It's All About Providing Consumers with Choices

A few weeks ago ForSaleByOwner.com launched a new product allowing sellers to have their home marketed on Realtor.com without having to be on their local Multiple Listing Service (MLS). Realtor.com gets nearly 5 million visits a month and is obviously a powerful place for anyone who wants to market & sell their home. This new service is great for people who want their home listed on Realtor.com and not on their local MLS, allowing buyers to contact them directly without going through a real estate agent and saving sellers the cost of an expensive commission fee.

Our news has received plenty of play in the press and in various real estate blogs. One of the interviews we did was with RealEstateRadioUSA, which aired this great interview with Greg Healy (VP of Operations for ForSaleByOwner.com) that helps consumers understand how our new service provides them with more choices to sell their home.

Our Announcement.... continued

Yesterday's announcement has surely gotten the attention of many people out there in various blogs. I wanted to pass along a couple of them, just so you can read the thoughts of some bloggers:

U.S. & World Report "Home Front" blog

NAR Wisdom blog

FBS Blog

Agent Mag Genius blog

New Access to Realtor.com

Today ForSaleByOwner.com became the nation’s first “by owner” real estate website to enable home sellers to advertise their home on Realtor.com without appearing on a local Multiple Listing Service (MLS). This new direct access to Realtor.com follows the May 2008 settlement between the U.S. Department of Justice and the National Association of Realtors.

Greg Healy, Vice President of Operations at ForSaleByOwner.com, stated, "We’re proud to be the first to offer this new consumer-friendly access to Realtor.com. In today’s challenging housing market, sellers need cost-saving ways to sell their homes."

Learn more on how to advertise your home on Realtor.com.

New Mortgage Assistance Help

The federal government and the mortgage industry are expected to announce today a new initiative to help homeowners facing foreclosure. As reported in this U.S.A. Today article, the program wil speed up the process of renegotiating delinquent loans held by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which owns or guarantees about half of all U.S. home loans.

As it appears from this initial report, the new plan will strike at the heart of the problem for many Americans -- falling behind on their mortgage payments to the point that foreclosure notices have begun to arrive in their mailboxes.

Far too often, homeowners who fall behind in their payments simply don't contact their lender to explain their financial hardship. This is probably the absolutely worst thing a delinquent homeowner can do because, to the surprise of many, lenders will work with that homeowner and put them on a payment plan and/or renegotiate their mortgage. This can be a lengthly process and the initiative announced today will hopefully speed up this process so that affected homeowners can not just stay in their home, but also work out a manageable monthly mortgage payment with their lender.

For those out there that are facing hardship, I would recommend that they call Hope Now. This alliance of mortgage lenders provides free consultation services and can help homeowners prevent foreclosure. Hope Now can be contacted at 1-888-995-HOPE.