How I make SIX FIGURES from posting Real Estate listings on Craigslist

What's up you guys, it's Graham here. So, some of you may already know, I pretty much built my entire real estate business by posting leases on Craigslist. From that, I’ve been able to make over six figures per year consistently from clients that I’ve originally met from Craigslist. Because you get asked this question so often about how I post ads and what I recommend, this is my video addressing all the questions I get. I’ll share with you exactly how I post ads on Craigslist because it’s fairly simple and very easy to explain.

A quick background about why I feel qualified to speak about this: I’ve been posting ads on Craigslist for over nine years now. Back when I started, Craigslist allowed HTML, which means I was able to go in and fine-tune the ad, and put different breaks in there, and basically use HTML to alter the ad enough for me to get the desired result I was going for. Now, back then, I also used what was called the Craigslist tracker, which tracked the number of times someone clicked on my ad. It was a little piece of code there at the very bottom of the Craigslist ad that I would hide with HTML; nobody would see it there. From that, I was able to track which ads got more hits, which got less hits, and how many views on average I would get per post.

So from there, I slowly started testing which ads got the most hits and then fine-tuning those ads to figure out how I could get more views per ad. I started tracking different titles—doing long titles or some short titles versus doing little images on either side of the titles, versus which titles would work better than others—to then working on which pictures got the most views and what price range got the most views. I was able to fine-tune that over a few years to basically come up with the perfect Craigslist ad that I created.

Now, a few years later, Craigslist disabled HTML on their postings, which means that now it’s just a basic format that everyone has to adhere to. But the good thing that came from that is that I was still able to determine which titles are the best, which post format was the best, and what worked because I had used three years of prior knowledge using HTML on Craigslist ads to figure out which format works the best. So I’m going to be sharing that with you.

By the way, I noticed a common misconception people have about Craigslist, in that a lot of people think people from Craigslist are weird, that people are just unqualified; you're going to meet some like serial killer from Craigslist. But I’m here to debunk that a hundred percent. I basically met all walks of life through Craigslist. I’ve met people that have nine-to-five jobs, that are accountants, that are doctors and lawyers, and I’ve literally met tech billionaires and A-list actors from Craigslist. So I want to totally throw that out there: Craigslist has some very cool people on it and I would not dismiss this just because Craigslist has a weird stigma about it.

It’s also one of the most underutilized websites out there, because it’s totally free, and it’s amazing exposure that’s very simple to get. It takes you maybe like five to ten minutes max to get your name out there. So I’ll show you exactly how to do that.

So, obviously, the first step is to go to craigslist.com. Obviously, next, since I’m already logged in, we’re going to go to apartments housing. Then we’re going to go to the right; we’re going to click posts. We’re going to go to housing offered. We’re going to go to apartments for rent. Obviously, this is Los Angeles, so I’m doing the West Side. Stay off the West Side! I also think this might work best for rental listings. I've tried posting sale listings before on Craigslist, but I haven't had much luck with that. However, I've had a lot of luck posting lease and rental listings on Craigslist.

Craigslist is a very good resource to get rentals because not a lot of agents want to work with tenants due to the low commissions involved upfront. So typically, they don’t like to list a lot of them on the MLS; therefore, a lot of the tenants instead go to Craigslist. If you’re one of the few agents that post Craigslist ads that work with leases, a lot of these tenants will become buyers or sellers in the next two to five years.

Now, this works great long-term because you put in some upfront work, and eventually, these people refer you other business and become your buyers; they eventually become your sellers, and it translates to huge amounts of business in the future. There’s also very little competition between you and other agents because very few other agents want to work Craigslist leases, so that alone sets you apart from a lot of other agents.

So let’s first start with the title. The title is going to be the most important thing you can do to increase your click-through rate. To give you an example, let’s take a look at some other ads that people post. You see, for the most part, that a lot of these just kind of blend into one another. It’s very important to do your best to stand out as much as you can, because when people are searching, all the ads somewhat look the same.

So the first thing I recommend is doing your title in all capital letters. I’ve also found that longer titles do better than shorter titles for some reason or another. More people click through to longer titles. I also like to make the title as attention-getting as possible and try to describe the property as much as you can in one sentence. So, if the property has a pool, mention the pool; if it has a view, mention the view; if it has a huge master bedroom, mention the master bedroom. If it’s been remodeled, repainted, or has new carpet, mention anything you can that people would see as a positive.

So, on this, for instance, I’m going to say, “Beautiful new construction in West Hollywood with a pool and city views.” Okay, so I can’t fit the whole thing, but anyway, so busy maxed out the title. Next, specific location—I mean just type in a location. I’ll just do West Hollywood; postal code, I’ll do 90609.

Going back to the title, I also notice it helps sometimes to put little images or little stars or shapes at the beginning and end of every description. Let’s see if I can find an example here for you. Not a lot of people do this; I feel sometimes it cheapens the ad, but at the same time, it’s extremely effective in getting some of the click-throughs. Like this, here’s one for example—they use this little shape here and that gets your attention. When you see a whole bunch of ads and you see a little shape, your eyes instantly go right there.

