Finding a Home in Austin on Craigslist

In the section for real estate, you will find that many people, including Realtors place all of their Austin sales and rental records they have on Austin Craigslist. It has no charge and at times effective, so there is no reason not to place records on Austin Craigslist, along with pictures. In doing so, and in seeing how user-unfriendly the Craigslist interface is from a real estate record browsing standpoint, I've arrived to some conclusions.

Looking for keywords is the single method that works when utilizing Craigslist to find Austin real estate Today, for example, there are nearly 300 real estate listings that are new on the "for sale" section of Austin Craigslist real estate. It would really consume time if you scroll down the page and understand all the title records and doing this is expected to get you nowhere. Clicking the "Next 100 Postings" connection at the bottom of each page, just provides additional of the same. You'd have to scroll through 1,000-plus listings just to look the last 4 days of new entries. listings are active in Craigslist for 45 days so it is really not likely that people would tramp through all those records. Instead, browsers would search for keywords.

So if I was searching for a home in Circle C or Legends Oaks or Western Oaks or Shady Hollow, I would be typing a search for those neighborhood names. Other attributes I would search for would be "Bowie" High School, "Kiker" Elementary, "South Austin," and others that would point me to property in the area. If a home near Westlake High School is what I want, then I would likely use keywords like "Westlake" and "Eanes."

Now that it is clear my posting in Austin Craigslist is more to be viewed as a result from a search engine, then it is best to write content with lots of keywords in them.

For example, let's say I have a listing in Travis Heights off South Congress (soco) in South Austin for sale. Can it be said that the subsequent is a good ad copy?:

A close-to-everything older cottage, charming, and accessible within minutes from the downtown. Restaurants, local shops, pool, and neighborhood park are a walking distance away.

Observe the lack of important keywords in the sample sentence? How would a searcher who likes a home in Travis Heights find my listing when there is no revelation of the neighborhood? The searcher wouldn't. On Craigslist I can guarantee you that there are a lot of poorly written ads such as this.

A better copy would be:

South Central Austin attracting in Travis Heights minutes to district Austin, 6th Street and Zilker. Stroll to Stacy Park and pool and to South Congress (soco) shops and eating places.

See the difference? We've said importantly the same thing as the first example, but in a keyword-rich way that is more likely to effect in the listing being seen by someone searching for a home in Travis Heights or near South Congress (soco).

We can take this concept a step further by thinking of derivative keywords to include in an ad. I have a presently listed Craigslist Western Oaks rental listing. I start the advertisement with :

Great home, finely updated in a excellent South Austin area in Western Oaks, close to Legend Oaks and Circle C.

What is the reason behind my stating of Circle C and Legend Oaks being close by? For the reason that anyone searching for a home for rent in Legend Oaks or Circle C may be interested in this home in Western Oaks also. I want to capture as many interested prospects with the ad as possible. Furthermore is that attribute schools are good motivating factors for the South Austin area so it is best to mention the full name of such schools in case there are some searching for homes particularly attending such schools.

So writing a Craigslist ad isn't that different from writing website copy. One has to inquire "what keywords and search phrases might be utilized by people whom I want to look this content?" Then take pains to include those keywords in the ads you write.

About The Author:

This article was drafted by a knowledgeable real estate expert in the Austin and Central Texas area. He manages Austin Home Appraisal as well as Austin Texas Home Appraisal

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated