Top 5 Reasons Homeowners Should Avoid Going FSBO  

There are Top 10 Lists aplenty that detail just why any homeowner should think twice before planting one of those For Sale by Owner signs in their front yard. One of them is that when you sell your home all by yourself, the sheer amount of time you’ll have to devote to mastering processes that are already fully handled by full-time real estate professionals is a true waste of time. It’s one wheel that doesn’t need reinventing.

If you are among those considering how you will sell your own property this spring, since your time is important, let’s start saving it now by cutting those top 10 lists down to the Top 5 Reasons to Avoid FSBOs:

1.   You’re involved. It may sound like a good idea to be your own salesperson since you are the most intimately acquainted with the product—your house—but logic rules against it if for no better reason that buyers will be automatically skeptical of your impartiality. Why? Because you aren’t! You also don’t get the benefit of a professionally trained pair of eyes helping prepare your property to appeal to today’s buyers, nor the benefit of honest feedback that buyers won’t share with a FSBO seller.

2.   Legal peril. Throughout this year’s political debate, a frequent refrain from candidates (both local and national) has been the need to cut down on over regulation. Without getting into those weeds, it is certainly the case that federal and state laws require a number of very specific disclosures. If you aren’t a real estate attorney, that lack of familiarity could make a FSBO sale an open door to after-sale litigation. When that happens, there goes any commission dollars saved (and maybe a lot more!).

3.   Expense. That’s right, one of the Top 5 Reasons to Avoid FSBOs is that a FSBO can actually amount to an extravagance. It’s logical, too—because most buyers take one look at your asking price, mentally subtract the commission, and proceed from there (wouldn’t you?). The most recent studies bear out the bottom line: only 8% of successful sales were made via FSBO, and on average, they sold for 15% less than the agent-assisted sales.

4.   Marketing Oomph. We professionals market homes all year long, 24/7. As a result, we know which marketing approaches are currently bringing in results, and which are wasting time and money. We also have open channels with the media companies we deal with regularly—an advantage that FSBO sellers can’t hope to match.

5.   Expert Opinion. The open secret is that those who know the most about how to get the best results from a house sale tend to rely on expert help. A good example came in 2014, when Al Bennati, the CEO of the “BuyOwner” dot-com (“the strongest For Sale by Owner marketplace”) decided to sell his own St. Petersburg home. He listed it with a Realtor^®.

            There! Time saved already—who needed a Top 10 list when you have these? I bet you agree: these “Top 5 Reasons to Avoid FSBOs” are more than sufficient reason to avoid the FSBO route…and to give me a call instead!