Originally bigbrick offered a listing service for Home Sellers who were selling “By Owner”. The new site is still focused entirely on “By Owner” listings, but now users can also list properties “For Rent By Owner” or as a “Vacation Rental By Owner”.
Anther big change was the price. After successfully scaling up to serve all of Oregon and Washington as a paid service, bigbrick became free.
“It was a tough choice to give up that income, but ultimately we are choosing growth. Not surprisingly, we have found that a lot more people use the site when it’s free.” says owner David Staley.
Going free and rolling out services nationwide are adding up to rapid growth. Over a one year period, unique visitors have grown from 6,010 to 94,820 in Feburary 2012. 1
This positions bigbrick as one of most visited “By Owner” Real Estate sites. 2 And at a time when most sites in this arena are seeing a drop off in visitor traffic, bigbrick’s growth set’s it apart.
Staley also attributes some of the growth to continuing innovation. “We are constantly looking for ways to improve the user experience, and it's nice to see results coming from that. We have put a lot of development into customizable themes for web pages and flyers, and we are starting to see more users taking advantage of those features. It’s great that we can provide people with these valuable tools and at the same time it also helps get the bigbrick name out there”.
A new site, a new price, and a national expansion have added up to big growth for bigbrick. And for owners, who are selling or renting their own real estate, it adds up to a great service that doesn't cost them a dime.
http://bigbrick.com
1. source: Awstats internal tracking
2. comparison based on quantcast.com figures
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Real Estate By Owner
For Sale By Owner
For Rent By Owner
Vacation Rental By Owner
Listing is free.
http://bigbrick.com
