Selling my home

[marklex]

I am thinking of selling my home and definitely cannot afford a Realtor. I came across a for sale by owner website that looks pretty neat but want wanted to know if anyone had used it before..and if you so your thoughts?For Sale by Owner Website

 

[sous2817]

When my wife and I sold our first house we used www.fsbo.com. We sold it in 13 days with a full price offer. The biggest thing is to generate traffic to your house. We put a lot of work in to putting up signs and flyers as well as posted an ad in the paper as well as the fsbo website. You'll have to do the leg work, make yourself available for showing, etc. So as long as you can invest the time, you don't really need a realtor (IMHO). It's not easy, but it was nice not having to shell out an extra $10k in realtor commission.

One thing to be ready for, a lot of your offers will come in at 6% lower (or whatever is the customary realtor commission).

Just my $.02 anyway.

Best of luck!

 

[MorganO]

When my wife and I sold our first house we used www.fsbo.com. We sold it in 13 days with a full price offer.

I too will need to sell my home in the near future and am looking at options. Sous, how long ago did you sell the home using fsbo.com? I am thinking that with the crummy situation the housing market is in here in the states that selling by yourself might be too great a challenge at this time and going with a realator is the best best.

Owen

 

[marklex]

Just a heads up, I went ahead and listed on diyhomesellers.com and they have some really neat features. I did start off with the 10 day free trial. They have lots of helpful seller articles and tips as well as a tracker of how many times your home is viewed, etc. I would recommend checking it out for sure! Good luck Owen.

-Mark

 

[sous2817]

In all honesty, it took 13 days, but we sold it at the tail end of the "housing boom" (2005), so I'm sure that had something to do with it.

Selling your home by yourself is still a lot of work. I'm not sure if it's any more work than having a realtor though. You still need to make sure everything works, clean all the time, and make yourself available to show it.

Some other tips I would recommend is getting a home inspection before you put the house on the market and taking care of any issues before anyone looks at it. Also, you need to decide ahead of time if you're going to pay a realtor commission (if the buyer has a realtor). Realtors assume that 1) yes you are and 2) you're paying a full 3%. When we sold ours, we were upfront with the buyers realtor that we were only paying 1% commission. You are under no obligation to pay a commission, but it's nice to let the realtors know that up front. Including a statement like "Realtors welcome" on your FSBO ad implies that you are offering a commission.

just my $.02 at least. Good luck!

 

[Long Nose]

You can do a couple of things with a Realtor, 1) negotiate a lower % commission, and 2) create a list of 1/2 dozen names you think might have bought from you without the Realtor's help. If anyone on the list buys, you pay the Realtor no commission.

We used a Realtor in 2006 one year after the boom and it still took 3 months to sell. The thing with the Realtor is they can help price your house for the market you are selling in. If you are on your own, you do all the work and may price your self out of a sale. I guess I'm sounding like the Realtor is the way to go. If you are not in a hurry, try it without the Realtor and see what happens. You can always call a Realtor later.

 

[marklex]

I'm glad I didn't use a realtor..haha

Someone saw my home on the diyhomesellers.com website and made an offer. We are set to close in 2 weeks!! Thanks for all the information though.

-Mark

 

[sous2817]

Nice work! Hope everything goes well from here on out!