Should You Be A FSBO (For Sale By Owner) When Selling Your Home?
If you've ever thought about selling your home as a FSBO, you might want to think again.
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Should you be a FSBO (For Sale By Owner) when selling your home? If you've ever thought about selling your home as a FSBO, you might want to think again. The infographic below from Keeping Current Matters provides some excellent reasons about why you should hire a real estate professional to list and market your home.
In addition to the reasons noted in the KCM infographic, here are a few more reasons to not be a For Sale By Owner:
- Security: when you are selling your own home, you have little to no ability to ensure that whoever is walking through your home is "safe" and someone to be trusted in your home. Just think if someone calls you to see the home at 1:00pm, for example, and you say "oh sorry, we aren't home until 3:00pm," what have you just told a complete stranger whose intentions may not be all that legitimate? Why take the risk to your family's and homes security?
- Availability: are you able to show your home when buyers wish to see it? Buyers want to see homes on their schedules not yours. When you list with a real estate professional, it's much easier to show a home in a time frame that suits the buyer. You might be losing out on any number of potential buyers when you can't show your home except on your schedule.
- Qualifying The Buyer: are you able to qualify a buyer in terms of their ability to buy and/or get a mortgage loan? When real estate agents bring buyers, they have typically been pre-qualified or pre-approved for a purchase. What good is an offer and a contract, if at the end your buyer can't be approved to buy and you have no idea about this for weeks after the contract is signed?
- Disclosures: are you familiar with all of the disclosures your state requires you to make as a seller when you offer your home for sale? Disclosures and contracts are increasingly more complicated in more and more states and they change annually in terms of what you need to disclose. Would you even know where to go to obtain all of the forms you need?
- Setting The Right Price For Your Home: have you thought about how you would price your home? Home value estimates from websites such as Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, Homes.com, etc. are notoriously inaccurate because of how they calculate values. And when you sell your home, it's not just about agreeing on a price with your buyer. It's also about knowing that the home should/can appraise at the agreed upon price.
There is much more to selling a home than putting an ad in the paper and a sign in your yard. Even if you decide to be a For Sale By Owner, you should first speak with a real estate professional and make certain that they aren't a better option for you. What have you got to lose?
Nina Hollander
Broker, Realtor, CRS, GRI, ABR, SRES, CDPE, SFR, SPS, CMRS
Carolinas Realty Partners with RE/MAX Executive Realty
Direct: 704-779-0813
Website: www.GreatHomesInCharlotte.com
Blog: www.BestCharlotteHomesForSale.com
Search for Charlotte Area Homes: www.HomesInCharlotteArea.com2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 Charlotte Magazine 5-Star Customer Satisfaction Award Winner
Oh by the way, I'm never too busy for any of your referrals!
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