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Selling home listen to real estate agent, enlist help to set price of home using comps data, seller too attached to house, homes listed too high, sellers overvalue their homes
And I think, as Realtors, we mislead those sellers if we do not tell them the truth!
Here, here. Spot on. Telling the seller (and buyer) what they must hear rather than what they want to hear is not only important, it really becomes an obligation.
Extending my comment above, and echoing a lot of what Vicki said, I think it's an incredible value to have an agent represent you as a seller or buyer... provided that agent is highly adept with the entire process. Sales and personality included.
But bottom line, if the price of the home is not priced at a point to sell, especially if you're competing with other neighboring properties, no highly skilled agent is going to perform miracles for a seller. Sure, it happens, but a realistic price point is probably the single most important aspect of expecting a sale of a piece of property.
However, it is of the utmost important that when a decision is made to sell an asset that will become your former place of memory building, it does help greatly not to become emotional when constructing the transaction. At that decision point to sell, it is important to deal with the transaction, and every step of the process, as a business decision. IMO, there really isn't any advantage to becoming emotional over a business transaction.
When the deal is done and you wave goodbye to your former asset, look back with great fondness of all the memories that asset has created. And give thanks to all involved that a buyer found value in what you maintained, built up and enjoyed (presumably).
Great post Vicki! I think more people need to be told this whether its what they want to hear or not (many do not want the truth, and the Realtor is happy to give them an illusion).
I know many Realtors that tell me how their clients want a lot of open houses. I think its great to do one at the start and then if there are special features or it is in a good traffic area, but yes they are more often for the seller to feel something is being done and for the agent to pick up other buyers.
It is about price, exposure and condition/staging. The Realtor needs to inform the clients on what to repair or do to make the home look its best, then price it right.... after that its all about the MLS, marketing and exposure.
But everyone thinks that is all and they can FSBO it with no problem. These steps are crucial to get an offer, but its the steps you described after that where an agent can be worth every penny.
Looking at the comps and looking at the positives and negatives of the house takes experience. This is why FSBOs don't work.
Vicki
Given the number of realtors that post on this site, I recognize that it will inevitably have an anti-FSBO bias, but blanket statements like this are just silly, misleading propaganda. Having bought and sold homes both with a realtor and FSBO, I can tell you that FSBO CAN work well in certain instances if you are willing to do a little homework.
For instance, we bought and sold our last home as a FSBO. It was in a subdivision filled with homes of an identical age, with the same builder, and a limited number of different floor-plans. In addition, the area was near a military base, so the turnover was very high, and all the homes were selling within 5-10K of the median price. It was easy to see exactly what homes identical to ours were selling for by looking through recent sales records and going to a few open houses.
By doing a FSBO, we were able to knock a few thousand dollars off the price (no 6% commission), and undercut the price of everyone else in the subdivision trying to sell an identical home. We had multiple full-price offers within a week in an otherwise slow market. Since we were not particularly experienced with real-estate transactions, we hired a real-estate lawyer to advise us and draw up the contracts, but that cost only a few hundred dollars.
I'm not saying that FSBO is for everyone, or makes sense in every market, but it clearly works for some people who have the time to do a little research.
Sorry for cherry-picking a quote from an otherwise excellent post by Vicki, but I just think the pro-realtor propaganda on this site gets a little thick sometimes.
Given the number of realtors that post on this site, I recognize that it will inevitably have an anti-FSBO bias, but blanket statements like this are just silly, misleading propaganda. Having bought and sold homes both with a realtor and FSBO, I can tell you that FSBO CAN work well in certain instances if you are willing to do a little homework.
FSBO listings can work, and they do. But only when managed by someone (a seller) who has a good understanding of the selling process. Moreover, someone who has a good business sense. It's definitely not a process for every homeowner, even in a predictable and/or seller's market. But if you have the time, knowledge and dedication, FSBO can save a person money (without the aforementioned, however, it could lose a seller money as well without having representation). When the seller reaches the escrow process, securing a lawyer prior to this step is essential, imo, as indicated in another discussion in a recent thread. Again, I am not against FSBO, but not anyone can manage the sale of their own home (of course, there are agents who know their stuff from the books they've studied who cannot manage the process very well, either... hence find a good agent who will).
Given the number of realtors that post on this site, I recognize that it will inevitably have an anti-FSBO bias, but blanket statements like this are just silly, misleading propaganda. Having bought and sold homes both with a realtor and FSBO, I can tell you that FSBO CAN work well in certain instances if you are willing to do a little homework.
For instance, we bought and sold our last home as a FSBO. It was in a subdivision filled with homes of an identical age, with the same builder, and a limited number of different floor-plans. In addition, the area was near a military base, so the turnover was very high, and all the homes were selling within 5-10K of the median price. It was easy to see exactly what homes identical to ours were selling for by looking through recent sales records and going to a few open houses.
By doing a FSBO, we were able to knock a few thousand dollars off the price (no 6% commission), and undercut the price of everyone else in the subdivision trying to sell an identical home. We had multiple full-price offers within a week in an otherwise slow market. Since we were not particularly experienced with real-estate transactions, we hired a real-estate lawyer to advise us and draw up the contracts, but that cost only a few hundred dollars.
I'm not saying that FSBO is for everyone, or makes sense in every market, but it clearly works for some people who have the time to do a little research.
Sorry for cherry-picking a quote from an otherwise excellent post by Vicki, but I just think the pro-realtor propaganda on this site gets a little thick sometimes.
You and the following poster make good points about FSBO. We are buying our house in Chapel Hill from a FSBO and we're without representation, so we are saving 6%, and given both the sellers' and our situations, it worked well. But it isn't for everyone, as you say -- we have an agent to market our condo in Mass.
However, one annoying thing is the idea that you need a realtor to get comps. In many cases, you really do -- it frustrates me to no end that the MLS data is so closely guarded. When I see the data that my selling agent up here can pull up in a matter of seconds, I cringe. That and the fact that the National Association of REALTORS(r), as well as many realtors, insists on saying REALTOR (or, even more annoyingly, REALTOR(r)). It's not an acronym, so it shouldn't be REALTOR. Or maybe I should just call myself an ATTORNEY!
Hmmmm my POV: When my sisters wanted to list our parents' house, a local agent went nuts over it. My father hand built most of it - there was tons of woodwork in it - a walkup plank floored attic - big yard - big garage/shop. The agent priced it way high. My sister even talk to another agent and the discrepency between the appraised price and the suggested listing price and he said he wouldn't be involved at the higher suggestion - it was ridiculous for that old of a home. It was suggested that the agent with the BIG money talk was used to selling waterfront property and couldn't seem to think reasonable.
My sisters went with the flashy agent talking the big money.
The house sat..... and sat .... and sat. (I HATED selling it so that was ok). there was one offer from someone that knew my father and wanted the house based on how it was and what he knew my father had done.
A year later - we tried to get free of that agent - she talked my otherwise sensible sister into continuing with her .... the house sat. Evidently it took several -becoming nasty - conversations to get free of this woman. Months later - the people who had originally offered came told the neighbors that they would buy it as is - and my sisters jumped - sold last June. It's gone now - and part of the pain of losing it was the crud we went through with the realtor that kept promising the moon if we'd be patient.
Of course - when I bought this house - I was sold a song and dance fantasy by the agent who I thought was working for me. Stupid me. We found out that he lied frequently about this house and others he had been trying to get me in but we just wanted to be free of him and close because I needed to move somewhere I could get my kids into decent schools.
Gee - do you think that a HUGE part of my hesitating on looking at land/house now - even though I REALLY want to move to the country - is because of those experiences? What can you do?
martha
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