What Does For Sale By Owner Really Mean?
Usually, when you go to buy a home, you are working with a professional, licensed real estate broker who knows the industry inside and out, where go to looking for homes for sale, what prices for homes are fair, and can advise you on the home-purchase process from start to finish. For this service the agent is paid a small percentage of the total sale of the home.
Likewise, when you go to sell a home, usually you are working with a professional, licensed real estate broker who knows the home sale industry, the current market, and can help you get the tools you need to prepare your home for sale and do whatever it takes to attract potential buyers to come look at and seriously consider your home. For this service the agent is paid a small percentage of the total sale of the home.
There is a third option, however, and that is searching for homes to buy without a real estate agent, and for buyers, the option is to sell your home by yourself in an attempt to save the money on commissions paid to an agent.
What Does For Sale By Owner Entail?
If you are looking to sell your home by yourself and without a real estate agent, the first thing you need to do is to prepare your home to attract buyers and impress an appraiser who will give you a realistic idea of what your home is worth in the current market. This process takes time and money and hopefully connections to a good appraiser, as well as know-how for making repairs, landscaping, and attractive decorating for your home, or paying someone to do these things for you.
Once your home is prepared for sale, the next step without an agent is finding buyers. You can put a sign in your yard, but that isn't likely to get many bites. Likewise, you can put an ad in the local paper(s) for selling your home. One thing you will not be able to do without an agent, is place your home with MLS - a service that real estate agents use to place their homes for sale and shop for homes for buyer clients they have who are interested. This is where the majority of home sales come from. In a down economy which makes a buyer's market rather than one that favors the seller of a home, even those who have the expert help, advice and resources of a real estate agent are having difficulty moving their home quickly. Choosing to try to move your home as For Sale By Owner, or (FSBO) 'Fiz-bo' will likely require an extreme amount of patience, and no need to sell your home quickly.
