In my neighborhood a lot of people sell by owner, and also buy without a real estate agent. It’s a small historical neighborhood and people usually don’t leave once they move here, but often live in a couple houses over time. Anyway, we are trying to buy our neighbor’s house and sell ours. We figured we’d try FSBO and have 3 showings next week but I didn’t fully realize how much easier a realtor would be making our lives right now. Negotiating with your neighbor sucks, especially when they are being difficult. I think we are gonna give it a couple weeks FSBO and then list it. Until then I’d like to put it on the MLS but google is overloading me with options on how to do this. The price varies hugely. Any advice? Besides working with a realtor, lol, because we totally agree on that one!!
We have done FSBO for purchases and sales. It was so much easier on the purchase side for us, but we were fortunate to have a great seller. Our sale however was much more murky. There were times I wish we had had the buffer of a REA, but ultimately doing FSBO netted us about $30k more than we would have otherwise so it was worth it.
When issues arise it’s much easier to have a REA to really keep things as ‘business’. When our buyers’ home wouldn’t sell, it left us in a lurch until we had to cancel our contract. It all worked out but it was a very stressful several months between going under contract, waiting for them to sell, not closing, moving several states away, canceling the contract and then going back under contract. Oh and they have our info so they randomly reach out asking if we knew about XYZ that they just discovered.
We did an in between option. We went through a FSBO company. For a nominal fee, they helped with a lot of behind the scenes stuff. We went with them after we sat on the market with an agent for 7 months. 4 days as FSBO and we had two full price offers. We lowered the price, but still came out way ahead compared to the higher price with the agent fees. I liked directly working with the buyers, but I can see how others would hate it.
I have no advice, but we bought a FSBO and it was such a PITA for our realtor. She basically had to do the job of both the selling and buyers realtor. It was really not fair to her and we're lucky she was patient with us and our idiot sellers. Also, they totally could have sold the house for more money and quicker if they used a REA, but I guess it all worked out in the end.
I’ve bought 1 FSBO & sold 4 FSBO. Plus bought 2 without a realtor but had the sellers realtor did the paperwork..easy money for them & we do little negotiating because we are very direct with what we want & how much we’ll pay. I hate the games or diddling over small stuff. On the sales I either hired a lawyer or we sold to investors who are really easy to sell to. I’ve saved so so much time & lots of hassle. I got soured on realtors when I had one consult us for $1K (friend of my Moms) suggest a sale price for our first house...I though get she was off & so I priced it $100K more & sold within a week for asking myself. The $1K I paid her was for double checking the paperwork primarily. After that I was pretty confident on going with my instincts...lol. I’ve not gotten burned and we’ve bought & sold a lot of real estate. When in doubt I hire an attorney which is way less than 3-6%.
Thank you, all. We are working with an attorney so that’s covered. I was able to start the process of listing our home on the MLS. In a few weeks we’ll reevaluate and hire a real estate agent if needed.
I’m just so frustrated with the sellers we are working with. We’ve agreed on a price but they are being so difficult on the small stuff and really crossing the line on a couple of things. She told me yesterday that us selling without a realtor is not in HER best interest and she’s upset we didn’t list our house back in November. That was when we first started talking about buying their house, but I wasn’t going to list it until we knew we both wanted to go forward.
DH wants to do FSBO and I am against it. I don’t want to take time off work for showings and I also think it’s going to be enough of a challenge getting the place clean and decent when we have two cats and a toddler and I will be mid-pregnancy. I just want the house listed and sold quickly (it should sell quick in our market) and I don’t want to have to worry about anything.