Lubbock Gets A Craigslist - And It's Under Utilized
Craigslist, is an online version of newspaper classifieds, combined with a user forum, and is majorly owned by eBay. Craigslist is a city-by-city listing designed for personal interaction including job searches, personal searching, and the buying and selling of items (everything from lamp shades to vehicles).
It appears that Lubbock got its very own Craigslist a few months ago, and is starting to see some postings. Unfortunately, they have a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem (Craigslist can put a Lubbock site up, but there needs to be posters for the readers to visit, and vice-versa).
Right now, Craigslist appears to be a great opportunity for Lubbock realtors, as there are only about 97 listings in the entire "housing" category. Lubbock has a population of around 200,000. Taken at face value, that means there is 97 homes listed for 200,000 people. That translates into 1 house for every 2062 people.
In contrast, Dallas has a population of around 1.3 million, and Craigslist Dallas has 11,639 housing listings. Taken at face value, that means there is 11,639 homes listed for 1,300,000 people. That translates into 1 house for every 112 people.
The Dallas market is more than 18X (eighteen times) as congested as the Lubbock market!
At a quick glance, about 50% of the housing listings are for the Lubbock area and the rest are for other areas. The Lubbock "jobs" category appears to have 186 postings (slightly more than the 196 postings in the "personals" section), and probably 80% of them are for other locales.
I've spoken with Mike Lamberts at Lamberts Properties about some opportunities to market his company and their many locations. Hopefully, they can capitalize on this market before some of the other Lubbock real estate companies realize it is here.
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