Creating the perfect newspaper ad to get your real estate sold

A newspaper ad can be a highly effective means of attracting potential real estate buyers. Although many people now use the Internet to get their news, the newspaper remains the place to go to locate homes for sale. It's important, then, that a great deal of attention is placed on the format of your newspaper ads.

It's a good idea to place the ads to hit on the 15th of the month. They can run for two weeks, so they will run up to month's end. Since many people are looking to move around the 1st of the month, such a placement schedule certainly makes sense.

If you're looking for tenant buyers, you should run your ads in the houses for rent section. Such ads are also often less expensive than those in the houses for sale section. However, if you have rehabilitated a house and want to sell it retail, you will want to place your ad in the houses for sale column.

It's a good idea to have white space above and below the ad so that it really stands out. You don't want to have just one word on a line because you'll be paying for entire lines anyway. It's also wise to bold-face the first two lines of the ad, which indicate whether it's a lease-to-own option and the address of the property.

After that, you should list information in the order of importance to the potential buyer. You would typically list how many bedrooms the property has, how many bathrooms it has (if more than one), whether it has an attached garage, if it has new carpet or paint, if it has a large yard or a fenced-in yard, if it has a screened-in back porch, if it has a Jacuzzi or hot tub, and any other amenities. In about half the ads you would list the company's web site address.

It's critically important that you check the ad when it comes out in the newspaper to see if there are any problems with it. Invariably, the newspaper does make typographical errors. The sooner you are able to catch these mistakes, the better for all concerned. You don't want to have an ad running for 14 days that has the wrong website address. Despite the possibility of mistakes, a newspaper ad is well worth the investment, since it will invariably bring tenant buyers to your door, enabling you to succeed in your mission of selling houses.