Selling house by owner

[mb7299]

Just curious if anyone has done this before as I have a lawyer ready to go and have everything set up on multiple sites. What Im curious about is how would I deal with a realtor since one just contacted me. Would the buyer be responsible to pay that realtor I would I have to pay them?

 

[cb1030]

Just curious if anyone has done this before as I have a lawyer ready to go and have everything set up on multiple sites. What Im curious about is how would I deal with a realtor since one just contacted me. Would the buyer be responsible to pay that realtor I would I have to pay them?

I just sold our house using fsbohomes.com this last fall. It was my first experience doing the whole fsbo thing and I was convinced it wouldn't work, but sure enough we ended up getting a cash offer within three weeks.

To your question, I too was contacted by a lot of realtors representing potential buyers. Typically, the seller will pay the realtor fees, so when I was doing fsbo they would contact me asking about a potential % commission if they were able to bring in a buyer. I think the normal realtor fee in a fsbo scenario is 4%, but most would negotiate down to 3% if pushed.

 

[mywayorcyway]

The short answer is that you will have to pay the buyer's realtor or it will be difficult to sell the house. You won't get a lot of solo buyers who are interested and the ones you do get will probably come in with low offers. It's a percentage game, you may get lucky but probably not.

If you want the house to sell, I suggest you add "buyer's agents welcome!" to your ad. If you don't, agents will politely skip over your house when sending recommendations to their clients.

You'll probably want to sell through something that gets your house on the MLS - it will be seen by more buyers that way.

Good luck!

 

[mywayorcyway]

It's also worth noting if you accept that you're likely going to have to pay the buyer's portion of the commission, consider getting a realtor yourself. I HATE paying for realtors because it is such a racket, but seller's agents can be negotiated down. The 3% + 3% model is losing traction. My last seller's agent agreed to 1.5% and I had two others lined up that were willing to do the same.

 

[vortec22]

I did this a few years ago. We were in a pretty good market area, so when asked by someone if they could bring their agent I said sure, but they were responsible for any fees. Had a couple people bring them, but ended up selling to someone without a real estate agent really soon after listing.

We actually got the biggest response from the free Zillow ad we placed.

 

[CTTB78]

I just sold our house using fsbohomes.com this last fall....

Following up on kchacker's comments, does fsbohomes.com allow you list on MLS?

 

[mb7299]

I did this a few years ago. We were in a pretty good market area, so when asked by someone if they could bring their agent I said sure, but they were responsible for any fees. Had a couple people bring them, but ended up selling to someone without a real estate agent really soon after listing.

We actually got the biggest response from the free Zillow ad we placed.

What all would that entail if said someone could bring their agent but they were responsible for any fees? I would assume that I would still be responsible for my lawyer fees to help close things correct?

 

[cb1030]

Following up on kchacker's comments, does fsbohomes.com allow you list on MLS?

No, they don't. When I worked with them they told me their research has shown it's not worth it, and also I was told separately that a realtor has to be registered as representing the property per rules of the MLS system.

 

[isufbcurt]

I sold mine on contract. Working out well. Other than the City of Des Moines trying to say it was a rental property, but I put them in their place.

 

[cb1030]

Not to shill for FSBOhomes or anything, but I thought it was a really good deal. They charged me a flat fee of $2500 that was automatically taken out of the proceeds of the sale. They sent a professional photographer to take pictures of our house within two days and had our listing up on multiple sites a day or two after that. They handled all of the signage, and were very responsive in getting us new signs anytime we wanted to have an open house last minute. They also handle all of the back and forth during negotiations, as well as closing documents and funds transfers. Honestly, the quality of the pictures alone was worth it as it really showed off our house well. Even the realtor we worked with in finding our new home said they were great.

The only downside was having to coordinate all of the showings and open houses on our own, which is sort of a good problem to have if you want to sell your house. $2500 was a bargain compared to, what, 8% with most realtors? A realtor would've gotten $10k more than what we paid FSBO, and now I get to comfortably make some renovations to our new place.

 

[CTTB78]

My neighbor sold his house himself by listing it on Facebook Marketplace. Does anybody have any experience with them- cost, etc.?

 

[isufbcurt]

My neighbor sold his house himself by listing it on Facebook Marketplace. Does anybody have any experience with them- cost, etc.?

We bought our current house straight from the previous owner and found it on Craigslist

 

[mb7299]

My neighbor sold his house himself by listing it on Facebook Marketplace. Does anybody have any experience with them- cost, etc.?

Thats what Im currently doing, free but you have to renew it every 7 days. Im also using zillow as well but havent gotten much feedback from that so far.

 

[vortec22]

What all would that entail if said someone could bring their agent but they were responsible for any fees? I would assume that I would still be responsible for my lawyer fees to help close things correct?

We did pay our lawyer to help with the abstract, etc. We just hired a lawyer familiar with real estate and it was very smooth. I guess I should have said "they were responsible for any fees charged by the agent."