FSBO :: what the *!?/# (contingency, 4%, negotiations, settlement)

[jphillips]

Originally Posted by olecapt

Misleading...pretty much propaganda. Not corrected for the value of the house. May actually be a few points better but not enough that NAR is willing to risk finding out. If it costs 5 and saved 4 would we publish the numbers? I don't think so...

I also have never seen a number higher than 16% quoted. So we have now doubled the unbelievable.

Aside from all that I just said, looking on your profile I see now that you are an agent...you should know better than this, I could sit here and easily rattle off a number of reasons that agent assisted selling prices are higher than those of a FSBO but you should know what they are...being an agent yourself. But for those of you who aren't agents let me give you a few examples: Many home owners don't know the market value of their home, they don't put out advertising and if they do it's not right or not enough, their signs aren't noticeable, they aren't listed in the MLS and therefore aren't being shown by local agents, they take longer to sell, they can't find qualified buyers....there are many reasons that a FSBO may sell less than an agent assisted home might sell for but I just do this for a living, what would I know?

[TimtheGuy]

Originally Posted by jphillips

According to NAR the median price of homes sold as FSBO's was $187,200, compared with $249,000 for agent-assisted sales in 2006

All that tells me is that FSBO is more popular or more successful on lower end properties,

What the NAR would like you to believe is that you could get $220k for your house with an agent, but you will probably only get $200k if you sell it yourself. This is NOT what that statistic shows!

[TimtheGuy]

Originally Posted by KoZmiC NinJa

I :heart: realtors.......
Im taking realty classes in July. Cant wait !!
Our situation was unique for a few reasons that I
wouldnt bore with here. Even though we FSBO'ed,
I would recommend to someone else to use a realtor.
We were lucky in that I know a little about it and in our
area the houses sort of sell themselves, amoungst the other
things, but in a saturated or unstable market it would be in your
best interest from a couple of different standpoints to seek out a good realtor.

So, you went FSBO, but you recommend 'other' people should use an agent?????? What if they have a home in the same area or another area where "the houses sell themselves"? Still use an agent?

I guess I am the sort of the opposite. I went FSBO and recommend that ANYONE who has a good 'head on their shoulders' do the same!

[TimtheGuy]

Originally Posted by jphillips

Thought you all might be interested to know that according to the 2006 National Association of Realtors profile of home buyers and sellers, homes that were sold with the assistance of a real estate agent sold for 32% more than FSBO.

Sorry, I should have used more realistic numbers with respect to this stat. If an agent can get you $220k for your house...statistics show you would only get $149,600 for the same house if you go FSBO ($220k less 32%)

I knew you agents were good, but WOW 32% really is a big difference!

[cmsvmom]

The stats are a very general figure. I think it varies in each market, and in the type of house you are selling. Also, what your base is of customers for FSBO.

If you live in an area where people are knocking on the door offering you money up front several times a week, and you are adept at knowing the market and negotiating the deal, yes, you can do better as a fsbo. Where I am right now this appears to be true in an eruv, a designated area for orthodox jews. You can do well if you get real. Unfortunately, you have people trying to sell little handyman specials at luxury prices because they are in the eruv. They do not understand the market for their fsbo. If the houses are being knocked down for building higher priced homes, the house being knocked down is still only worth so much to an interested builder.

I have seen luxury homes go for far less either as a fsbo or as a 2% listing than they would have sold for being marketed with a full service realtor.

If you are in an area where the market is just saturated with homes like yours, you have to decide what is more important - price, net, speed of selling the home, contingencies, etc.

Back in the day, the typical fsbo was underpriced. In my area, most realtors now find that the typical fsbo expectation of price is more than the current market will bear. And most fsbo signs are replaced with realtor signs after about a month. In a crowded market, people tend to think the fsbo is going to be a bargain - and they can really jerk you around. So they make like they just LOVE your house, and in fact they have no intention of buying it unless perhaps you make THEM an offer.

[KoZmiC NinJa]

Our last realtor was an investment. In a rural area he got
us sooooooo much more money than we would have If we
fsbo'ed it was well worth it. Our first house was in a place
that was the beginning of a 'good' neighborhood but potential
buyer might have avoided due to the location. He sucked them
in and made us a nice profit here, too.
Our FSBO we let go and could have gotten more for it if we used
an agent Im sure, but we made out anyway and due to the urgency
of this move didnt want to wait. Its only commonsense that many
factors play into using a realtor or not. Our rural area house would
have never sold, and especially for what it did without a realtor.
Our VT. house sold by itself, as I knew it would. I ride bicycles
for hobby and transportation and see the same thing described
above all over our area....FSBO for about a month- ReMAx etc,
after that. I guess every profession has its bashers but the few
realtors Ive worked with had high standards and really worked for
me. They definately earned thier commission. Another minor
annoyance with the FSBO was the high percentage of time wasters.
We spent a lot of time showing and talking to people who we knew
had no intention of buying. A good realtor would have weeded the
busy bodies and saturday joyriders out right away.
The only major bashing I could do of a whole realty based industry
would be the Home Inspection one. From a buyers and sellers point
of view I have seen stuff from this industry that is used car sleazy.
Thier standards appear to be nowhere near what realtors are.

