell your own home for no commission or costs. I bet you most will object or refuse to allow it. Why? because they know it is easy and simple. Try it you will be surprised how much you can save and how scared the agents are.