For Sale By Owner (FSBO)

Selling your own home requires an extensive commiment of your time. The energy and effort to market your home, qualify buyers, negotiate effectively, and remain objective with potential buyers requires a lot of work.

However, if you think you can do this, please read on:

a. Use the Internet to determine the market value other homes in your neighborhood that recently "sold" then visit your local tax record office to see what homes actually sold for.

b. Attend a seminar on how to stage your home for sale.

c. Build an advertising budget. Typically people will spend a couple of thousand dollars on marketing expenses.

d. Put a prominent FOR SALE SIGN in your front yard.

e. Use MicroSoft Publisher or other desktop publishing software to develop your marketing brochure then have color copies made and distribute them at work, downtown businesses, send to your friends etc.

f. Run ads in your local paper, develop a small website to market your home and its features.

g. Return all calls to interested buyers.

h. Make appointments to show your house, be available week days, weekends (expect a fair amount of interruption to your personal and business life).

I.Create a local community book for potential buyers, (where to shop, school info, transportation, etc.) .

J.Always monitor the market as it can change quickly.

k. Qualify your potential buyers via the phone (Ask some key questions).

     1. Are they pre-qualified / pre-approved by a lender and what $ amount? Who?

     2. Is their home sold or just on the market?

     3. Is the buyer of their home pre-qualified?

This may appear tempting, especially if you're really motivated to save money.

Some FACTS to consider:

a. FSBO Hunters want a bargin. The only reason why a buyer is going to shop purely FSBO is because they wants what? ... a BARGIN. So, think about this for a moment. Let's say a house should be listed at $100,000 and a Realtor charges X%. You're thinking you can sell it on your own and save X ... right? Now perspective buyers call you and know that you didn't want to pay commission so, they "believe that the commission is built-in" to the $100,000. They will not want to pay the commission to the seller, so they will take X% off the top. You see, in the buyer's mind, you're netting what you would have if you had used a Realtor, so she'll usually take off another X% (typically 3%). All too often this occurs and sellers end up with offers (6 - 10%) less than your asking price. Are you still saving enough money to make it worth selling it on your own?

b. Third-party negotiating. When using a Realtor, the buyer and seller don't negotiate directly; Realtors do it for them. Odds are that a FSBO seller wants $100,000 they will sell it for about $95,000. Good Realtors will "NET" you about the same or more and are experts that leverage a combination of complex skills for buying and selling homes, such as:

     1. Sales, Marketing 

     2. Negotiating, Qualifying Buyers

     3. Staging Consultation

     4. Handling Objections

     5. Developing strategies and plans

     6. Managing your transactions

     7. Getting you to the closing table

     8. Realtors have more available resources:

Marketing 101 - You want the best price, and the most money for your home. You need to get the MOST buyers through the door via the greatest amount of exposure.

Licensed Realtors have extensive resources available to them that you can't touch, including advanced Multiple Listing Service tools and technology. Without this tool your home will be missed by thousands of perspective buyers.

What's the best type of buyer? Relocation. Here's why: They have to buy, they're committed to buy, and are likely to be in a time crunch. Let's say you're selling your own home... The Relocation buyers is going to contact a local Realtor that has a home professionally listed. So, in other words, a FSBO is missing out on the best kind of buyer. That's just one example of how Realtor's marketing tools can get more exposure for your home and therefore a higher price.

    So, there's at least three basic reasons why FSBOs are typically unlikely to really save money doing it on their own.

    However, if you're willing to invest the time and effort, go for it and list it yourself and see how it goes. Give yourself 30 days. Research (NAR) shows if a home isn't sold within 21 days, you won't sell it on your own.


    For Sale By Owners sell for $45,000 Less!
    Of all the findings of a recent survey of Florida home buyers and sellers, here's one you can take to the bank:
    Sellers who chose to sell their home on their own fetched $45,000 less than they would have if they used a real estate professional.  To derive this figure, researchers at NAR compared the median price of a FSBO ($210,000) to the median price of a home listed by a real estate professional ($255,000).  Perhaps this explains another survey result:

    a. 67% of sellers relied on a real estate professional to sell their home, while 29% chose to go it alone.
    b. 48% of first-time buyers used the Internet frequently to search for homes compared with 55% of repeat buyers.
    c. Buyers searched for a median of two weeks on their own before contacting a real estate professional.
    d. Buyers ranked reputation and knowledge of the neighborhood as the most important factors in choosing a real estate professional.
    e. 36% of sellers used the same agent for their home purchase.
    f. First impressions make a big difference: 71% of sellers contacted only one real estate professional before selecting their listing agent.


    Please call The Pat Williams Team 850-585-4062 if you would like the best professional help in the Fort Walton Beach area. You can email us at: pat@era-american.com. We have two web addresses: www.thepatwilliamsteam.com  (New site) and www.erapat.com (First Site).  We look forward to making the selling experience as pleasant as possible.