Since then, I’ve found a reasonable measuring stick to hold up against these companies.  There’s a handy web site that I was informed of called Alexa.  This site allows anyone to compare the traffic to a number of web sites, and gives you a pretty little graph of the whole thing too.  Seeing as I couldn’t get any evidence of PropertyGuys’ claims, I decided to use this site to see how the top FSBOs stack up – and how that compares to the “industry standard”  MLS.ca (and REALTOR.ca).

In my very first email communication with the local PropertyGuys franchisee, I was told that:

“We have over 100 franchises across Canada.  As a result we have approximately 52 million hits to our site a month. This is very comparable to MLS, which has about 60 million hits per month.”

Seems like a pretty apples-to-apples comparison, doesn’t it?  Now, if you have a lot of web and computer knowledge like I do, you might just agree that the term “hits” can be misleading.  Even still, the comparison that I was given – and the main reason why I decided to pay PropertyGuys to market my home for sale on their web site – was because they claimed to get very similar web site traffic as MLS.ca.

Now, unfortunately I can’t give you accurate web site stats without physically or electronically breaking into the corporate servers of these places and checking for myself.  But what I can offer are comparisons that will show you the scale of the difference in traffic between various sites.  Finally, an “apples to apples” comparison.

By the way, before you read on, I’ve tried numerous times to get PropertyGuys to substantiate their claim with some hard evidence.  I still welcome it, but from everything I’ve seen and experienced so far, I don’t see how there’s any way that their comparison is valid.

Graph 1: Comparison of FSBOs

My interpretation: PropertyGuys and ByTheOwner have been duking it out for quite a while.  GreyBruceListings and OntarioPLS aren’t even on the radar.

Graph 2: PropertyGuys vs. MLS

My Interpretation: It doesn’t take a data analyst to see that there’s a huge, and I mean HUGE difference in the amount of traffic received by MLS.ca and PropertyGuys.com.  I also gather that if you want to sell real estate in Canada, as I’ve been told by many people, you need to be on MLS.  Considering the very expensive barrier to making this happen, I’d like to see some justification of the cost of placing a listing on MLS.

I’d still like to see some traffic statistics similar to what you’d see with Google Analytics, or Webalizer.  Unfortunately, PropertyGuys would need to come forth with this information, and so far they have not been forthcoming.

After having our home on the market for about three weeks now, the listing has had 227 “hits”.  To avoid an all-out episode of rage, I’m going to make the assumption that the listing was actually viewed 227 times – even though their other stats seem just a tad overstated.  But I’m digressing again.  The point is that I’ve been keeping a bit of an eye on the counter, and the times that the listing was viewed the most was when I was advertising this blog!

Oh, and since this post is largely about those big pretty graphs above… I’d love to know why the PropertyGuys web site only provides a counter.  Yes, a simple counter straight out of the late ’90s.  No historical information, no demographic information, no graphs – and get this: it even counts a hit when *I* view the listing!

So, what now?  If those property marketing guys aren’t living up to their promises, where does one turn?  Well, there may be an answer in the future… but for now, this is your cliff-hanger ending.

(P.S.: If you’re really pressed for time, email me and I can give you a teaser)

Just 20 minutes ago, before a nice thunderstorm decided to pour buckets on the house, I went out to check the mail.  I had a letter.  Actually, “we” had a letter – Pam and I.  You see, the letter was addressed exactly as in the contact information in the current PropertyGuys.com house for sale listing.  I’m quite certain that there isn’t any other place where our contact information would be written like this.

What was so special about this letter, you ask?  Well, it was postmarked from the small town of Markdale (only about 10 minutes away from our home), and signed by Sheri Hill and Nereda Manion of Royal LePAGE RCR Realty, Brokerage based out of Flesherton.  Again, this is only 10 minutes away from here.  As a sidenote for those of you who are from far, far away, this is about 2 hours northwest of Toronto, Ontario, Canada and about 30-40 minutes south of Owen Sound and Collingwood.

