For Sale By Owner websites in Tampa (real estate, foreclosures)

[SkyeAnjel]

The sale of a house depends on 3 things, price, condition of home, and marketing. Newspaper marketing is only good in some areas for some homes. Here in Houston, the homes within the city andluxury homes are worth putting in the newspaper, suburban homes are not. The majority of people search for homes on the internet which is your most important marketing tool. When choosing a realtor, you should consider their company. There are alot of realtors who have to pay for there own advertising in exchange for 95-100% commisiion, but if homes are not selling well and buyers are scarce in a down market, they will not have the money to advertise. Then you have realtors who will discount their fees to get the business. This means there is less money to work with and you may end up with a sign in your yard and very little advertising. My broker pays for the majority of advertising costs so it doesn't matter if I am making money or not, your home will be advertised if you list with me. The catch is I am splitting commission with my broker and getting 50% until I sell a certain dollar amount and then I get 85% after that for the remainder of the year and then it starts at 50% again.Therefore I do not discount commsssions.You are getting what you are paying for.
As far as realtors not calling back,I have no answer for that one. I do know there is a lot of wasted time we spend with people who have the idea of "using" the realtor to get as much info as possible with no intention of hiring a realtor at all. I have seen that advice on these boards, call a realtor to your home to find out how much your home will sell for, they all want your business, then go sell it yourself. We also deal with buyers who have friends that are realtors and their friends tell them that if they find the house themselves they will give them most of their commissions back at closing. Are they out finding the homes themselves? No. They call another realtor to waste their time and energy and gas running them around th find the perfect home and then suddenly, the client is unreachable, only to find they bought the home from their friend.
If someone were to call me and say they wanted to try to sell the home themselves and would like my opinion on what their home would sell for, I would help them in a heartbeat, but if someone is trying to deceive me, it is unethical and I would not return the call.
As far ads free advertising, craigslist is great, alot of people use it. You might try zillow.com, I believe you can advertise on there but I am not sure.

[SLCPUNK]

I always list my homes on craigslist and also offer 3% to buyers agents via a flat fee MLS listing service. Of course I have open houses, flyers, signs etc. My last buyer saw the house on craigslist, the one before that on an open house (on a weekday afternoon no less.) This time I also built a website to showcase my home (shameless plug here)[mod[website[/mod]

Both sales were in a "lousy" market over the last 18 months. My current rehab has been for sale for a bit over 6 weeks. Six showings in the first 4 weeks (it stopped right before the holidays, I'll guess we'll start up again this week), and one offer that fell through because of tighter lending practices.

What I have noticed is that with the exception of one showing, all have been with realtors. This was never the case before, which I find very interesting.

I always make the home nicer and cheaper than the competition. I am willing to negotiate, and am realistic.

If your home has been sitting for over a year, even without seeing it, I guess that it is overpriced. Now, after a year, even more so.

[boomer]

Hi SLCPUNK,

For almost a year, only one person in my neighborhood has sold their house. All but three of us have realtors. The problem is not the price; it is the new developments being build around us. It is hard to compete with them, as they are selling the cheaper houses at cost. I will admit, they are a great deal but I just can't see why people would buy them as they look like storage garages. All you see is a two-door garage and a small entry way. Some even have their front doors on the side of the house. The models are between 1350 sqft to 1800 sqft and range for as low as $169,000 - $189,000. Here is the catch though, the developers are charging an average of $1500 per year in HOA and CDD fees. That is $30,000 over a 30 year period. Not many people consider this fact.

As for a personal website, I have too, but it does no good as no-one will ever find it. It does not generate any traffic to put on a webcrawler like google. MY HOUSE . This is why I am better off looking into a solution like craig's list.

When I see some of the houses in my neighborhood sell with a realtor, only then do I feel it is wise to go with one. As for now, I am happy to get an average of one person a month. I've had two people want to buy it, but could not get a loan in this aweful credit market.

[SkyeAnjel]

The same is true here for resale homes, they take longer to sell because of the new home sales. They offer all kinds of incentives including using their mortgage company, closing costs etc. Your home must be in top condition when competing against new homes, it does help to stage, some realtors offer staging or you can hire a stager yourself.
We do not have cdd fees here, I thank Florida Sunshine for explaining those to me. If I ever get to move there, I will not move into a cdd community. Those will also be harder to resell I would guess.

[SLCPUNK]

Originally Posted by boomer

Hi SLCPUNK,

For almost a year, only one person in my neighborhood has sold their house. All but three of us have realtors. The problem is not the price; it is the new developments being build around us. It is hard to compete with them, as they are selling the cheaper houses at cost. I will admit, they are a great deal but I just can't see why people would buy them as they look like storage garages. All you see is a two-door garage and a small entry way. Some even have their front doors on the side of the house. The models are between 1350 sqft to 1800 sqft and range for as low as $169,000 - $189,000. Here is the catch though, the developers are charging an average of $1500 per year in HOA and CDD fees. That is $30,000 over a 30 year period. Not many people consider this fact.

