New Leader in Oregon’s For-Sale-by-Owner Real Estate Marketplace

Bend, OR, October 24, 2008 --(PR.com)-- At about this time last year, BigBrick.com owner, David Staley, was knocking on the doors of for-sale-by–owner (FSBO) home-sellers in his hometown of Bend, Oregon to let them know about his new web site created to help them market their homes. Now, just one year later, there are 578 Oregon home-sellers using BigBrick.com to sell their property without an agent. The largest nationwide service of this type currently serves fewer than 500 Oregon sellers.

So why would sellers flock to a new service over an established company? In large part, because it’s free.

Ever since Hotmail started giving away free email accounts, the internet (like radio and television) has been largely dominated by companies offering free content and free services supported by ad revenue. BigBrick.com is bringing the same concept to FSBO real estate.

After buying and selling several FSBO houses, Staley saw a need for better tools to help owners market their property on-line, and saw no reason that he couldn’t provide those tools for free.

The challenge came in getting things off the ground. Says Staley, “After we completed development of the site, I was knocking on people’s doors to let them know about this great new way to market their property, but they’d go to the site and see that nobody was using it yet and say no thanks. I was like are you crazy? It’s free!”

But eventually postings began to trickle in, and now that the site has become established, BigBrick.com is growing quickly. And with all services offered free of charge, including contracts and a lawn sign, Staley expects that sellers will continue to join.

And how is BigBrick.com working for sellers? According to Staley, “Even in this slow real estate market, we are seeing homes selling. In some ways By Owner is a great way to go in a slow market like this. If you don’t have to pay a huge commission, you have a lot more flexibility to make your price aggressive, and that’s a big advantage in a buyer’s market.”

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