Now, this one I know I’m not reading into.  The facts prove it, Sheri and Nereda – one of you or your associates was trolling for new listings on PropertyGuys.com! No big surprise here folks.  Everyone’s doing it.  The private marketing firms are trolling for expired agent listings, as well as other FSBO marketing firms’ listings.  The agents are looking at private sales on Kijiji, in the classifieds, and on bulletin boards everywhere.

Here’s the kicker: You sent me your standard form letter.  The last paragraph reads:

“If you have any thoughts of selling, please call.  We’ll be happy to provide a Free Market Analysis so you can see what your property is worth in today’s market.  Only then do you need to make a decision about listing.”

Respectfully, Sheri and Nereda, we’re listed, and you already appear to know this.  We’re offering both of you – as well as any other agent or regular Joe – a commission paid on closing of the sale if you think you have someone who’s interested in this great property.

For anyone that comes to us without an agent, we’re more than happy to reduce the asking price by the amount that would have been given to an agent.  For those of you that come with an agent, it would only be fair to consider the agent’s cut of the sale, and split the cost.  I’m sure we can work something out.  Finding a compromise is what negotiating is all about.

My final thought?  I would have preferred a phone call.

One blog in particular, is PrivateSaleBlog.ca.  I’ve been reading and commenting over there a bit this  morning, and I’ve been seeing one particular trend – although no one comes right out and says it, this site seems to be heavily biased toward PropertyGuys.com!  Is this a covert viral marketing campaign, or are there actually individuals behind this blog who are attempting to provide fair and unbiased information?

It seems to me that many of the articles here take the same marketing approach as the PropertyGuys web site and franchisees.  Even down to the comparison of commission you can save in the article linked above.  I, for one, had overlooked GST in my initial calculation of commission I’d save selling privately.  It was the PropertyGuys representative that I spoke with originally that brought it to my attention.  The article also states: “There is currently only one company in Canada with certified private Sale professionals, and that is PropertyGuys.com” Ok, that’s nice… but do you think, just maybe, that’s because the “Private Sale Professional” designation is a registered trademark of PropertyGuys.com? It remains to be seen whether their competition can buy a designation for a few thousand dollars.

Something else rather worrisome about this blog from my quick perusal, is that many – if not all – of the links to Kijiji property listings reference PropertyGuys.com listings.

If I’m reading into this too much, or I’m not seeing the big picture here, will someone please set me straight?  Please tell me that you’re not providing your blog as a marketing tool to get more property listings for PropertyGuys.com – or any other private FSBO, for that matter (though it that’s the point, you’re doing a pretty poor job of promoting yourself!).

As for me, although I do have a home for sale that I paid $500 (plus GST) to PropertyGuys.com‘s local franchisee to have listed, I can’t yet endorse all of their practices any more than I’d endorse anyone elses.  As “just another guy” with a property for sale, I need the exposure that they can provide.  The only thing that I can endorse is the idea of private sale and the benefits it can bring for the buyer and seller.  I sincerely hope that this is not yet another corporation that’s trying to edge in on the billions of dollars made off of people’s hard-won real estate holdings.

Here some things that would make shopping for a new home so much easier:

