We use the realtor.com app all the time, whether we are looking for a house to buy, helping someone find houses etc. It is fun to see what is for sale in the area you are in. I've looked at Zillow some, but I don't think it is very accurate, at least for our area. It would never be a resource I would use if we were actively looking. We have a local website. Our area has an onlinehometours website set up with listings from all over. That is the most used resource around here. It gives you address, prices, realtor for the property etc. I just pulled it up and it does have ads on it, but I can't say I would ever pay attention to the ad. Some people might though. I would say if you have any local listing websites- that would be the best place to put an ad. Also having your own web page set up would be a good idea. If you can get any testimonials for it, that is good too, but it sounds like you might be too new for that.
In looking for a house, I would find the house I was interested in, and then I would contact that realtor to set up an appointment to see the house OR I would attend some open houses. I wouldn't initially contact a realtor. If that is not the house I want and I voice that it is not quite right for us, the realtor at the open house or appt. will want to show me other houses. Whether I move forward with them depends on my gut feeling about them. Are they too pushy- were they just wanting to move the house they are showing me rather than be concerned about whether it is right for me. Are they telling me what I want, or are they listening to what I actually want. If our daughter was with us, were they kind to her, or did they appear annoyed by her. It is a lot of little things.
When we were looking for our last house, the first couple houses we looked at, I wasn't interested in those realtors because they were pushy. Then we hit a great realtor. I can't recall if we met him at an open house or when we called to look at a house, but it seems like it was an open house. His wife was hanging out with him that day. They said Hello to our daughter immediately instead of ignoring that she was there. They asked us right at the outset what we were looking for and what were the most important things to us. He immediately told us, that he wasn't sure we would like this house based on that list, but if we were interested he thought there were a few listings in the area we wanted that might fit us. He said it was important to him to know that he was helping make homes for people and finding the right fit. He was right that the house we first saw with him wasn't right for us. Him being upfront instead of pushing his listing on us, made us agree to let him help us. He always listened to what we wanted and never just tried to push us into liking a house so he could make a sale. He kept after it until he found us the right house. If I was looking for another house, looking to sell a house, or had a friend asking for advice on a realtor, I would go straight back to him.
As far as looking to sell a house, the postcards that come to our house sometimes get my attention, but I also wonder how much gets spent on those postcards because they go to so many people who are not remotely in the market to buy or sell a house. Like a PP said, if you are going to do that, I would have a listing on it- something to catch the attention- or else I think most of them will wind up in the trash. If you have a listing on it, at least I think you are trying to get the word out in case anyone you mail to have friends who are looking- instead of just randomly sending out postcards because you don't have enough to do. AND don't send me a postcard asking if I'm in the market to sell my house- those are just irritating! Probably the biggest factor for me in selecting a realtor would be the recommendations of others. I would be hesitant to sign a contract with a realtor that I didn't have reccomendations from others about. I'd say testimonials on an ad or website might go a long way to get my attention if I didn't have recommendations. Also, if I didn't have recommendations, we would probably go by a few open houses and see how the realtors there were handling themselves and maybe select one from that. (But- now that I found "our guy"- he is always who I am going to go back to, or send anyone to that asks).
As you are just starting out and probably don't have any testimonials, I think the best thing for you might be to try to pick up clients at the open houses you are sitting. I would say take an interest in them. Be personable without being overbearing or pushy. (Also realize that some of these people just like to look at houses, they may not actually be in the market at all- so don't get discouraged if they aren't all receptive to you). Don't just sit there and ignore them the whole time, or push the house on them and totally hover. It has to be something in the middle- enough contact, but not TOO much. If you can get them to talk to you, ask them what they liked and didn't like about the house- you can tell them you are interested from a selling position about the opinions of people that came through. If they seem receptive to talking, tell them you know some of the other houses on the market, and ask them about the main things they are looking for in a house. If you know houses that fit that, tell them. (Don't just tell them any house- the quickest way to lose my attention is for a realtor to listen to what I tell them I want and then show me something that doesn't remotely correspond with that). I know in our community, they have a regular "walk through" for realtors, where every couple of weeks a group of realtors goes and walks through a bunch of the listings so they know what they are like. Absoultely take advantage of that if they have it in your area. That will help you fit people to houses. My realtor had seen many of the houses he showed us- it really helped save him and us time as he could tell us specific features of why he did not think we would like certain houses that we saw for sale and asked him about. He would always tell us he would be happy to show it to us if we still wanted to see it and he never acted like it would be an inconvenience or like he was put out by that. It turned out he was always right when he told us he had been inside a house and it was not a house we were going to want. If another realtor has pushed you to show a certain house to the clients- don't tell the client that YOU think that house is right for them. Admit up front that you were asking other realtors what they had that might fit your client, and they suggested this house. We had some good laughs with our realtor over what the other realtor recommended to him for us after we looked at it. If I had thought our realtor really thought that was a house that fit us and suggested it himself, I would have questioned his judgment. Since I knew it wasn't his selection we could both laugh about it.
OH- and one more thing- don't guess what people are looking for or what they can afford by the way they are dressed! We were just starting to look for a bigger house and just happened to be driving by an open house that looked possible, so we stopped. We had just come from running around in the park, so we were a bit messy and dressed in T-shirts. The house was definitely not for us- it had zero yard. The realtor must have decided based on our clothes that we couldn't afford it (it was actually smaller than we were looking for). She said she had a great house that she thought was just right for us with a big yard and as she couldn't leave the open house gave us the address and her card and told us to call her after driving by it and she could set up a time for us to look at it maybe even that day. We went to drive by it and we were shocked. We knew when we hit the neighborhood it was not going to be something we were interested in as that neighborhood had much smaller houses than what we were looking for that were also older and most not in very good shape, but we went ahead and drove by it anyway. YIKES! Let's just say it was a fixer upper. It was actually listed at about 1/2 the price of the open house we walked through. Clearly, we knew what she thought about us! Needless to say- we didn't use her!
