Today the latest S&P Case/Shiller Home Price Index was released, showing that most of the nation's largest markets suffered double-digit drops over last year. As the home prices have dropped, more people are realizing just how costly it is to pay that 6% real estate commission.
- Be Your Own Agent: An agent’s commission cost home sellers 6% of their home’s value. ForSaleByOwner.com customers are able to competitively price their home compared to similar homes represented by agents and still come out ahead financially because they are not paying commission. In addition, separate recent studies by professors at two of the nation’s most prestigious universities, Northwestern and Stanford, determined that unrepresented homeowners are as effective at maximizing the sales price of their home as agents.
- Use the Internet to Market the Home: More than 84% of buyers use the Internet to search for a home. Putting a home on ForSaleByOwner.com helps home sellers market their home to nearly 2 million people monthly. Online property listings should boast multiple high quality, digital photographs of their home’s interior and exterior. Homes with multiple photographs receive more attention from buyers. The online listing should be combined with a yard sign to attract people driving by the home.
- Price the Home Accurately: The market in 2008 is very different from a few years ago when bidding wars drove up home prices. In today’s market, home sellers need to become more educated about their local real estate market so that they can effectively price their house. To make it easy, ForSaleByOwner.com provides its customers with a customized property pricing report that contains recent home sales data and home valuation data. Sellers should also research their neighborhood to compare the listing prices of similar houses and use that information to competitively price their home.
- Consider Placing the Home on the MLS: The Multiple Listing Service, or MLS, is a complete inventory of homes on the market. Sellers should remember they no longer need a real estate agent or broker to get their home on the MLS, and their home can be placed on the MLS through ForSaleByOwner.com.
- Don’t Be Afraid of the Paperwork: While one of the biggest myths in real estate is that agents handle the legal paperwork, the fact is that other professionals provide these services. Whether a seller uses an agent or goes “for sale by owner,” outside help is needed to navigate through the legal process of transferring the title. A real estate attorney or title company will prepare and handle all of the legal paperwork for sellers.
16 comments:
Best tips we have for selling besides the basics of mow the yard, stage the house (which are pretty important):
Interview a couple Real Estate Agents to pick their brains and evaluate their research. We were considering going w/ an agent, and it's normal to have them over for a walk through, talk about their proposed strategies for selling your house, they do some easy (for them) mkt research in your area that's a little more daunting for first timers like us.
They want an easy sell because it's less of their time for not much difference in their pay. We priced our house 4% higher than the agent's suggested price and didn't do any of the expensive fix-its that she said were 'musts'. We had already done a lot and we got the price we wanted out of the sale.
Be patient and confident. It's easier to adjust down later and/or make the buyer feel good about bringing you down a bit, but you can never price up if buyers respond well.
You know your house best and what makes it great. Surf around to borrow good words and concepts from other home sale ads, but think about what makes your house unique and fantastic... even if it's not the stock language or characteristics that are on the list normally.
Cross post on Craigslist.org if you are in an area that uses it.
Be very honest w/ the prospective buyers about what works, what doesn't work well. They'll find out in an inspection and appreciate the honesty up front.
Give yourself the time you're comfortable with given your selling situation, if there's not as much interest from buyers as you want, you could add to your post that you would be willing to pay a buyer's agent (we were ready to offer 2%). We got a couple of calls from agents asking, but our friend in the biz said that they may boycott w/o that being explicit in the ad(in fact, no agent actually brought their client to our house for the 3 weeks it was on the mkt).
If selling as a FSBO, will the MLS listing get the same exact attention as the agent listed ads?
Lyle in the house - This is a great question. I believe you will receive as much attention from any agent or buyer who sees your house on the MLS. A couple of things to remember:
1-Agents should be acting in the best interest of the buyer. If your home comes up in their search and it fits the buyer's needs, then they owe it their buyer to show them the property - regardless of who you are or how you sell your home.
2- Put in a competitive commission rate so agents know you are willing to pay them to bring the buyer to you. If you put in 1% commission, you may think you are saving money but you probably will not get many buyers. A commission rate between 2-3% should attract agents.
Note: Talk to a few agents and find out what the average commission rate is in your market. If the average is 2.5%, you could put in 3% which may attract more agents.
3- Respond quickly - when an agent calls you for a showing, pick up the phone and talk to them or call them back quickly so your home is on the list to visit. Most agents just want to show 8-10 homes to satisfy their clients - not 30 or 40 homes.
And remember - you can sell your home without agent and save a lot of money!
Thanks for the question - Mark
I am impressed with this site.It's nice.I have similar thing i am dealing with.
My aim is to share any type of information with all of you.If i have
done any mistake please excuse me.
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JOHN ROBERT
MLS
I'm just curious...I believe that consumers should have options which include flat fee mls services. But I often hear that websites that offer flat fee MLS services that are not licensed like forsalebyowner.com is not legal? Is this true? If it's not true how is it legal? What’s the loop hole?
Hi, I'd like to seek your help in providing a review for this Beading Secrets resource. We're building a review site aimed at allowing 100% unfiltered reviews of informational and software products. You can find the page with Home w/o an Agent - Sold in a Week and Save Dollars! Review here. Help others steer clear from scams and get true and useful information only.
Great tips. I also want to point out to not forget the basic fix ups and staging it properly!
Great tips for sellers!Very informative and useful.I am definitely agree that market is tough on sellers right now but still there are effective sales strategies that we can use..
It can be the same (FSBO) according to what market it is at and what area.
"Price the Home Accurately"- that sounds about right. With the economic collapse, lowering of the US credit rating, and a default real estate pricing, real estate pricing became a tough market that requires hones pricing.
I really think it's hard to sell in a tough market. You should probably follow these tips so you may know what to do. Thanks for sharing.
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Tips fro seling in togh market has been expalined in the post here. Useful post
Those information are really useful. It well explanation on what where going to do if we're going to sell our properties. Thanks a lot.
It is a big help if you are selling condo in Eastwood.
There are various books out there that can help and enable you to understand how to have leverage on the market today. The best there is is Guerilla Marketing and I've read this a year ago. I'll surely refer this good book to those who are willing to learn more!
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