As for a personal website, I have too, but it does no good as no-one will ever find it. It does not generate any traffic to put on a webcrawler like google. MY HOUSE . This is why I am better off looking into a solution like craig's list.

When I see some of the houses in my neighborhood sell with a realtor, only then do I feel it is wise to go with one. As for now, I am happy to get an average of one person a month. I've had two people want to buy it, but could not get a loan in this aweful credit market.

I hear you on that. When I rehabbed my home, I did so with builders in mind. I had to make this place nicer than new homes at this price point (travertine shower etc.)

If it makes you feel any better I have spoken to a lot of buyers who prefer older neighborhoods with mature landscaping to the new developments. Right now, with a lousy credit market and builders throwing deals out it can be very difficult.

I've seen your house on Craigslist, it looks very nice. Craiglist has been the biggest generator for hits on my website. Yesterday I had over 24 hits which ain't too shabby, so far almost 600 hits.

Ultimately, and unfortunately, the problem is the price. Since those sales prices set the comps.

[kel3420]

"I do know there is a lot of wasted time we spend with people who have the idea of "using" the realtor to get as much info as possible with no intention of hiring a realtor at all."

How much time does it take to respond to an email? To forward the listing sheet to a prospective buyer? It is my understanding that a good agent, will have prospective buyers sign a sellers agreement. That way you are covered, if the buyer buys a home from someone else, then you should be able to still get the commission you would have received. But it is really easy for me to weed out agents, if I send them an inquiry on a home they have listed, and they don't respond, then they are not going to be hired by me to find me a home to purchase or one to sell. Yes, there are going to be many people out their that abuse the system, that is why there are buyers and sellers agreements. For example, 3% commission on a 400k house is 12k, even if split 50/50 with your broker, it is still 6 thousand dollars. That is a heck of alot of money.

I know that the agent I hire to sell my house, everything will be in writing. My home will be advertised in the local papers, on the MLS with photos and a virtual tour and whatever else it takes to make the sale. I will also have it stipulated that they will respond to each and every inquiry on my home. This will be tested also, and if they fail to respond, they will be in breach of contract and fired. I just feel so sorry for those people who have hired an agent or broker, whatever, to sell their home, and these people are not doing everything they can to do so. It is a total buyers market, if someone inquires about a listing, the selling agent should be doing everything in their power to ensure the inquiry is fulfilled.

[boomer]

I've seen your house on Craigslist, it looks very nice. Craiglist has been the biggest generator for hits on my website. Yesterday I had over 24 hits which ain't too shabby, so far almost 600 hits.

Thanks for the compliment SLCPUNK. How many times do advertise on Craig's list? There is so many listings, I am curious how often my house get's looked at. So far, I have advertised on craig's list about 6-8 times over the past year but only had two people showed interested. Last week I advertised it twice but not interest. My forsalebyowner.com site has generated about 1 person a month and the driveby sign on my property has interested about 1 every other month. I've had two people look at it last month and someone else said they would like to look at it after the 13th of this month when he comes back from his trip.

[SLCPUNK]

Originally Posted by boomer

Thanks for the compliment SLCPUNK. How many times do advertise on Craig's list? There is so many listings, I am curious how often my house get's looked at. So far, I have advertised on craig's list about 6-8 times over the past year but only had two people showed interested. Last week I advertised it twice but not interest. My forsalebyowner.com site has generated about 1 person a month and the driveby sign on my property has interested about 1 every other month. I've had two people look at it last month and someone else said they would like to look at it after the 13th of this month when he comes back from his trip.

I advertise on it EVERY DAY. Another free site similar to craigslist I use is: tampa classifieds for apts, jobs, for sale, personals - backpage.com

I think I get more traffic from CL though.

I used fsbo sites before, and for me, have found they generated zero results. I am not using one this time.

If you can swing 3 percent to a buyer agent I would recommend using a flat fee service to get it on the MLS (I paid 275, but have since found them for 99 bucks.) Like I said earlier, I've had almost all showings from realtors this time around, where before it was the opposite. Not sure why, but it is what it is. My guess is that they are willing to "slum it" with the FSBOs in this market...a sale is a sale. Although, maybe I'm wrong.

I had a call back from a realtor today who wanted to show my home a second time. I'm waiting for him to call me back right now. I've had a lot of tire kickers emailing too, but I try to size them up and weed them out (without being rude) as quickly as possible. I really don't want my time wasted.

PM me if you want.

[BloggerQueen]

I have my house on forsalebyowner (since 5/06) and then tried ebay. Had exactly one nibble from FSBO. You might want to list it on the MLS...more expensive and not a niche site (more readers).

[boomer]

Hi BloggerQueen,

I got a flyer in the paper that says I can list my house on the MLS realtors use for $250 a year. Did you try this and did you have any success?