According to Alexa, Craigslist.org is one of the top
internet destinations. In fact, in the United States, Craigslist is a
10 most visited U.S. websites. It is so large that it gets 0.2% of all
traffic on the internet. That means that on any given day, one in 500
people worldwide will visit Craigslist with the vast majority being
U.S. visitors.
This kind of traffic puts Craigslist on par with
places like eBay and Amazon for number of visitors looking to buy, sell
and network opportunities per day. And unlike these other sites, you
can use Craigslist to help your business grow with no cost to you.
There is no cost to place messages and ads on Craigslist (with some
very small, limited market exceptions.) In fact, for 99+% of your uses,
Criagslist requires nothing more than a bit of time for you to post and
read ads in categories that interest you.
So what is Craigslist and how can it help your real estate investment busniess?
Craigslist
is the ultimate high traffic, city centric niche classified site. It is
broken down into hundreds of cities so visitors can look for and
conduct local business in a variety of topics. If you live in Miami,
there is a section for Miami. If you live in Los Angeles, there is a
section of Craigslist for Los Angeles. In fact, there are literally
hundreds of U.S. cities represented in Craigslist and many more
internationally. Each city offers its own comprehensive collection of
categories offing areas where you can sell or find goods, look for a
job, advertise real estate and more.
You may be thinking – great
another place besides my local newspaper where I can spend my
advertising dollars. Well, if you are thinking that, you are in for a
shock. Craigslist ads can be posted for free. There is no fee to place
an ad and no fee if a deal happens. (There are a few small exceptions
to this rule but 99.9% of all Craigslist users will never have to pay a
fee to conduct business in this massive classified site.)
Now
that you know what Craigslist is and how many visitors it gets on a
daily basis, let's look at how you can you use this to benefit your
real estate investing business? Lets see how savvy investors are using
Craigslist today to make even more money buying and selling homes.
1)
Find Workers - Lets say that you purchased a house and need to find a
worker to help you with landscaping or general handyman tasks. You can
use the services section to find help. They have categories like
“skilled trade" and “labor" where you can find people willing and able
to help you out. And here is the exciting part. You can post an ad
spelling out exactly what skills you need and people will contact you.
And you can do this at no cost to you.
2) Troll for leads – There
are sections of Criagslist where you can look for leads for your next
property acquisition or even find investors willing to offer funds to
buy your next property. Some good categories is Services/Real Estate
and housing/real estate for sale.
3) Find renters – If you put an
ad in the housing section called apts/housing, you will be able to find
all the tenants you need. I have a friend who is a licensed realtor
specializing in rentals and he uses Craigslist exclusively to generate
all his leads for his landlord clients.And he rents many apartments,
townhouses and houses each and every month with zero lead cost.
4)
Selling a House – Utilize the Real Estate for Sale section under
Housing and you will have your phone ringing off the hook with hot
prospects looking for a house just like yours. Or use it to build a
buyer’s list or to determine needs by advertising different houses you
have for sale. When those houses are sold/rented, keep the ad up a bit
longer and build a list of more people looking for specific types of
properties or to take backup offers in case the primary offer falls
through. And then go find new properties that match the lead's wish
list.
5) Sell Your Castoffs – If you just bought a house and are
cleaning it out, you can use Craigslist to sell any valuable items you
cleaned out of the house – or just give away stuff to save on the cost
of hauling them to the local landfill. You can sell just about anything
on Craigslist and it is a great way to get rid of old kitchen cabinets,
appliances, etc. It is amazing what people will take if the price is
right.
6) Find an Employee – If your business needs a part-time
or a full time employee or a contractor to help you out, why pay the
exorbitant fees that your local newspaper charges. Just place your ad
in the employment section of Craigslist and find that person without
spending a penny on your help wanted ad.
These are just a few of
the ways Craigslist can be used to grow your investing business. Take
some time to study the ads that people are currently placing in various
categories and you will be able to find many other innovative ways to
use Craigslist for your profit.
tweet this!