FSBO - selling a house yourself

[Colleen27]

Has anyone out there handled a home sale themselves, without using a listing agent? If so, how was the experience? Would you do it again? What advice do you have for someone considering it now?

 

[Darcy03231]

Has anyone out there handled a home sale themselves, without using a listing agent? If so, how was the experience? Would you do it again? What advice do you have for someone considering it now?

My parents did it. However, I work in the legal field and was able to help them with all the paperwork they needed. The biggest thing for them was they needed to be available to show the home when prospective buyers wanted to see it. It was a hot market and they sold it to the first person that looked at it for a full price offer.

I would contact an attorney in your area that specializes in residential real estate to help you through the process. You would need to pay him/her, but it would be less expensive than paying a real estate commission.

One thing to keep in mind it that you really don't know who is coming into your home to view it. I certainly wouldn't show it alone. Realtors showing homes to prospective buyers usually know a bit about them from meeting with them ahead of time. You wouldn't have that layer.

 

[_19disnA]

Have always used a real estate agent when buying/selling a house and would always do so in the future. They typically ask potential buyers to get pre-approved for a certain level of financing to avoid wasting everyone's time looking at homes they can't afford. If you try to do that on your own and random people can just look at your house, you have no idea if it something they could afford. Realtors network with other realtors and post your listing so that other realtors can be aware the home is for sale. Even if you post on any of the various public websites, that is different from being associated with a particular realtor's site.

Realtor can also provide objective recommendations on how to prepare your home for sale and help determine a reasonable asking price. If you overprice your home, it will tend to sit on the market for a long time and other realtors will stop showing it to perspective customers. This avoids being overly optimistic about the selling price since I would imagine many people think their house is worth more then most want to pay.

Agents also coordinate all of the legal paperwork, title search, etc associated with closing on a sale. The typical person would have no idea what all is needed and that would certainly take time/effort to figure out on your own. That is part of what you pay the realtor to do. We would just show up at the designated date/time/location for the closing and everything has already been handled by them.

 

[Colleen27]

My parents did it. However, I work in the legal field and was able to help them with all the paperwork they needed. The biggest thing for them was they needed to be available to show the home when prospective buyers wanted to see it. It was a hot market and they sold it to the first person that looked at it for a full price offer.

I would contact an attorney in your area that specializes in residential real estate to help you through the process. You would need to pay him/her, but it would be less expensive than paying a real estate commission.

One thing to keep in mind it that you really don't know who is coming into your home to view it. I certainly wouldn't show it alone. Realtors showing homes to prospective buyers usually know a bit about them from meeting with them ahead of time. You wouldn't have that layer.

I do already have a call into my attorney about the legal aspects, but he's usually hard to reach on Mondays so I don't expect to hear back to get his thoughts until tomorrow.

I'm not sure how many showings we'd end up having to do. I've already got a fair offer with an openness to talking about the price from a neighbor who knows my mom passed and is looking for a house in the neighborhood for his adult son. He likes that the house isn't updated because he wants to remodel anyway, which works nicely because I'm looking for a strictly as-is sale. The bones of the place are solid and the roof, electrical, etc. are all updated, but the kitchen and baths are still in their tiled 1950s glory. Since his offer was only $15K less than my mental target price, based on recent sales on her block, I think we could settle on a purchase price I could live with. In which case I'd never actually be listing or showing it anyway. He already knows the house pretty well, since he helped my mom out with heavy trash cans and such, came in for tea, neighborly things like that. He was actually the second person to stop by and ask about our plans for selling because of a friend or relative looking to buy in the neighborhood - average time on the market is around a week in her neighborhood, so people are on the lookout for pre-listing leads if they can get them - but the fact that his offer is cash was what made me think maybe we could just handle the sale ourselves.

I know I could probably get a bit more for it if we list it, but I'm thinking that if we avoid agent commissions the difference would be quite minimal as long as the legalities aren't too complicated. But I'm also second-guessing myself because the emotional baggage attached to the whole situation of cleaning out and selling a house that has been in my family for 50-odd years and that was a second home to me as a child has me worrying I'm going to screw myself over financially because of my desire to get it all over and done with.

