Local Newspaper Classifieds

For Sale by Owner

If you don't have a quick sale, local newspaper advertising can be your biggest expense marketing your house.

Your local newspaper can give you great exposure so I highly recommend investing in some ads.

Check with your local newspaper before you write your ads and compare costs. Ask about any specials that are currently running.

Ask about price for different size newspaper ads. Ask about 2 or 3 day run costs. Ask how much for a photo ad.



When you have all the ad prices, take them home and devise a plan. Plan for at least a 90 day selling time.

Your house may sell in 2 days or it could take 6 months. There are too many factors to even attempt a discussion on this subject.

The time frames mentioned above should be the same whether you are for sale by owner or listed with a real estate agent.

Your particular selling time will depend mostly on whether you follow the guidelines on this site.

I would start my local newspaper classifieds plan by deciding how often and when I was going to have open houses. For information on open houses Go to Open House Weekend Information

If you run the local newspaper classifieds, put out proper signage and take advantage of the real estate agents having their open houses, this can work very well for you.

Your whole local newspaper classifieds can be run on open house ads only if you have them every week-end.

• Plan for at least a 90 day ad campaign
• Look for advertising specials
• Stay within a budget (set a dollar amount you are willing to spend on newspaper classifieds and build your advertising plan from there)
• A picture may be worth a thousand words, but look at the costs before blindly running to your local newspaper classifieds with your brilliant creation!

The first thing to remember, is don't follow what the real estate agents do. Why? Different agenda. Real Estate Agents want to sell A House.

Your agenda is sell My House. Think about that one for a minute.......OK? Do you understand the difference? Great!

• The Address or at least a named area. examples: Birchgrove Sub-Division or 2 miles (kms) south of town. Of course if it's an open house ad, you MUST have the address.
• The Price
• Your Phone Number (Don't laugh, I've seen it happen)

• Number of Bedrooms (optional what level). example: 2+1 or 3+2 etc.)
• Certified Appraisal Available (You do have one right?) For more information Why You Need a Certified House Appraisal
• Square Footage - You can use the footprint or if house is completely finished, you could for example use, 2400 sq. ft of finished area.
• Number of Bathrooms (if more than one)
• Garage (attached, detached, single, double, insulated, heated)

• Age (if new or newer)
• Upgrades (especially furnace, flooring, roof etc.)
• Extras such as: Air conditioning, underground sprinklers, central vac, swimming pool, hot tub (if included) etc.
• Kitchens If you have a super nice kitchen, let the buyers know.

• Lots of kids in neighborhood (Your buyer may be in their 70's and want peace and quiet)
• Close to schools (Same reason as above)
• Quick commute to the Industrial Park
• Bus stop at door

• Make me an offer: Translation - "I'm desperate"
• OBO (Or best offer): Translation - "I'm really flexible on price"
• Must sell: Translation - "I'm desperate"
• Owner anxious or motivated: Translation - "I'm desperate"
• Have bought another house: Translation - "I'm desperate"
• Moving out of state, province, country etc: - Translation - "I'm desperate"
• Will look at all offers: Translation - "I'm REALLY desperate"

Just think before you write your newspaper classifieds. Ask yourself this questions. Is this a feature or benefit that will appeal to many buyers? If the answer is no, don't put it in your ad.

You have to catch the buyers attention! Make them want to view your house. Make your house a must see! Just writing hard facts may be enough but why take a chance?

The problem with printed advertising in your local newspaper classifieds, is you usually have to pay for each character or for space used.

This is why in local newspaper classifieds you see lots of short forms such as:

A/C, b/r, bths, h/w, f/p and u/g sprinkler. Of course when you advertise on a for sale by owner site, you usually can write as large of ad as you wish.

Why do you always put the address and price in ALL advertising? Because you are selling YOUR house not A house.

When a real estate agent advertises a house, they just want the phone to ring.

If the area or the price is not suited to the person that calls in on the ad, they try to switch them to another property.

You on the other hand most likely have one property for sale and one only. It is in a certain area and a certain price range.

You DO NOT want calls from people who don't want to live there or who can't afford to buy your house.

Unwanted calls will just discourage you and annoy you. Quality of calls is what you want, not quantity. Real estate agents want quantity not quality on a given property.

Make sense? The reason I cover this in such detail is I've seen this mistake made far to often by for sale by owners.

For sale by owners will run an ad in the local newspaper classifieds and not include the address or the price. Why?

Because they look at the real estate agent newspaper classifieds and figure they are the professionals so that must be the right way to advertise.

Disclaimer Privacy Policy Contact Me