Now, I’ve used these before; it definitely increases the click-through rate, sometimes double or triple. But at the same time, you don’t want to be too spammy, so I definitely use this in moderation if at all. It’s just you’ve got to find what works best for you. Typically, it does work, but at the same time, you don’t want to come off as spammy.

Let’s see if I can find another one for you. If I just like up the price by $100, wow, nobody’s doing this. So let’s keep, let’s see some more. Maybe we go to like jobs? Here we go! So here’s an example: like this one here, the usable stars. You can definitely do this. I mean, when you see a whole bunch of ads like this, nobody else is doing that. So obviously, when you see some stars here, your eye instantly goes to this type of ad.

So by all means, if you want to do this, you can definitely do it, but I’ve found that shorter titles usually do better than longer titles if you use those little images on either side. So just take that with as you will, and definitely try experimenting on your own and seeing if that works well with you. “Beautiful estate in West Hollywood” with two little click stars on either end—that will get you a lot of hits. So definitely experiment with that!

So now let’s go to the posting body. Now, what I found the most important thing to mention first is your name and your contact information. It’s going to be the first thing that people see. Now, I noticed a lot of people—for some reason—they post their contact info at the very bottom of the ad, which like probably very few people actually go and see, or they hide it in the middle of the ad, which is really hard for people to see, as well, because it kind of gets mixed in with the whole message.

So the first thing I would do, for instance, is put contact: Graham 310-555-5555 and then I’d also put my email address, which is CraigslistGraham@craigslist.com—the fake email address. A lot of people I’ve talked to feel very hesitant about putting their contact information on Craigslist because they're afraid they’re going to get spam or they're afraid they’re going to get telemarketing phone calls.

I’ve actually never gotten any telemarketing phone calls, and I get very, very, very little spam posting my email address on Craigslist. I recommend putting it all in the ad so people feel more comfortable reaching out to you. For some reason, if you have a phone number and an email address listed, typically people won’t call you; typically people will email you instead, but they just feel more comfortable knowing there’s a phone number in case they need to reach you. Some people prefer the exact opposite; some people just don’t feel like doing email, but instead, they’d much rather call you.

So I totally recommend having both options there; it just shows your legitimacy. If you have a phone number and an email address, people have multiple ways to reach out to you. After I do that, I like to put a quick message right underneath that, just in case they don’t like the property that I am posting, they can contact me for other properties that I might have. So I would say something like, “If this property doesn’t fit your needs, feel free to call or email me, and I may have other properties to share with you.”

So this gives people the option to contact you for other properties that you can help them with. This is essential as a realtor because it’s not like you're just representing this one property; you can definitely represent them as a tenant on many other properties. So I totally recommend just throwing that in there, and that gives them the option that they could still reach out to you and that you could still be of help even if they don’t like the house that you have posted.

After that, I like to keep it very simple and very minimalistic by keeping it just the basics. So for instance, I will talk about the bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, price, and description. So, if they’re just bathrooms, to say three bedrooms, two bathrooms, five thousand square feet, and because it’s West Hollywood, it’s a nice property, I will say $25,000 per month. That gets people pretty much everything they need to see in one little tidbit right there.

After that, I like to put in the full description. Now, with the description, keep in mind that Craigslist uses specific keywords you put in the description for the search results, so you want to make sure to mention as much as possible. If it has granite countertops, marble floors, hardwood floors, new carpet, new paint, remodeled—use keywords that you think people will be looking for.

So for instance, in West Hollywood, you might want to say “West Hollywood,” and then you can say “West Hollywood Hills,” and you can say “West Los Angeles.” You can use different forms in your description to pick up different keywords. If it has an open floor plan, mention that; if it’s contemporary, mention that; if it’s Mediterranean, mention that; if it’s got a guest house, mention that. Mention as much as possible in your description of the property because it will come up in different search results.

So, if someone’s searching, for instance, for a three-bedroom house in Los Angeles with a pool and a guest house, chances are yours will come up because you mentioned all of that in your ad. So, let me just give a quick example—I’ll just put like “Stunning West Hollywood contemporary estate with open floor plan and lovely guest house with marble floors, brand-new remodeled cabinetry, and kitchen with center island fireplace—all been renovated.” I mean it’s a crappy example, but you kind of get the idea of what I’m going at. Just put as much as you can in the description and mention as many keywords as you think people will be searching for, so you come up in that search.

By the way, if you’re a real estate agent, you need to mention somewhere in the ad that you are a real estate agent. So I usually recommend putting the typical MLS disclosure at the bottom with my BRE license. So to give you an example, it’ll be something like this: “I am a licensed real estate agent.” I recommend just putting that at the bottom of every single ad, and that, for me, has worked really well.

