Recently I’ve been receiving many questions from people who were thinking about selling their homes privately – meaning without a real estate agent.
From my own experience, since there are many ways to advertise a house for sale it’s not very easy to compare them and choose the one that gives you the biggest “bang for the buck”. However, the words “not easy” never worked to put me off things 
so I am having a go at it anyway.
These days online advertising prevails in coverage and is far cheaper than newspaper ads, so I am going to concentrate here on online advertising only.
Here is a table that compares 9 websites that offer advertising packages to private sellers. You can get a rough idea of every offer from the table and visit the respective website for more details.
I have intentionally excluded the less important details of each offer, leaving only those that are significant in my opinion – otherwise any comparison would be very difficult to achieve. Since Realestate.com.au is officially the biggest source of potential buyers and Domain.com is the second biggest source, the possibility of listing your home on these portals appears in the table as one of the major parameters of any offer.
Websites that offer advertising packages to private sellers
| Website | Listing on Domain | Listing on Realestate | Price | Duration | Extras | Notes |
| DIY Sell | No | No | $198-$550 | Unlimited | For sale sign, Flyers, Google Adwords campaign | |
| Homesales | No | No | $199 | Unlimited | For Sale Sign, Property report | |
| Property Now | Yes | No | $290 | 1 month | ||
| No Agent Property | No | No | $295 | Unlimited | Listed on Trading Post for 10 weeks | |
| Buy My Place | Yes | Yes | $270 – $599 | Not Specified | Home value report, sign + installation, professional photography | |
| MyHomeIsForSale | Yes | Yes | $295 fixed fee + 99 monthly or $599 all inclusive | 1 Month or Unlimited | For sale board, 50 printed flyers, property valuation report | Live chat available on website |
| Happening Realestate | Yes | Yes | $660 | Unlimited | Operates in QLD | |
| Save On Commission | Yes | Yes | $544 / $694 | 2 Months / 4 Months | Sign (extra $30) | Operates in QLD, NSW |
| SellMyHouseOnline | Yes | Yes | $699 | Not specified | Sign (extra $30) |
Since these days every website that respects itself has a disclaimer, I’ve got to “disclaim” the following:
1. All the details in this table are as they appeared on the respective websites on 3rd March 2011.
2. I am not affiliated with any of the websites in this table. I am not getting paid to refer my readers to any of them. They were selected because they appear high in search results in Google and because of other signs of popularity.
3. Even though I am always double-checking my facts, there could be errors in this table, in which case feel free to let me know and they will be fixed.
Update: there has been a change that resulted in BuyMyPlace listings being removed from realestate.com.au. At this point it is not clear whether or not this decision by REA is final.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for laying out all the options on the table for vendors who wish to sell on their own.
There is a new development with regards to BuyMyPlace though. The latest news is that their listings are no longer showing on RealEstate.com.au.
You can read more about it on the following pages:
http://www.facebook.com/buyMyplace/posts/10150094047981946
http://ht.ly/41Ju5
Hi Chris,
Buymyplace and similar businesses are being booted off realestate.com.au for failing to comply with their terms of service.
The key elements being missed.
#1 – Advertiser must inspect the property and provide an appraisal
#2 – Advertiser must get a signed authority
#3 – Advertiser must handle all inbound calls
I run a real estate business. In some ways we’re just the same as a lot of real estate agencies out there. I am however VERY passionate about helping people with DIY sales.
For private sellers we offer a risk free service called HelpSell. We help people advertise online and provide all the support of a real estate office. The only thing we don’t do is handle the inspections.
At most we charge around 1%. But its totally conditional upon a successful sale.
A lot of people really like the idea of doing it themselves but I think a lot of private sale businesses don’t provide much support throughout the process. And because they charge an upfront fee they aren’t really vested in creating a sale for you. Its sink or swim, they get paid either way.
This is a pretty shameless plug but because you were listing options I thought I’d throw my hat in.
Kind regards,
Nicholas Rait
http://www.therealestatehelpers.com
Hi Nicholas,
After reading the discussion on Business2 I am not so sure Buymyplace and similar sites are being booted from realestate.com.au, because it looks like they are fighting to stay and taking all sorts of serious measures. Time will tell I guess.
Shameless plug or not, my post was for people to get some options to sell privately, and your service sounds like a compromise between a private and agent-assisted sale, so it’s good to let people know about one more option, that you offer. Thanks for putting your hand up
Its in the terms of service of realestate.com.au and domain.com.au that registered users must have a real estate license. Domain allows private listings as well and charges accordingly.
This means that no matter how cleverly positioned, all private sale companies are in fact licensed real estate agents.
These companies are in trouble now because they don’t employ agents representatives to see people face to face.
I can speak for Victorian Legislation here – this would be a clear breach of the Estate Agents Act 1980. There are a number of essential services that an agent must offer, many of which are impossible from a call centre.
Private sale business would have to fundamentally change their structure, and bring on a huge number of staff in order to comply with both realestate.com.au’s terms of service and legislation.
To consumers seems unfair. The public wants this service. But legislation would have to change first