1. Spelling: I don’t mind if the occasional keyboard slip-up slips through the cracks.  But with modern spell checking, there’s no excuse for any error that would be caught with a simple copy-paste into your favorite word processing program.  I’m not sure about the latest version of Internet Explorer, but the Firefox browser I use every day has had spell checking built into it for as long as I can remember.
2. Price: Put it on the SIGN!  Yes, I know that the point is to have people call of visit the web site to find out more information.  But how do I know when I’m driving by that there’s a neighbourhood conspiracy to artificially inflate the price of real estate?  $400,000 for a 2-bedroom bungalow in the middle of nowhere?  Wow!  Where can I get some of the stuff you’re smoking?
3. Acreage: The same thing for price can be said for the acreage and other important details about the house.  Though it may not be as important in the middle of the city where the property boundaries are pretty clear, it’s rare that you can tell the extents of a rural property from the road.  Some private sales will have an ID number that you can use to get right to the house information by visiting their web site.  With Realtor (again, note the obligatory trademark and/or copyright of the Canadian Real Estate Association and the National Association of Realtors) listings, there’s usually just a phone number.  That means that I have to first get ahold of the listing agent, then listen to all of the wonderful reasons why $400,000 is an appropriate asking price for the bungalow beside the gravel pit.
4. Appointments: I’ve often waited up to 15 minutes, and sometimes half an hour past the time I was scheduled to meet with a listing agent for a showing.  Now, to keep from being hypocritical, I’ve been late too – but when I know that there’s the likelihood I’ll be sitting there waiting for a while, what’s the incentive for me to show up on time?
5. Follow-ups: The mark of a true professional is the follow-up.  Honestly, I’m terrible at this.  Either I don’t remember to follow up with someone, or I’ve moved on to something else and it doesn’t matter to me anymore.  I’ve had good and bad experiences with this, but it seems that after a while I’ve just “fallen off” of many agents’ radars.  I guess they don’t see the promise of the quick return on their time investment.  Do they forget that I’m still in the market for a home?  A very simple technical solution that many agents already keep is a buyer database.  I don’t mean the crappy “send me automatic matching listings” sorts of things; they’re virtually useless.  I mean a regular review of your list of buyer contacts and a bit of mental reflection to see if you’ve come across anything that may be of interest.  This could take 15 minutes in the morning while sipping a cup of coffee.

I hope that you’ve only experienced a few of these things in your own search.  Something tells me you may have had a similar experience though.  Feel free to add your own good or bad experiences, both with private marketing firms and organized real estate.  Tell it like it is, but try to keep it professional please.

If you’d like to come for a showing of our home for sale, I’ll try to do my best to ensure that you don’t experience these annoyances.  Your time is valuable and so is mine.

There’s an old song that I have stuck in a part of my head with lots of cobwebs.  It goes something like “Anything you can do, I can do better…”  This seems to be the philosophy of both the private and “professional” real estate market.  Perhaps I’m a bit too much of an optimist at times, but can anyone tell me why can’t just all get along?  Yes, you at the back there?… right.. yes, I forgot – there’s money to be made here.

Let’s look at the licensed professional real estate agents first.  For starters, these people aren’t “agents”.  The definition of an “agent”, according to the Real Estate Encyclopedia [Copyright Oct. 2005, Ontario Real Estate Association, ISBN 1-894726-30-8] reads as follows:

“One who is authorized by a principal to represent that principal in business transactions with another party.  An agent acts on behalf of that principal as an extension of that person, and can bring that principal into legal relationships with others.”

There are about 6 pages in this same book that discuss “Agency” and “Agent”.  To give you a quick overview about the process and laws in Ontario, Canada, when you enter into a listing or buying agreement, your agent is the broker – the one running the brokerage firm.  The person you’re usually dealing with – the one typically referred to as the “real estate agent” – is properly called a “Real Estate Sales Representative”.  Yes, that’s right… you’re dealing with a salesperson, not anyone with special legal powers.  Although technically, they aren’t “agents”, this is how they’re known to most people and I’ll continue to call them “agents” to avoid confusion.

Many people think that there’s something magical about a real estate transaction.  Let me tell you that there really isn’t.  You don’t need a real estate agent to sell a house, nor to purchase one.  You do, however, need a lawyer (a notary might do in some areas).  Many real estate agents claim that they’re the ones protecting your interests in the real estate transaction.  While this may be true to a limited extent, it’s the lawyers that should (and usually do) protect the interests of the buyer and seller.  Although there’s little explanation why their fees afford them a house twice the size of yours, you can at least sue them if they don’t do their job to protect your interests.

