For Sale By Owner (FSBO)

BENEFITS OF USING A REALTOR

Realtors May Not Show a "For Sale By Owner" Home

In an FSBO deal, the buyer’s agent knows there won’t be a professional colleague on the other end of the transaction. Even if a client insists on seeing your home, the agent might discourage making an offer, citing the hassles and risks of trying to close the deal without a professional representing the seller—and without a guaranteed commission. “There are only two reasons why I show an FSBO: There is no other inventory available or the price is ridiculously low”. Experienced Realtors sometimes have been burned by an FSBO transaction in which the seller did not pay the full agreed commission—or any commission at all—to the agent who brought the buyer.

Still, there are buyers’ who will show your property under the right conditions. That may mean signing an agreement with the agent that states the percentage fee that you, as the seller, will pay the agent. If you want to be taken seriously by sellers’ Realtors, get the best price, and make sure you don’t miss any key steps in the process—or risk a lawsuit—it’s better to use a real estate agent than to try to sell your home yourself.

Realtors Avoid Emotional Sales

Selling your home is typically an emotional process. Having an agent keeps you one step removed and makes you less likely to make stupid mistakes, such as overpricing your home, refusing to counter a low offer because you’re offended, or giving in too easily when you have a deadline for selling. “A realtor can follow up without communicating a sense of eagerness or desperation; following up is their job. When a seller repeatedly checks, it signals, rightly or wrongly, the willingness to accept a lower price.

If you forgo an agent, you’ll also have to deal directly with rejection every time a buyer’s agent tells you that the client isn’t interested. “As the homeowner, it can be quite upsetting hearing some of the comments that are made by buyers and, oftentimes, their Realtors,” An agent can take the sting out of the rejection and put a positive spin on any negative feedback. It is more difficult for the seller to keep their emotions out of the sale, because there’s no third party to bounce anything off of. For instance, if the property sits on the market, the homeowner doesn’t know the reason the home is not selling. The emotions will always be there for the seller but constructive criticism can be easier to digest for the seller when it comes from a broker who is on their side, trying to get the best for them.

Real Estate Is a Full-Time Job

Can you rush home from work every time someone wants to see your home? Can you excuse yourself from a meeting every time your phone rings with a potential buyer? At the end of a long workday, do you have the energy to take advantage of every possible opportunity to market your home? Are you an expert in marketing homes? Do you have any experience doing so? Your answer to all of these questions is probably “no.” An agent’s answer to all of these questions is “yes.” In addition, by going through an agent, you’ll get a peace of mind showing your home even when you aren’t available.

Realtors Access Large Networks

Yes, you can list your home yourself on Zillow, Redfin, Craigslist, and even the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) that Realtors use. But will that be enough? Even if you have a large personal or professional network, those people will likely have little interest in spreading the word that your house is for sale. You don’t have relationships with clients, other Realtors, or a real estate agency to bring the largest pool of potential buyers to your home. A smaller pool of potential buyers means less demand for your property, which can translate into waiting longer to sell your home and possibly not getting as much money as your house is worth.

Weeding Out Unqualified Buyers

A Realtor can find out whether someone who wants to view your house is really a qualified buyer or just a dreamer or curious neighbor. It’s a lot of work and a major interruption every time you have to put your life on hold, make your house look perfect, and show your home. You want to limit those hassles to the showings most likely to result in a sale. Realtors are trained to ask qualifying questions to determine the seriousness, qualification, and motivation of a prospect. We are also trained to ask closing questions about how long buyers have been looking and so on. It’s also awkward for buyers to have the seller present, rather than the Seller’s Realtor, when they’re touring the home. When showing a house, the owner should never be present. Nothing makes a potential buyer more uncomfortable than the current owner being in the house. When a seller is present, most buyers will rush through a house and won’t notice or remember much about what they saw.

Price Negotiations Take Skill

Even if you have sales experience, you don’t have specialized experience negotiating a home sale. The buyer’s agent does, so they are more likely to succeed in the negotiation, meaning less money in your pocket. An experienced selling agent may have negotiated hundreds of home purchases. We know all the games, the warning signs of a nervous or disingenuous buyer. Not only are you inexperienced; you’re also likely to be emotional about the process, and—without your own agent to point out when you’re being irrational—you’re more likely to make poor decisions. Oftentimes, an offended seller making an emotionally charged, inappropriate response to a buyer, a Realtor will say something more professional, such as, “The seller has declined your initial request but has made the following counteroffer.”

You Ignore Your Home’s Flaws

Realtors are experts in what makes homes sell. They can walk through your home with you and point out changes you need to make to attract buyers and get the best offers. They can see flaws you’re oblivious to because you see them every day—or because you simply don’t view them as flaws. They can also help you determine which feedback from potential buyers you should act on after you put your home on the market to improve its chances of selling.

Exposure to Legal Risks

A lot of legal paperwork is involved in a home sale, and it needs to be completed correctly by an expert. One of the most important items is the seller’s disclosures. “A seller of real estate has an affirmative duty to disclose any fact that materially affects the value or desirability of the property,”. A seller can be held liable for fraud, negligence, or breach of contract if they do not disclose properly. If you fail to disclose a hazard, nuisance, or defect—and the buyer comes back to you after having moved in and found a problem—the buyer could sue you. Realtors can make mistakes, too, but they have professional errors and omissions insurance to protect themselves and give the buyer recourse, so the Buyer may not need to pursue the Seller for damages.

Realtors® are trained to spot any scamming texts, emails and phone calls acting as a Potential Buyer. We act as a buffer for you and your family’s safety so you will not have to reply to another scammer’s text and phone call just to sell your house.

Exposure to risks

With all the ongoing online and telephone scams that have been surfacing recently, it is always helpful to have that extra layer that prevents exposing you to the public. A Realtor will help you to protect your most intimate and private asset, YOU and your family. With a Realtor showing your home to the public during an open house or a scheduled private showing, you are not exposed to possibly a scam or a fake buyer just to scout the premises for their next hit.

Bottom Line

It’s a tall task to learn how to sell your house without a realtor—and selling your home will likely be one of the biggest transactions of your life. You can try to do it alone to save money, but hiring a Realtor has many advantages. Realtors can get broader exposure for your property, help you negotiate a better deal, dedicate more time to your sale, and prevent your emotions from sabotaging it. A Realtor brings expertise, which few FSBO sellers have, to a complex transaction with many potential financial and legal pitfalls and also adds to your layer of privacy so you aren't fully exposed to the public.

Remember the following:

You might be tempted to avoid a real estate agent, save the commission, and just sell your home yourself—also known as “for sale by owner” (FSBO).
While tempting, in most cases the risks of going it alone likely outweigh the benefits.
Risks include having few potential buyers (let alone qualified buyers), making emotional decisions, not knowing how to negotiate properly, and not having enough free time to dedicate to finding a buyer.
One of the biggest risks of FSBO is not having the experience or expertise to navigate all of the legal and regulatory requirements that come with selling a home.

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