 

[Lynne G]

Hugs, I can’t give any advice, but maybe would be nice to know the home is going to someone you know. And cash offer would be very helpful for you too. Lawyer can provide all necessary paperwork and filing for you.

 

[kdonnel]

Now is the time to sell a home FSBO.

The market is definitely a sellers market. The majority of homes sold recently in my neighborhood have been by people merely posting on Facebook that they plan to sell their home. Within 1-24 hours the house is under contract for as much as $100,000 above initial list.

In Georgia a licensed attorney is required to close all real estate transactions. It is a simple matter to contact the one you plan to use for closing and pay them just a little more to handle the purchase process as well.

Instead of paying 6% in real estate commission you pay the attorney a flat $500 to $1000. It can be a significant savings, $30,000 - $40,000, on homes sold in my neighborhood.

In the past FSBO was not as successful. Real estate professionals will oftentimes not show FSBO homes since even if offering 3% buyers commission, the owner is cutting out a real estate job in the listing agent. In order to protect their future livelihood FSBO homes are shunned. That is not a problem in most areas at the moment as buyers agents are willing to show anything due to inventory being so low.

 

[HerRoyalHighness]

My parents did it. However, I work in the legal field and was able to help them with all the paperwork they needed. The biggest thing for them was they needed to be available to show the home when prospective buyers wanted to see it. It was a hot market and they sold it to the first person that looked at it for a full price offer.

I would contact an attorney in your area that specializes in residential real estate to help you through the process. You would need to pay him/her, but it would be less expensive than paying a real estate commission.

One thing to keep in mind it that you really don't know who is coming into your home to view it. I certainly wouldn't show it alone. Realtors showing homes to prospective buyers usually know a bit about them from meeting with them ahead of time. You wouldn't have that layer.

Thank you. We're not at that stage but I think way ahead on stuff like this. I have been thoroughly disappointed in our last two agents. The house we're in now...we've had several inquiries as to if it would be for sale in the next few years. I really dont want to pay fees to an agent if we already have it practically sold.

 

[Disneybuckeye]

My daughter bought her condo FSBO from an attorney and he did the paperwork. Our attorney said to read it over and it should be fine as the purchase price was not worth losing his license over. He said he would sue the crap out of him if anything was untoward. All worked out well and both parties saved a few dollars as he admitted she paid $2 grand less than his bottom threshold if he had to eventually get a realtor.

My condolences on your loss and I know it will be hard to clear out and let it to. I would negotiate with the interested party to see if he will come closer to your price to make it easier on you. Hopefully knowing a son of a friend of your mother's is happily living in the house she made a home would make her smile up in heaven.

 

[Gizmo74]

I sold a family home FSBO and would do it again, especially saving 6% Realtor fees. Mine was easy because the buyers approached me so I didn't have to advertise or hold open houses. I downloaded a realtor contract paperwork off the internet and we used that. I had the buyer choose the title/closing company they wanted to use and the title company basically did the rest of the work. It was very easy and painless but of course I had a buyer. Good luck!

 

[easyas123]

My parents have sold two properties w/o a realtor. Both times they contacted the attorney that handled previous settlements for them and his office took care of all the paperwork.

 

[Darcy03231]

Honestly, if you have someone that wants to buy it close to the price you expected to get for it, I wouldn't have any hesitation to do a FSBO with the help of any attorney and skip the realtor. I'd even take a little less just to not have the hassle of having to list it, show it, fix anything, etc.

When DH's mom passed they did list her home with a realtor, but there was a buyer who knew it was coming on the market. He and his sister maybe could have gotten $10k-$15k more, but the young, couple was only approved up to a certain amount. She was from the town and her family (parents, grandparents, aunt & uncle) lived within a square block. They sold it to her for what she was approved for for a quick, uncomplicated sale. His mother would have been thrilled to know that a young family had bought her house and was raising another family in it.

 

[Darcy03231]

Thank you. We're not at that stage but I think way ahead on stuff like this. I have been thoroughly disappointed in our last two agents. The house we're in now...we've had several inquiries as to if it would be for sale in the next few years. I really dont want to pay fees to an agent if we already have it practically sold.

If you already have a buyer and don't have to list it/show it, I wouldn't hesitate to sell it on your own with the help of an attorney who specializes in residential real estate.