FSBO, Is this the way to go?

Posted by on Monday, April 6th, 2015 at 5:30pm

For sell by owner is a popular way to go when selling a home.  "Properties are selling like hot cakes," as Terrence Murphy would say.  With properties selling in a few days with multiple offers, who needs to pay a Realor a possible 6% commission?  

If you feel confident you can get the job done and sell your property yourself, STOP and ask your self these few questions:

  • Do you have the extra time between working and family activities to sell your property?
  • Can you get the price right?
  • Can you market your property on several platforms in a timely manner with an eye catching marketing scheme? 
  • How will you market to a mass of buyers without access to the MLS?
  • Are you ready to work with buyers' agents?

Time

Your time is valuable.  How do you plan to split your time with work, family, etc...?  There is a lot of time and effort that goes into selling a home.  Pricing, listing, marketing, staging, showing, accepting and managing offers...the list goes on and your time is running out. 

Price 

Pricing your property at market value is a challenge in itself. How will you do this accurately with out access to the MLS?  Pricing a property takes research on sold and active properties in the area.  You need comparables with all neccessary data that public records can't always provide.  

Marketing

How do you plan to market your property?  Facebook?  There are numerous platforms for marketing your property.  How will you choose which ones to place your focus?  Realtors have expertise in  marketing and in-depth knowledge of the market.  They know whay type of buyers your property will appeal to and where to place their marketing focus.

MLS

What is the MLS?  The Multiple Listing Service is a private database created, maintained and paid for by real estate proffessionals to help their clients buy and sell property.  WIth out access to this system, your property looses a mass of buyers represented by real estate agent apart of the local MLS. 


Buyers' Agents

You may have planned on cutting out a 6% commission to a real esate agent.  How are you going to handle the buyer's Realtor and their commission?  Most buyers looking at your property will be represented by a Realtor.  This agent will expect negotiations on  their commission and most likely require 3%.  You can decide not to deal with this case scenario, but then you cut out a whole other mass of potential buyers.  If you do decide to accept the offer, you then have a buyer who is represented in the negotiation process and you're left without representation and a whole lot of paper work to figure out.

Still want to go FSBO?

Hopefully this gives you some insight into the home selling process. At least now you can make a more educated decision.   Do you still think going FSBO is the way to go?

 

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