May 7, 2009
Go FSBO and Save, But Give it Time
Everyone knows that selling for sale by owner can save home sellers thousands of dollars in real estate commissions. But what most FSBO sellers don’t realize is that it takes time to sell a home. Especially in today’s market, you have to be willing to give yourself the time necessary to create the opportunity for a sale. Statistics show that most ‘for sale by owner‘ sellers end up turning the marketing of their homes over to a real estate agent after just a few weeks. Most unexperienced sellers just don’t have the confidence to ‘wait it out. They panic when offers don’t come pouring in during the early stages of putting their home on the market. There’s a feeling that they ‘must’ be missing something and that only an agent can give them the exposure and traffic they need to sell.
What FSBO sellers don’t realize is that most of the time, agents themselves take months to sell a home. More and more agents are taking 12 month listings to ensure that they don’t expend their money and efforts on a listing that doesn’t sell. They KNOW that marketing a home is a matter of pricing the home correctly, letting the most people possible know that it’s on the market and then waiting for the ‘right’ buyer to come along. It isn’t rocket science, but experience, confidence and a little *patience* helps.
