There are some legitimate concerns in this post: however, I just CL DAILY, report SCAM posts DAILY and try to be part of the solution and not ignore it.
About a year or so ago, my husband and I use to place our listings on Craigslist and it was the best lead generator ever. We managed an office and every day the phones would ring like crazy. No matter how much our company would spend on newspaper advertising the only calls we got were "Craigslist". Not to mention the numerous email inquiries.
But like everything in life, society started abusing and misusing it. Now, all we get every morning are dozens of solicitations for other websites and scams. WOW, it's really sad how "people" just can't utilize a good thing without ruining it. As the site became more and more popular for Realtors to post, it slowly went down hill.
It's actually dangerous to have a new agent post on Craigslist because they must be trained now on how to spot a virus or scam, and delete without opening. Every morning we'd wake up to 30 or more emails, and you can see that they were all done at the same time but with different names (stolen of coarse to make it look like a legitimate inquiry).
What also hurt the effectiveness of Craigslist was something my old Broker started to do. He found out that it was working so well for us, so he made it mandatory for every secretary in every office to post dozens of ads every morning. Well, if you know how craigslist works, the more posts put on, the lower your post goes on the visible list.
Needless to say, legitamate buyers and sellers must have gotten so disgusted by the scams also, and started going elsewhere to find home ads. it's very dissappointing that another GOOD thing has gone down the drain.
So I would love any suggestions anyone might have for a site (or sites) where we could get the phones to ring again. We've searched high and low, and we use most of the well known RE sites, but none work the way Craigslist did.
Thanks in Advance for any ideas!
Wallace S. Gibson, CPM * GIBSON MANAGEMENT GROUP, Ltd.
Central Virginia
LandlordWhisperer
View our available Charlottesville, Albemarle and Lake Monticello rental homes online with photos and floor plans
"...to be a Virginian, either by Birth, Marriage, Adoption, or even on one's Mother's side, is an Introduction to any State in the Union, a Passport to any Foreign Country, and a Benediction from the Almighty God...." Anonymous
It seems Craigs list is only good for rentals now, atleast in my market...
William * If you use the right HTML like a postlet or listing from your website, it is AWESOME because it is the CATCH that gets visitors to my website.....I post DAILY also which helps.
We still get good results from Craigslist. You just have to be careful to verify who you are dealing with.
I think any medium works as long as you know the rules of engagement. One must pick technology that works for their business plan.
Agreed * I am amused with private landlords who post with no photos, their phone #s and INVITE the UK spam abuse.....learning how to use the site as well as postlets and its related sites is part of being a professional property manager.
Wallace, like anything else CraigsList is prone to potential abuse. I still find it a good medium for listing properties.
I've found that Craigslist is still pretty good at generating leads for rental property. I always post my "For Lease" listings and will usually get a number of calls.
I have had great success with Craigslist when rbuying and selling merchandise and rental but not much with real estate listings.
I can't find a html conversion program the works well and postlets I can't use in Canada.
There for awhile, I would flag those "questionable" scammers and spammers. But, it's gotten to be so many in number that it's virtually impossible to keep up. Regardless, I plan on keeping up on my posting to Craigslist, as it brings me upwards of 75% of my web traffic.
Bob, I use NVU (http://www.net2.com/nvu/download.html) to create some of my html posts, in addition to ones created thru Postlets and my website - Point2.
Good luck!
Thanks for the tip about NVU art. I'll give it a try ... I use Kompozer for my blogs so I'll try that as well.
Still getting good response from Craigslist, but I don't post everyday. Guess I'll have to do more posting to keep up with the crowd????
Gail * I post daily even weekends AND have a rotation schedule for all of my property listings!!