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Hi! We have a 3 bed 2 bath home in Upstate, S.C. for sale. It's been listed with an agent for 6 months and we've lowered the price twice. Our contract was up yesterday and I am planning on trying to sell it on my own for a month. We started out at 107000 and had tons of traffic through who said it was priced too high...We still have some drive bys and I'm thinking of putting 89000 on my FSBO sign to catch peoples attention as there are smaller homes in our neighborhood going for much more. I want to sell this home within the next month because we'll be moving into our new home in 30 days!! I'm thinking of offering agents a monetary incentive for showing the house resulting in an offer. Can anyone offer me any advice?
I would not say that it is out of the relm of possibility to sell the house yourself, it's just harder to do in this market than it was in years past when everything sold quickly. Make sure you have contact with a good lender to call and make sure an interested party has the ability to buy the house. You don't want to spend too much time and energy on someone that can't get a mortgage.
Google search every where that you can list the house on the Internet, such as forsalebyowner.com and any others that you can find. Craigslist is another. Put your price on the sign like you said, if the house is less expensive than others in the community, buyers will notice. Also, if you are going to offer anything to agents who bring a buyer and close the deal, make it a percentage of the sale price. Best of luck to you.
Thanks jlboney...I really appreciate you taking the time to reply to my post. You were a great help! I've put it on almost every free site I could find and dropped the price by 10 grand! I'll give myself a month!! It's worth a shot!
Study your market carefully, for part of each day, for at least one month. You do this by acting like a buyer and looking carefully at everything that is on the market. The best way to study a market is to drive around, look for houses that are for sale, pull into each driveway, call those agents using your cell phone, and ask to see their houses. Don't get involved with any agent beyond seeing their listings. Each agent will want to get to know you enough to find you the house you want to buy. Keep the conversation about the house you are looking at and the market in general. Pretend you are looking to buy - even if you are not. Do this until you can guess the listing price of any home that is for sale within 5% of the actually listing price. Figure out exactly what your house is worth, then go to a model home that a builder is offering and see how they decorate it - called staging. You want your house to look as good as a model. Advertise your home (without a realtor) on your local mls. Offer the buyers agent a 3% commission. Don't want to pay 3%? You will likely have to, to give an agent the incentive to bring you a buyer. FSBO is about not hiring an agent to list your house, for 6%. You will still need one to bring you a buyer. Pay 3%. Your mls listing is the place to announce you will pay 3%. Make sure you include it in your listing. Staging is the process of making your house look really good. Your job is to learn how to do that. Part of it is painting your walls if they need it, fixing everything that is broken and doing some decorating. Study staging carefully.If you are willing to do all of this - and do it well, then you are likely to get offers that are close to you asking price. Selling your own house is very realistic - if you are willing to learn how to do it well, and then put the effort in to do it well. If you do the minimum, that is, list on the mls, hammer a sign on your front lawn, and price your house based on what you want, instead of what your house is actually worth, then you will likely get investors only who will give you only lowball offers. Why investors only? Because they know they will have to put time and money into fixing up your house before they can rent or sell it. They want to be paid in advance for that effort. Their payment is the difference between what your house is really worth and what the investor is willing to pay. Selling your own house is a lot of work. If you have never taken the time to study a market or properly stage a house, then it will seem like a lot of work. You will save money, but it will not be free. You will have to work for the money you save. Don't rely on the price your neighbor is listing his house for. You don't know how much, or how little work your neighbor or his agent did to learn the market before deciding on their asking price. Within the last year, I did all of this work for my own sale. I went into contract 18 days after it went up on the mls. Study, study, and do the work. You will sell.
One thing - if you're putting your house on the MLS, it's listed, albeit with a limited service broker (one who charges you a fee up front to only put it on the MLS. It's no longer a FSBO. As far as I know, this applies to every MLS.
Also, I've heard tales from sellers who paid someone to put their house on the MLS and it ended up on the MLS for the next town over, so check on that, as well.
Study your market carefully, for part of each day, for at least one month. You do this by acting like a buyer and looking carefully at everything that is on the market. The best way to study a market is to drive around, look for houses that are for sale, pull into each driveway, call those agents using your cell phone, and ask to see their houses. Don't get involved with any agent beyond seeing their listings. Each agent will want to get to know you enough to find you the house you want to buy. Keep the conversation about the house you are looking at and the market in general. Pretend you are looking to buy - even if you are not.
Traveler4444, I assume that you have no problem when someone gets you to do the work you do for a living for them under false pretenses with no intention of you getting paid, correct?
That's pretty much what you're advocating here, taking the time that that agent could be spending with an actual client or buyer for the home that is listed, with a possibility of being paid eventually, for your own use knowing that they will never be paid for doing the work for you.
One thing - if you're putting your house on the MLS, it's listed, albeit with a limited service broker (one who charges you a fee up front to only put it on the MLS. It's no longer a FSBO.
So, you're saying, Austin-Willy, that a non-agent can put a house on the MLS? Or that an agent can put a house on the MLS without having an agreement with the seller to do so? I think you might want to rethink that.
If you want to call that semantics, and play that game, then EVERY house on the market is for sale by owner. It's certainly not for sale by anyone else, is it? Couldn't be.
So, you're saying, Austin-Willy, that a non-agent can put a house on the MLS? Or that an agent can put a house on the MLS without having an agreement with the seller to do so? I think you might want to rethink that.
If you want to call that semantics, and play that game, then EVERY house on the market is for sale by owner. It's certainly not for sale by anyone else, is it? Couldn't be.
If all the limited agency gets you is a listing on MLS, then from a practical standpoint, other than the MLS listing, it is no different from a seller's standpoint than a FSBO. So yes, emphasising that being on MLS means that it isn't FSBO is semantics. And if you want to play that game, then you can be "listed," to use your word, while being FSBO and without being on the MLS by listing your house with other databases. See how games of semantics just aren't very helpful?
NOPE. A FSBO house is NOT REPRESENTED in any manner. If a house is on MLS, it is absolutely represented, and therefor NOT A FSBO. As an agent I need to know that. I need to respect that contract, regardless of how little is included in the contract and make sure I follow the terms of that contract for viewing and soliciting business.
And the owners of the homes should know a) they are represented and b) how much.
shelly
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Yes, but make sure you know what you are doing.
