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FSBO - Selling Your Home FSBO (for sale by owner) ? Is It Worth It?


FSBO, what is it? FSBO means For Sale by Owner, and it's a term that's generally referred to when you're selling your home without soliciting help from a Realtor.

FSBO, what's the benefit to you? You'll save thousands of dollars in commissions if you sell your home this way. However there are some headaches you'll have to deal with and here are just a few:

    1) Unqualified borrowers ? you may negotiate a deal in good faith just to find out the potential home buyer couldn't obtain the financing for purchasing your home.
    2) Sunday shoppers ? just looking on a nice day.
    3) Insulting Offers ? someone offers you a ridiculous price trying to buy your home way under market value thinking you don't know your homes value.
    4) No shows and late night phone calls ? nothing more frustrating.
Do you have the time and patience for this? Is it worth saving thousands of dollars? These are a couple of questions you must ask yourself before undertaking such a task. If you don't have the time and patience and have plenty of equity in your home then it is worth it to you to hire a realtor to list your home. An experienced realtor will have the resources to sell your home with little or no hassle to you, but as in anything else interview your prospective realtor and make sure your comfortable with him / her and the company they represent.

If you do have the time and patience for this then here are some suggestions for you to try:

    1) Make sure you advertise your home in the local newspaper's classified section (you must get exposure for your home; having a sign out in the front yard is not always going to get you enough exposure).
    2) Set up some Sunday open houses to advertise too. You need to get people inside your home. Make sure it's cleaned and pressed. The biggest turn off to a buyer is to look at a home that's dirty; this just makes sense if given the choice would you buy a filthy dirty car or one that has been cleaned up?
    3) Contact a mortgage loan officer. He / She might have someone they've pre-qualified to buy a house, but they haven't found one yet. Plus, they might have an FSBO program in place to help you sell your home.
Try these suggestions you might sell your home in a reasonable time table and save yourself thousands of dollars. If not, you can always go ahead and list your home with a realtor and get it sold. Whatever you choose to do; good luck in selling your home.

Author Marc Sisk; I specialize in working with FSBO's and can list your home on a nationally advertised website which will not only capture potential home buyers from all over your area but will enable you to solicit out-of-state buyers as well. I'll provide a professionally designed sign with a phone number that goes to a 7 day a week call center so your potential buyer(s) can have their questions answered without calling you, info tube and custom color flyers that can be printed from any computer.

Marc has been originating all types of mortgage loans since 1998. His web site's title is Mortgage Calculator | Refinancing Home Loan | Mortgage Lender. By being an affiliate branch of a large mortgage lender Marc is able to originate mortgage loans in most of the United States, visit his web page to see if we're licensed in your state.

This article may be reprinted or reused please email me a link to the posted page of this article.

© Athifea Distribution LLC - 2013