OT: Business idea, Your thoughts please Options

[Qarl]

I've got a business idea. Your thoughts might sway me if I want to spend more time on it.

Disclaimer: I realize this is not a novel idea. There are many like it, variations of it, etc. I am just thinking that the timing is right to offer something different and cheaper.

The Florida real estate market is booming... bonkers is more like it.

You have several choices...

1. Realtor - safe but expensive
2. Assist to sell or BuyOwner services - cheaper and relatively safe
3. For Sale by owner - riskier - but lest cheaper for the seller and buyer.

Using a realtor is always a safe bet, because they do most of the critical and legal work for you, and bring clients to you.

However, I sold my last two houses by myself.

For the most recent one, I put a sign up, created a website with some domains I own, created some flyers and got about 3-4 inquiries per day... up to 20 on weekends. Sold the house (pre-boom) in less than a month and saved thousands.

I am thinking of a very simple business where you offer people that want to sell their own homes the following...

1. Custom For Sale sign (standardized design)
2. Customized website with description and photos
3. Online printable flyers that they can put in an info tube in front of their house
4. Online (secure) e-mail inquiry form from potential buyers
5. Lists of vendors in the area to assist with the rest of the process (i.e., home inspectors, title agents, repair people).
6. All of the forms they need online to help with the deal (sales contracts, inspection lists, etc.)

How it works:

Make it simple: The seller could go online and fill out a questionnaire about their home (used to generate the website content), upload up to 10 digital photos, pay with a credit card securely, and have their custom home website up in less than 24 hours.

Make it reasonable: $100 for first month which inlcudes the setup fee and 2 yard signs... each additional month is $35 or they could buy a 3-month package for $150.00

Easy for the buyers: The buyer would drive by the home, see the For Sale By Owner sign, with the web address and property ID # on it. For example:


FOR SALE
BY OWNER

View online at:
buymyhome4sale.com

Property ID# 1234


The interested buyer goes home, goes to the website, enters the property ID# and can find out all about the house, see photos of it, ask questions, make an offer, etc.


Pitfalls

1. The most difficult part would be the web interface to collect and generate the websites. Once it was developed it would be almost automatic.

2. The next most difficult part is the signs. They could be made in bulk (sans the property ID #). Once it's generated, all you do is add the ID #.The sellers could pick up from the main office or have delivered to their home for... say $20.00

3. Could be difficult to actually convince people to do it. (i.e., may take a lot of effort at the beginning).

4. Obvious legalities (you have to have a pretty good disclaimer obsolving you of all of the potential legalities for deals gone bad, contract issues, etc.)

5. Pissed off realtors


Additional revenue generating ideas:

You could generate revenue by having advertisers of services available to buyers and sellers (title agents, home inspectors, lenders, etc.) Heck if you had 25 advertisers paying $50 to $100 per month, that's pretty decent

I could offer additional revenue-generating services - such as whole home photography for $100, and IPIX 3D walk-through for $X



Finally... how to get customers...

Well, driving around beighborhoods to start. The newspaper is another idea.

Heck, I even envision Realtors using it as a cheap way to list their own homes!



Okay... so you get the idea... Give me some more ideas, some pitfalls, etc.