Do It Yourself! For Sale By Owner?

    I am not very mechanically inclined which most of us are not.  When our vehicle breaks down, most of us go to the local mechanic to get rolling again.  We all have specific talents and strengths.  In many situations special training or a certain skills are needed in order to achieve the best results.  However, if you are like me, the cheapest route is always the most attractive.  Most of us consider the amount of effort, time, cost and experience needed to achieve a task before we make the decision on how we meet our goals.  Many people think that it will be easy to buy or sell a their home on their own.  The only differences in selling your home and achieving any other goal are the legal risks and investment risks associated with a real estate transaction.  In interviews with ten friends and relatives, I found that seven out of ten thought that selling their home would be a simple task.  To sum it up, they felt that selling their own home would be as simple as placing a for sale sign in their yard, waiting on the phone to ring, showing the home to a few people and their home should sell within a reasonable amount of time. 

    My attention now turns to those that I have come in contact with over the years that have tried to sell their home using For Sale By Owner signs and waiting on people to call.  There have been many issues mentioned to me and I will try to list as many as possible here.  Keep in mind that I am partial to using a Real Estate Professional due to my profession.  However, all of the items listed below are issues expressed by people that have tried to sell their home on their own.

These are all comments from For Sale By Owners that were not successful in selling their home.

1. No one seemed to be interested in moving to my neighborhood.  I got a few calls but no one scheduled an appointment.
   Lack of advertising will cause a home to sit for extended periods with no traffic simply because no one knows that the home is for sale.
    
2. My phone rang off the hook and most of the people that called just asked for the price and never requested to see my home.
   In this case there are two things that come to mind immediately.  Neighbors are in most cases the first to call for the price of the home.  Most of them will not even ask the square footage because they already have an idea of the homes size.  Also, if the price is as far as they got in the phone call,  the home may have been overpriced.
    
3. I showed my house to several people and they all seemed very interested.  I never heard anything back from any of them to even take a second look at my house.
   Most people are going to be kind to the owner.  Making compliments about the home and pointing out the things they like about the home is common when the home owner is present.  The potential buyer does not feel they can speak openly and honestly when the home owner is with them.  It is what they say when they a pulling out of the driveway that indicated how impressed they were with the home.
    
4. I set my price based on what I heard from friends about the value of our neighborhood.  Most of the people that called asked for the price and were quick to get off of the phone.  I latter found out that I had my home overpriced by about 20-$25,000.  I listed my home with a REALTOR® and it sold within 8 weeks.
   Real Estate Agents have tools at their finger tips and are able to perform home market analysis to make sure potential buyers are not turned off by an over priced home.  Most people are only going to call about a home one time if they find the home to be overpriced.  Even if you reduce the price of the home, they will not know because they have already decided that they need to look elsewhere.   
    
5. I never knew that it would cost so much to run ads in the classifieds.  After three months, I put a great deal of time and money into advertising my home for sale.  I also took time off from work to show the house to a couple of families from out of town. 
   Most Real Estate Agents already have advertising streams running.  Though their advertising is more expensive than a regular classified ad, most have more attractive eye catching ads that are professionally designed to show off your home and strike the interest of potential buyers.  They are also trained on how to show your property and do not have emotions tied to the property.  Real Estate agent are also in contact with other agents who they network with.  When they list a home that fits what another agent is searching for, they tell the other agent and the home get shown.  Also, many agents are working with buyers from out of town.  As soon as they list a home that fits what their buyer is searching for, they contact the buyer and provide them with photos and all of the information.

    With all of this said, you can now see there is more involved in selling a home than simply putting a sign in a yard.  These issues do not even begin to touch all of the issues that a For Sale By Owner may run into. 

    Just like getting your vehicle repaired or getting your taxes done.  You may be able to achieve the goal but what will go wrong along the way?  When selling a home, leave it to a professional and save yourself the heart ache associated with For Sale By Owner.

William Surrency - REALTOR®
Jacksonville Florida Real Estate

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