[schoenfraun]

Just thought I'd chime in again--it's me, the original poster.

It's like deja vu all over again, isn't that how the joke goes?

I showed my house to another new faculty couple this weekend, and they emailed me yesterday telling me how cute the house is and how it was their favorite of all they saw in town. They had a list of further questions for me, which I answered in great detail.

One of their questions was to see if I had any resistance to working with a realtor. I told them that they can hire a realtor if they want to, but that I won't be paying the buyers' agent's commission. Again, it's all local, and here it seems as though real estate attorneys are the norm at closings. When my next door neighbor bought his (identical) house two years ago, the sale was just lawyer-to-lawyer, no realtors involved on either end. Two years before that, the same situation, the (identical) house next door to his: FSBO, two lawyers, a buyer and a seller, end of story.

So this second couple contacted me this morning to say that they're "still digesting" my epistle, all those (honest) answers to their extensive list of questions about my little house. In the meantime, another possible buyer came by yesterday and called me within five minutes of her departure to arrange a second visit, with her parents in tow, for tomorrow.

So, we'll see what happens. The parents already called me to confirm that they could close by the end of this month.... I'll keep you posted. But don't hold your breath....

And the phone continues to ring...

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by jphillips

Aside from all that I just said, looking on your profile I see now that you are an agent...you should know better than this, I could sit here and easily rattle off a number of reasons that agent assisted selling prices are higher than those of a FSBO but you should know what they are...being an agent yourself. But for those of you who aren't agents let me give you a few examples: Many home owners don't know the market value of their home, they don't put out advertising and if they do it's not right or not enough, their signs aren't noticeable, they aren't listed in the MLS and therefore aren't being shown by local agents, they take longer to sell, they can't find qualified buyers....there are many reasons that a FSBO may sell less than an agent assisted home might sell for but I just do this for a living, what would I know?

Wrong issue...you really think in a real world situation that you can outscore the FSBOs by 32%...or even 16% for that matter? Hell just go out and buy the FSBOs at their price and resell at yours...you will be rich in a year.

I am curious as to what the actual number is. I suspect over all we pay our way...but not a lot more. And the ""pay our way" may be more due to the time value of money and our ability to run a more efficient market.

I would think NAR knows and does not talk about it so it is nothing to write home over.

In our present market FSBOs are just clobbered. In that of 2004 I doubt a FSBO could have done it wrong if he tried.

Our value actually come into play when things go wrong and we know how to fix it or at least extricate our client. But that is hard to market. So we use misleading numbers to appear very competitive on a pure cost basis.

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by schoenfraun

Just thought I'd chime in again--it's me, the original poster.

It's like deja vu all over again, isn't that how the joke goes?

I showed my house to another new faculty couple this weekend, and they emailed me yesterday telling me how cute the house is and how it was their favorite of all they saw in town. They had a list of further questions for me, which I answered in great detail.

One of their questions was to see if I had any resistance to working with a realtor. I told them that they can hire a realtor if they want to, but that I won't be paying the buyers' agent's commission. Again, it's all local, and here it seems as though real estate attorneys are the norm at closings. When my next door neighbor bought his (identical) house two years ago, the sale was just lawyer-to-lawyer, no realtors involved on either end. Two years before that, the same situation, the (identical) house next door to his: FSBO, two lawyers, a buyer and a seller, end of story.

So this second couple contacted me this morning to say that they're "still digesting" my epistle, all those (honest) answers to their extensive list of questions about my little house. In the meantime, another possible buyer came by yesterday and called me within five minutes of her departure to arrange a second visit, with her parents in tow, for tomorrow.

So, we'll see what happens. The parents already called me to confirm that they could close by the end of this month.... I'll keep you posted. But don't hold your breath....

And the phone continues to ring...

Don't be such a purist. You care about your net. Tell them you will be glad to pay their Realtor as long as you can increase your price an equivalent amount. Much of the country uses RE Agents and are comfortable with them...in places lawyers have no role in a normal transaction. Your security blanket is your lawyer. Theirs is a RE Agent.

They want you to pay the agent so that they can load the fee into the financed costs rather than them paying it up fromt. You don't care. Accomodate them if it does not cost you anything.

[johnrex62]

Originally Posted by jphillips

According to NAR the median price of homes sold as FSBO's was $187,200, compared with $249,000 for agent-assisted sales in 2006

You realize, of course, that many more lower end properties with paycheck-to-paycheck owners are sold FSBO than are higher end properties. One multimillion dollar home sold by a realtor can really skew the fsbo ratio of 15 $30K homes sold.