I was going to write a response to Chuck Marunde on my “4 types of buyers when selling FSBO(For Sale By Owner)” Thread. I figure i’ll post it here for rehash sake….
Basically the original post was that there are 4 types of buyers in this market…
First type of buyers is The Relocation. These people are being relocated to Indianapolis, and are in a hurry to find a house.
Second type of buyer is The Just-Sold-Their-Home types.. These people just sold their home(Yes it happens currently!) and need to find a new home in a short amount of time. They do not want to complete a double move or pay enormous rates to stay in their current place.
Third type of buyer is The Invester.. These people want to buy your house for pennies on the dollar. I work with a few investors, and they will write you a low-ball offer and walk away if they don’t get the house. It’s a numbers game to them, and it isn’t meant to be offensive.
Fourth type of buyer is The Lookie-Lou’s or Tire Kickers.. They just want to see whats in the market and if they are interested in your place, they generally have to sell their own home, or aren’t really in a position to buy.
Chuck wrote a comment of “I practiced real estate law for 20 years and now as a Realtor I see FSBO’s making mistakes all the time to their detriment. Honestly, sometimes real estate agents are not any better at marketing. The only thing I can do to help is to educate. Any suggestions?”
My response: Oh I agree, I see both agents and fsbo’s making mistakes… You are correct that education is the key.. With technology becoming such a huge part of the home purchasing process, you have to really think outside the box to get homes sold.. Also, i seem to spend about 10-25 hours worth of work before I even list a house. Not to mention all of the other work I complete once the home listed.
The old school habits of placing a sign, placing it in the mls/blc, and praying it sells don’t really work in this environment…. As a Realtor, you know that in this market you have to sell the home TWICE.. Once to the Realtor, to get him/her to show the property and then you have to sell it to the buyer…
I actually have a list of 19 things I recommend for FSBO’s to do while selling their home. I will prolly post it later, and in the meantime if someone reading this wants a copy, then send me a note.
Buyers are also much quicker to dismiss homes. You have to make sure to grab their attention and keep it… I am finding my buyers are a lot more saavy, and want to look at a lot of homes online.. For the most part my buyers want to do the shopping, and then tell me what they want to see… To that ends, we create a website for our buyers that shows them homes that meet their criteria. They then have the option to mark homes as “Possibilities, interested, and not interested”. A lot of my clients are quick to mark homes “Not interested” because there is so many homes to choose from. The more you catch and keep their attention, the less likely they are to dismiss your home.
I’ll be truthful, you can save a lot of money by selling your home FSBO, you just need to realize there is an awful lot of work in order to get it sold. I’ll have to track my next listing, I want to say I spend between 100-200 hours to sell a home, and I am willing to bet I am WAY off in that number.. I forget the actual stats, but as i remember 30% of FSBO’s go under contract, and only about 20% of those actually close. So like 6-7 homes sell FSBO out of 100?!? Not very good statistics. Most of the time they fail because of financing issues.
Not trying to harp on using a Realtor, just realize that most Realtors won’t work with a buyer unless they are pre-approved. It’s just not worth all the time and effort to find out your buyer can’t buy. When I make an offer, I make sure to include the pre-approval letter.. I want the seller to know we are ready to go! Before you go to far down the offer-counteroffer phase, ask for preapproval paperwork. Keep in mind that although someone may be pre-approved for 1 million dollars, it doesn’t mean they want to spend that much. e.g. The preapproval letter may show higher numbers that what is being offered, but the buyer may not want to go that high.
That is prolly enough rambling for one day… There is a lot of stuff running through my head, and hopefully some of that made it out in this post… DO YOUR HOMEWORK FOLKS!!! It’s not as easy as putting a sign in the yard, placing an ad in the newspaper, and praying your home sells!!
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