For Sale By Owner

We have all heard wonderful stories of how some homeowners have saved thousands in real estate commissions by doing it themselves. It can happen! But, they come too few and far between those that do not work out as they should have or could have. Yet, some home sellers still may attempt to sell their home on their own. I can respect and appreciate that, and want to help you do that by listing your home online for FREE!

Even though statistics show that 70% – 80% of all those FSBO’s¹, as we in the industry refer to them, will ultimately either be listed by a real estate brokerage, or the Buyer of that property will be represented by a REALTOR®.

I can list and elaborate on at least a dozen reasons why you shouldn’t. But to name just a few:

1. Price - Statistics show FSBO homes sell for 5%-10% Less than homes listed in the MLS. My typical commission is 5% – 6%, is it worth the loss in net profit or your time?
2. Time – The average time on the market in the North Dallas suburbs is anywhere from  is 4 – 6 months at this time, and that is with thousands of Realtors with Buyers, showing homes daily. How long will it take with your limited exposure?
3. Cost – Marketing is expensive, it is our business expenditures in the real estate business, and that is with the experience we have gained on what works and what doesn’t? How long will it take you to find out?
4. Safety – This is absolute biggest reason to me. Do you have children? Valuables in the home? Does your wife or girlfriend, or perhaps elderly parents stay home alone during the day? As soon as you stick that sign in the yard, you are inviting ANYONE to come up to your doorstep, and eventually into your home. Do you really need absolute strangers trampling through your house?

If you have ever tried to sell your home yourself in the DFW metroplex or anywhere for that matter, you know the minute you put the “For Sale by Owner” sign in the yard, the phone will start to ringing off the hook, or you will get knocks on the door. Unfortunately, most of those calls are not from prospective buyers, but rather from every real estate agent in town who will stalk you for your listing.

This is where my business model comes in…

My approach is less aggressive and more that of a non-representative consultant; someone to bounce ideas off of if you will. I will also post your home online! Now I am not saying I do not want, and will not try to represent you on your listing. But, if you have decided to test the market, and give it a go on your own, as I said I will respect that. I will with no obligation offer suggestions and opinions on anything from open houses, staging or marketing; you only need to ask.

This whole business is about building relationships, and contacts and it is my hope in doing all this that when you have friends or family that don’t want to sell a house on their own or are buying a home in Denton County you will let them know about me. I also want to be the one you turn to when you have tried on your own, but have now decided to list your property and…

• Expose it to the MLS²
• Invite over 84,000 REALTORS® to sell it
• Use my personal marketing plan
• Full Internet Exposure
• Apply my Negotiation Skills
• Use of my partner vendors, and lenders
• Buyer Rebates if moving to another DFW neighborhood

I always suggest to FSBO’s to invite real estate agents to bring their buyer clients to the unlisted home.

1. Let the agent know you will cooperate with them on a real estate commission if they bring a bon-a-fide buyer who can close the deal.
2. The price being advertised is with no real estate fee’s included.

The agent simply just needs to roll-in his fee’s into the offer price and the for sale by owner will cooperate by paying that fee at closing of escrow. Another solution is for the buyer to pay his own real estate fee’s at closing if he wants to be represented through-out the process. This is typically not done because the fee’s are not rolled into the mortgage as easily. Either way the buyer is paying the real estate commission obviously.

Everything is negotiable!

Now in the scenario I just laid out, the real estate agent is then representing the BUYER not you the SELLER, so the best interest of their client is first and foremost. But, as I said everything is negotiable so if all parties involved agree the REALTOR® can enter into Transaction or Intermediary relationship³ with both parties. Naturally with this relationship the fee is higher than that if the agent was only representing the Buyer, but I will typically do one of these transactions for 4%-4.5% total, since work will be done for both sides, and since I have no marketing cost involved it does not justify my typical rate of 5%-7% real estate commission. This is really the best choice to make sure a transaction gets closed. Keep in mind, since the price has not been entered into the MLS, and no terms have been established, everything can be negotiated at the time of entering into a executed contract. Now you might be thinking, “ahhhh we can just squeeze the agent out of the deal.” Any good agent who brings a Buyer to a FSBO should have already entered into a Buyers Broker Agreement that in essence says

“if you like this house that is not listed, and you buy it, someone has got to pay me, and as of now it is you”

So, if some dumb real estate agent let’s this happen to him or herself, well that’s on them. But remember if you invited that agent to bring buyers to your for sale by owner listing, you did agree to cooperate, and at the very least there was most likely a gentleman’s agreement with a handshake.

“For Sale By Owner” Services

So in good faith and confidence that if and when you decide to list your home with a real estate agent I am extending this offer to anyone wanting to sell their property on their own. Just by contacting me, and providing details about your house or property, pictures and measurements. I will Include your listing with my Featured Listings on all of my websites and feed the listing to:

• Google Base – World’s largest search engine 56.5% of searches on real estate and related terms were conducted on Google and their search partners.
• Yahoo Real Estate – Averages approximately 4.6 million unique visitors per month and reached a record high level of 5.3 million unique visitors in February 2008. Is consistently the 2nd largest real estate search portal.
• MSN Real Estate -  The 3rd Largest real estate search site in coordination with Windows Live, Live Search, and Microsoft partners.
• Activerain – A free online community for  real estate agents with over 122,000 real estate professionals including mortgage brokers, lenders, and vendors.
• Facebook, and MySpace – The 2 largest social networking sites in the United States, where others communicate, and bring your property to other interested prospects attention.
• Will walk you through posting your own home on Trulia, and Zillow for even more online exposure to your listing.

Now you may be saying to yourself “This sounds like your listing my house.” But this is far from the full service of my Exclusive Listing Agreement,  this is merely a marketing campaign. What is even better is I will include your contact information on these listings when permitted. So, if someone contacts you and buys your home from leads that this provided you owe me nothing! Just simply say “Thank you, and please remove my listing.” However, I do ask that is they are not interested in your home that you would pass along their contact information to me so I might be able to work with them on their home search. BUT, if someone contacts my team about your listing, and we show your home, and they purchase it, you will cooperate and pay the 2.5% – 3% that we will have agreed on before the marketing begins. This is of course a short description of the details and specifics, so please contact me for more details. But as I have said before, Everything is Negotiable, and you have nothing to lose!

1. Pronounced: Fiz-bo [↩]
2. NTREIS Multiple Listing Service [↩]
3. http://www.texasrealtoronline.com/issues/0600/legal/legal0600.html [↩]

All Rights Reserved© Jay Myers (972) 510-7800 Licensed Real Estate Agent in Texas

Keller Williams Realty 2611 Cross Timbers Rd Suite #100 Flower Mound, TX 75028

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