Home Selling – FSBO – Why Doing a For Sale by Owner May Be Better Than a Realtor Listing Agreement

Many home sellers wonder if “For Sale By Owner” is a smart thing to do in today’s real estate market, which is a buyer’s market.

Because the number of houses for sale far exceeds the number of people looking for houses to buy, it is a great situation for buyers but a difficult situation for sellers.

Many people think it is difficult to sell homes, and that “for sale by owner” may not be a good way to go. They say that the difficulty of selling homes means that every seller must have a real estate expert who is experienced in home selling.

The problem with this line of thinking is that listing your home for sale with a Realtor does not guarantee a quick sale. It does not guarantee a sale at your asking price. It does not guarantee your home will be fixed up and “staged” to look immaculate and attractive to buyers. It does not guarantee your home will be marketed in a special way to make it stand out from the thousands of other homes on the market.

Two areas where Realtors fall down in helping you sell your home are in advertising and in marketing your home on the internet.

Advertising

A Realtor might say that “advertising your home does not guarantee getting the right buyer.” It may be true however that some of the money you save on Realtor commissions can be spent advertising your home. Most Realtors stick your house in with dozens of other houses. The ads they buy are to advertise the realty company, not to advertise your house.

Internet Marketing

A Realtor might say that your home must be marketed through their website which gets traffic, and it must be on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) to attract potential buyers.

The truth is your home is being lost on the internet, and buyers are not seeing it. This is because your home’s web page is included with hundreds of others from the same or other Realtors. Often it is mentioned that you must be on the website Realtors.com to attract buyers. But there are over 3.7 million properties listed on just that one website.

Also, you can sign up for the MLS even though you don’t have a listing contract with a Realtor. Any Realtor who says you need them to be on MLS is not telling the truth. What works best is to combine an MLS listing (which costs several hundred dollars) with your own customized website that stands alone.

A standalone website that is marketed on the internet separately, will attract a lot of buyer attention. There are dozens of things you can do to market your custom website that you cannot do when your home is only listed on Realtors.com or on realty company websites.