Selling my home "By Owner"

[aileenee]

I had hired a real estate agent to show my home. I designed and managed the construction of the home from the ground up and it was completed a few months ago. She was supposedly one of the best in our area, and so I trusted her to get it sold quickly despite the real estate market's weariness currently. I didn't feel that much action was being taken, so i was reading about how to sell a home by owner.
I talked to a group of college students at a small local web design company and they created a website for me, took all the pictures and edited them, then I had a site specifically for my home that I could put on flyers and start marketing myself. I placed the web address for my site on a couple real estate sites and , so last week I signed up for "sale by owner.com" and after a week, I already had over 300 hits to my site, and have scheduled 2 open houses that I will "host" myself. This is more traffic to the site than I had with a real estate agent.



I am excited to take this on myself...
Any thoughts??

[Codythebest]

She suppose to be one of the best in the area? Based on what?
Do you shop around for a Realtor like you'll shop around for a car?
If not you should. Everybody should.
The "best" agent in my area doesn't even care to present all offers...

Now, by doing it by yourself is fine. You may even have an agent on your side. But again, you need a really good agent, better than the 'best of the area'...
Check also your listing agreement. If you sell yourself, you might be obligated to pay the commission of your agent...which might be fine with you though..

[Sparks]

I think it would be fair to say you have not done any better. Your house is still for sale isn't it? It's more than doing open houses and having a web site. Good luck with your sale.

[jcboy460]

300 hits or 300 unique visitors? Big difference. I could click on your website 300 times and there are your 300 hits. Are the people who have contacted you qualified? Are they ready to buy now? Or are they just wasting your time? A good agent would weed out the window shoppers. Open houses don't sell houses. They help the listing agent get in contact with more potential buyers.

I agree with the fact that you need to put potential agents through an interview. A lot of "top" agents are stuck in the stone age when it comes to their marketing.

[gjtrafl]

I can certainly appreciate your excitement however you are just beginning the process. Another question you should ask yourself is how much time is this going to take away from the real thing you do to make money?

I would certainly expect this undertaking to take longer than it would have with an agent and in the end will it pay off for you v/s the time lost. Only you will know.

[CalGreg]

Well, the stats show that most real estate people don't sell their own listings. If you guys who have been around for a while can refute that I'd like to see it. But I think I am right.

What sells real estate the best. The MLS of course and good agents showing the MLS listings.

I think you can sell your home FSBO in average times. These are not average times, I'm afraid.

[Greg]

300 hits equals what? I get 400+- unique visitors a day (1500-2000 hits) and it is mostly tire kickers.

Open houses are one of the worst house selling tools out there as you will find out.

I have some home specific sites that have had 1500-2000 unique visitors who never called or asked any questions about the house for sale.

What the fsbo sites don't tell you is that the buyers they generate expect to keep the commission and then get a real deal on top of that. Or that you will be opening the door to strangers knocking, who haven't been pre-qualified or checked for safety, at all hours of the day.

If you want to brag wait until after you sell it and tell us how great it was.

[CalGreg]

Greg,

I see you understand the realities of internet prospecting. I wrote an article about how many agents are initially dead wrong about the power of the internet.

Here is the way I see it. If you get 400 uniques a day then there are probably 399 tire kickers. That's true in most websites for all businesses. The numbers vary but generally it takes LOT of visitors to get a single inquiry/sale.

What I suggest is a popup box that offers something of value like an eBook about how to buy or sell a home in exchange for their email address to get on your mailing list. If you can get just 5% of the tire kickers to sign up then that would be 20 per day on your list. Internet marketers say "the money is in the list" and they are right in my opinion.

You are also right in that the FSBO people tend to minimize the difficulty of selling your own home. However, I think people should try if they feel like it.

With the advent of flat fee agents I would strongly consider that route since the MLS is the power behind the throne. Do the FSBO companies now supply MLS listings?

[VegasRealEstate]

Greg,

I see you understand the realities of internet prospecting. I wrote an article about how many agents are initially dead wrong about the power of the internet.

Here is the way I see it. If you get 400 uniques a day then there are probably 399 tire kickers. That's true in most websites for all businesses. The numbers vary but generally it takes LOT of visitors to get a single inquiry/sale.

What I suggest is a popup box that offers something of value like an eBook about how to buy or sell a home in exchange for their email address to get on your mailing list. If you can get just 5% of the tire kickers to sign up then that would be 20 per day on your list. Internet marketers say "the money is in the list" and they are right in my opinion.

You are also right in that the FSBO people tend to minimize the difficulty of selling your own home. However, I think people should try if they feel like it.

With the advent of flat fee agents I would strongly consider that route since the MLS is the power behind the throne. Do the FSBO companies now supply MLS listings?

Well I can't agree with you there! I get close to 12K uniques a month to my real estate website and I generate on average 450 leads a month, which means I capture almost 4% of my visitors. I don't require my visitors to register to search the MLS, but if they want more information on a property, they have to give me their information and it has been very successful as we are closing 7 deals a month from our website. I am sure there are real estate websites that capture 7 - 10% of their visitors as well! All you need is a website that provides what your visitors want and in real estate thats HOMES!

Majority of all FSBOs end up using a REALTOR to sell their home and in this market I am sure that is even more evident. I have FSBOs calling me to advertise their home on my high ranking Las Vegas Real Estate (http://www.senasellsvegas.com) website just so they can try and generate some traffic.

If you ask me, I would bet this is a representative of Sale By Owner .com that posted this thread! Why would a homeowner join this forum to post 1 comment about how an agent can't sell their home and how happy they found a fsbo site to advertise their home?