There are good and bad real estate agents, and I’ve met many of both types.  The good ones are entitled to make money just as anyone else in this country.  In fact, I found Siebren and Angela Boersma to be particularly knowledgeable and helpful (enough to give them a free positive advertising plug here), and would have probably listed with them had I not decided to list privately.

The issues that I have with some of the the not-so-useful agents are:

• Low quality service (late for appointments, flat out lying, divulging private client information)
• High commission fees (at 6%, the seller pays over over $12,000 to sell a $200,000 house)
• False or misleading claims (“in my opinion, you could….”, “I don’t think it would be a problem to…”)
• Those that respond negatively to an offer of a 1% referral commission on private sale (Really, who turns down $2000 for very little work?  There’s lots to say about this one so I’ll try to talk more about it one in a later entry)

Enter the private sale marketing firms like ByTheOwner.com, PropertyGuys.com, and in this area one called GreyBruceListings.com – which appears to be a division of OntarioPLS.com.  Before you guys thank me for the free plugs, you might want to read on.  I have both good and bad things to say about you too!

For starters, I think it’s great that there’s a cost-effective alternative to organized “big real estate”.  It’s just that the private market is just a bit too unorganized for my taste.  In this area, two of the top private sale marketing firms are duking it out for my business.  “Those guys” tell me “we get 52 million hits to our web site every month”, and the other “B.T.O. firm” counters with a spreadsheet from comScore.com showing rankings of “unique visits per month” – the home team with 559 and the “other guys” with 186.  With a bit of back-and-forth, the “other guys” attribute the traffic to the Quebec affiliate DuProprio.com – operating primarily in the province of Quebec, not Ontario.

To try to keep from repeating myself, I’ll say it once here with some emphasis: THESE NUMBERS MEAN NOTHING IF I CAN’T COMPARE APPLES TO APPLES!!!

I understand that there’s a ton of money to be made here.  Already the private firms have “stolen” a huge share of the real estate sales market from organized real estate.  There’s a place for full-service organized real estate for people that can’t or don’t want to take the time and effort to sell their own homes.  But most people have enough intelligence and time to sell their own homes.

Right now, the biggest asset that either of these camps have is their infrastructure.  Organized real estate has their impenetrable fortress of a web site, www.MLS.ca (“MLS” being a registered trademark of the Canadian Real Estate Association).  What I wouldn’t give to have unlimited access to the wealth of historical sales information that’s locked up in their database.  But to have any access to this information, you have to a) be a registered real estate “agent” and a member of the local real estate board, or b) be working with a real estate “agent” who stands to receive commission should you buy or sell your house with or without them.

Things are similar over in the private market camp.  They, too, have their databases filled with information on where properties are located, the IP addresses of people who looked at various properties (showing migration trends), most likely the sale amounts, time on market, and a variety of other useful metrics that are unavailable to the public.

So, maybe I should stop rambling and get to the point of my rant.  Separated, all of this information is just as useful as the conflicting traffic statistics I’ve been given from two separate private marketing firms.  An accessible, consolidated private-organized real estate database, would be so much more in the interest of the actual people buying and selling real estate. This, as opposed to the current primary beneficiaries – private real estate marketing firms and licensed real estate brokerages.

My home has only been for sale for about a week now, so compared to the average time on market of 3 months in this area, it’s “just listed”.  I’d like to use this blog to share my own experience with private sale, as well as help others through the process with whatever information I can reasonably offer.  So, check back regularly or subscribe to feeds.  Together, we might just start a revolution.  Hell, many a revolution started over a few beers at the pub….

Like any good marketer knows, any opportunity to be seen is a good opportunity.  So I welcome you to take a look at our home for sale at www.PropertyGuys.com.  Had a look?  Leave me some feedback with your thoughts on the listing.  What did you like?  What turned you away?  Want to make an offer?