If you're selling your home on your own to save the commission you might find it a bit harder than you imagined. In fact, over 80% of for sale by owners (FSBO) fail to sell their home and trust an agent. Here's how you can be part of the 20% that do sell their home without an agent by avoiding these 5 Common Mistakes For Sale By Owners Make.
FSBOs Often Have Awful Photos
I don't know if it's irony but home sellers often make the same mistakes that the average (or below) real estate agent makes. In particular they tend to take their own photos which are usually horrendous. Buyers are drawn to photos and high quality photos drive more showings and fsbos either don't do great photos or locally there's one photographer known for FSBO photos and they do over the top HDR filtered photos that look awful as well. Take a look at the condos for sale in Marco Island page - even when the property should sell itself it's hard to not notice. Which one of these 3 properties would you like to buy?
FSBOs often alienate agents
The percentage of homes being sold by the seller is relatively low and this is one reason. They are rarely friendly to agents and well over half the sales in real estate involve a buyer's agent of some sort. It's hard to blame them when the most common practice is to call a DIY home seller and pretend to have a buyer so you can meet them face to face.
FSBOs don't leverage the MLS or Free Tools
In some states FSBOs won't even be on the MLS while others allow FSBO listings for a small fee. It's worth researching before putting your home on the market. If you have a home to sell in Davneport, FL this is going to differ from homes in Allen, TX for example. A home seller that uses the MLS is like a business owner that bought a domain on the internet. It's Great that you're on the internet but no one will find you (without help). You need to understand marketing and search engines (SEO) to rank well. Same thing is true for the MLS, a good agent understands marketing and how the MLS works to that the most eyeballs are on their listing.
FSBOs don't qualify the buyer (or qualify too hard).
About 80% don't qualify at all while the other 20% grill a poor buyer and scare them off. Most agents don't do this as well as they should but it's still a better option than letting a potential "looker" waste your time. Afterall if you are selling yourself, chances are good you're dong appoitnment only showings which means you'll be there.
FSBOs show the home themselves
It's classic real estate advice to home sellers. Don't be there when the buyer is there. It makes the buyer nervous and they are busy making comments about your home. In fact, if they hate your home they'll still be inclined to walk around and inspect out of respect for you. See they don't want to hurt your feelings. The best advice is to get a combo lockbox, ask for a photo id, and then give the buyer a few minutes to look around without you there, or hire an agent to handle it.
There's a myriad of other things seller's don't do well on their own like, evaluating offers, knowing what to negotiate and what not to. Understanding what's enforceable and not in contract. Not to mention the legalities. Many of these things can be mitigated or handled by some of the better FSBO services out there but nothing will beat a high-octane realtor. It's kind of like those legal document companies. Many of those things cover 75 to 80%, but you need a good professional attorney to be able to have 99% covered.
