For Sale By Owner
The pros and Cons of selling your own home.
So you you have real estate that you want to sell and you are considering whether to use an agent or to sell it yourself. What ever you decide I would love to help out with a free no obligation Home Evaluation to help you set your price.
It has been said many times that Real Estate is not rocket science and, as much as some agents want to build up the mystery, it is true. It is true that anyone can market a home, and anyone can learn how to use the forms, and anyone can hold an open house and show people their home. So why use an agent?
The reason people have used Realtors® and will continue to use Realtors® for the majority of home sales is because selling a home is time consuming and expensive. That and the sale is usually faster and quite often leaves more money in your pocket. Sound odd? Let us look at the Pros and Cons of FSBO.
Positive reasons for "For Sale By Owner"
There are only two real Pros that I can think of for FSBO.
1. You can save the agents commission.
2. You have complete control over marketing, advertising, showings and negotiating.
If anyone has more Pros please send them to me and I will add them to the list.
Cons for Selling your own home
1. Advertising is expensive and unreliable. The vast majority of homes sold by agents are sold to buyers that have a different agent. Agents find buyers from many sources including advertising. There are over 22,000 agents on the Toronto Real Estate Board looking for buyers and you would be competing with every one of them instead of working with all of them. On top of that, most people do not buy the home that was in the ad that they responded to.
2. You attract the wrong kind of buyers. A lot of people who look for FSBO homes do so in order to save money. They figure that since you do not have to pay an agent, they can get a deal. For this reason alone most FSBOs sell for less than similar homes sold by Realtors®. In the U.S.A. the National Association of Realtors (NAR) states that FSBOs sell for as much as 20% less than homes sold by Realtors®.
3. You have to show people your home. You have to always be available to have people come through your home. you have to listen to people putting down your home because they may hate it or they may be setting the stage for negotiating. Plus on top of all this, you have to make them all feel comfortable in your home. It has been shown time after time that buyers are far more comfortable in a home when the owner is not there. When you are not there, they can talk freely about where they would put furniture, which kid would go in which room and generally move into your home in their minds. Once someone has moved into your home in their mind they are a sort step from making an offer and they are more likely to pay more for your home.
4. FSBO is Frustrating and Stressful. It is very frustrating receiving calls only to find out that they are looking for something different, or worse have them come through your home and then leave never to hear from them again. Dealing with low-ball offers and allowing who knows who to walk through your home at an open house can cause a lot of stress and frustration.
5. Most FSBOs do not sell on their own. Because it is so hard for one person to find the right buyer for a particular home, most FSBOs either list with an agent or take themselves off the market. I have heard that as little as 2% of FSBOs actually sell on their own. However, I have never seen any proof to back up that number.
6. Most of the calls you will get are from Realtors. A past Client of mine said to me that the fastest way to find a Realtor® is to put a for sale sign on your lawn. He was right, five minutes after the sign went up I walked over and made sure that he knew that I was the person who was going to get his home sold, which I did in under 1 week. Realtors see FSBOs as hot leads. The sign on your lawn says I am going to sell one way or another, and most often after about a month and several hundred, if not thousand, dollars later they will, with an agents help.
7. FSBO can be a security risk. There are stories every year where Realtors® are accosted during showings. Not every person who responds to your ad or sign will have good intentions. When you are working with a Realtor® there is a list of every agent that has gone through your home. Those agents keep contact information for reaching their clients which means that a) you are hopefully not home if something happened during a showing(because of point 3) and b) if something happened during or after there is a paper trail that could lead to the culprit.
8. FSBOs are great targets for Fraud. Most people would not recognize the difference between a legitimate vendor take back 2nd mortgage offer and an "Oklahoma" that could cost you tens of thousands of dollars. Rates of mortgage fraud and identity theft have been rising. A Realtor® should be able to detect most mortgage fraud schemes.
9. Most Active and Motivated Buyers use a Realtor®. When a buyer is interested in finding a place fast most often they will find a Realtor®. People who have the time to drive around looking for open houses and FSBOs are not motivated to buy now!! They are willing to wait until they find a particular deal and they do not care how much or hows time they waste in their search.
If you still want to try to sell your own home I would love to help you with any information to get you off to a good start. If you do not want to try to sell your own home I would love to sell it for you.
Whatever your choice is get a free no obligation home evaluation and if you have questions about For Sale By Owner, forms, marketing or getting your home listed please add them in the notes section or contact me with your question |