Then, obviously down below, you want to fill in as much information as you can. So, we do 5,000 square feet, $25,000 per month, available May 9th. We’ll do the three bedrooms, two bathrooms, obviously put in... I never like to do condo, cottage, duplex, flat; I always like to keep it either house or apartment—keep it simple. Laundry, obviously, we’ll do laundry in the unit. Then we do a detached garage just as an example.

And then again here, I always recommend doing it by phone, by text. Again, type in your number, type in your contact name, and then put in the address of the property. So we're just going to say 555 Space Street, City West Hollywood, California, Paris—alright, next half that—that’s cool.

Next, pictures: some people search in a list like this, other people search in, let’s say, a gallery, so they see the picture, they see the title. This is the second most important thing you can do: have really good pictures. I mean you can see here, this one is total crap compared to this one here. It’s very easy to tell the good places from the bad places. Like, this is a nice outdoor picture, this is a great picture, this is a great picture. That’s kind of shitty, that’s really bad; that’s really bad. This is the worst of all of them—like this is just a terrible picture!

Like, how are you supposed to compete between this and, let’s say, this? There’s no comparison between the two. So obviously, this is going to get way more clicks. So it’s so important to put the best pictures first. I also recommend uploading as many pictures as you can. Typically, you can put 24 pictures on Craigslist; I recommend maxing that out.

So let’s go through, I’m going to add some pictures. You know what? This might take a while, so I’m just going to upload. It’s going to upload just a quick picture here—okay, just a quick one. Done with images; pretty much, once you do that, you upload all 24 pictures, or as many pictures as you have, that’s pretty much it. I mean, you’re done. It’s very, very, very simple stuff, and it’s so easy to do.

Now, once you do this, it’s important to keep repeating this over and over. I recommend posting every other day. So once you post it, after you wait about a day or so, Craigslist gives you the option to renew an ad. I never recommend you do this. I always recommend instead of renewing the ad that you posted, post a brand new identical ad or post something else that’s very similar to it. That way, you have two different postings instead of one floating around in Craigslist.

I also recommend that you repost the ad every other day. It’s very easy to get lost in a sea of other Craigslist ads after about the first day. By then, you’re typically on the second or third page. You want to make sure you continuously repost every other day to make sure you’re near the top. So ideally, I recommend you have about three to five ads going at any single time that you repost every other day.

That means it works the best. Then, people start seeing you have a whole bunch of different properties up. You’re always near the top; it shows that you’re really active, you have a lot going on, and people are more likely to reach out to you. If you don’t have three to five leases, those things, you can go around your office and ask other agents if they would mind if you posted their ads on Craigslist. They could still represent the owner, but you would have the option to represent a tenant if they were to reach out to you. I did this in my old office, and it worked really well. I had agents that would be very ecstatic to have me post listings on Craigslist because they weren’t getting that much attraction through the MLS.

So one last point I want to make very clear: in order for this to work properly, one of the most important things—actually, you need to be available to pick up any phone calls that you get from people calling you from Craigslist. One of the worst things you can do is ignore a phone call or let it go to voicemail or wait a day or two to get back to somebody. When somebody calls you on an ad, it’s essential you pick up the phone or you call them back within a very short timeframe; otherwise, they just forget about you, they lose interest, and they’re on to something else.

The same applies to emails: if somebody emails you interested in the property, get back to them within a very short amount of time or just respond back to them immediately. I mean, the way to look at it is if you miss a phone call, you miss an email, you miss an opportunity. So don’t miss those opportunities.

And that's it! I explained in a few minutes how I built my entire business from Craigslist and exactly how I post ads. It’s really simple stuff, and I can’t begin to stress how important this is and how many sales I’ve done just from Craigslist. I really wish I could stress the importance of just how vital Craigslist has been to my success. Without even exaggerating, I would say over 90 percent of the business I’ve done is in some form or another attributed to Craigslist, either by someone I’ve met directly from Craigslist or somebody that I connected with who referred me to someone else who’s bought something or sold something. It has been vital to all the business I’ve done, and it all stems back to posting lease listings on Craigslist. I still do it to this day.

It doesn’t matter that I’ve sold, you know, X amount of real estate in the last like nine years; it makes no difference. I still go back to the basics; I still post leases on Craigslist because it still works and because it still wants to work. It’s the foundation that has made me as successful as I am tonight, which is all business from Craigslist.

So I really hope you guys enjoy this, and I really hope it helps for anybody who’s an aspiring realtor looking to get in the real estate industry. Working leases and posting ads for leases on Craigslist has built me up to the agent I am today, and I couldn’t be here if it wasn’t through Craigslist. So, I would recommend this to anybody out there trying to figure out how to get clients or wants to work rentals; this is the best way to go about doing it.

So that’s it! I mean, it’s really simple stuff. And thank you again for watching. By the way, if you haven’t already, click Subscribe. It would mean the world to me if you click Subscribe. So, if you haven’t already, subscribe. Also, feel free to add me on Instagram, feel free to add me on Snapchat.

And that’s it! I really appreciate you watching again, and I hope you enjoy the videos! Until next time!