The For Sale by Owner question keeps rearing its head in the media. Mostly recently the redoubtable New York Times featured the subject as its lead story in its Sunday Real Estate Section, with the headline: "Agent or No Agent?" The subhead read: "The conventional way of selling a home, through a broker, is up against ever more Internet tools. Younger people in particular appear to be warming to the idea of cutting out the middleman."
As a self-confessed For Sale by Owner (FSBO) seller and buyer in my early days, before I knew the potential perils of things going wrong, I felt that I could look at this article from both sides of the fence for readers of my weekly real estate column in my local paper.
My biggest issue with the article was its naivete in positioning the question -- and answer -- as an equally balanced, "either/or" kind of decision to be made by the seller, depending on how much that seller knew about the Internet. For the inexperienced person reading the article, it might seem that it's as easy as buying a vacuum cleaner with the simple click of a mouse.
There were no statistics comparing the selling prices of houses offered as FSBOs and those sold by brokers, no reporting on the numbers of FSBOs that convert to representation by a broker, and there was no real description of the rigors sellers must go through to sell on their own.
It was just a poorly presented picture. To get the full story as I see it, follow the link below:
http://www.primaverarealestate.com/the-home-guru/ny-times-asks-agent-or-no-agent
Comments (0)Subscribe to CommentsComment