Although the old expression is "a picture is worth a thousand words", in terms of real estate marketing, a picture can be worth significantly more! The first impression that 99% of potential buyers will get of your home is from the pictures they see online. Although videos, floor plans, 3D walk-throughs and property websites are all crucial elements of your For Sale By Owner marketing plans, it's the still photos that can make the most impact. Excellent photography is the cornerstone to any successful For Sale By Owner marketing campaign. The good news is you're in fantastic hands at FSBO Sherpa! Our founder, Mike Lefebvre, is really good at real estate photography. So good in fact, that he has won the coveted Photographer of the Year award from Photography for Real Estate, an international community of some of the world's best real estate photographers. This is the photography that will be representing YOUR home when you choose to work with FSBO Sherpa.
If you're putting serious consideration into selling your home For Sale By Owner and want to do it professionally with a trusted guide in your corner, please CONTACT US.
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We've said it over and over- Houses sell based on two things, and two things only: Pricing and Marketing. Getting either of those elements wrong can sabotage your For Sale By Owner efforts. At FSBO Sherpa, we handle 100% of the marketing materials for you. The award-winning photography, the stunning HD video, the floor plan, the property website, the drone footage, the 3D modeling, the yard sign... All of it! It's up to YOU to determine your pricing. So how do you price your home realistically, accurately and based on market-driven data to make sure you're in line with what's actually happening in your neighborhood?
You do it just like the pros do! We'll teach you. We are formerly licensed Real Estate Appraisers AND formerly licensed Real Estate Salespeople. We've done literally HUNDREDS of property appraisals and Comparative Market Analyses (CMAs). We'll teach you the difference between an "appraisal", an "assessment" and a "CMA" and show you how the professionals perform each one. With this knowledge in hand, you'll get online, do some thorough research, fill out the forms we give you and before you know it, you'll be zeroing in on a ballpark price range where you home most likely falls. None of this is an exact science, but the closer you can get to a realistic, accurate market value for your home, the higher your chances of selling without a listing agent are! And when you sell without a listing agent, you retain more of your hard-earned equity in your home by paying less in real estate commissions. The folks at ForSaleByOwner.com published a pretty good article that introduces you to the process of doing your own Comparative Market Analysis on your own home. Check it out here: https://www.forsalebyowner.com/blog/comparative-market-analysis If you'd like some professional guidance on pricing your home, or if you're ready to have FSBO Sherpa join your team and dive right into our proprietary pricing process (say that 10 times fast!), please CONTACT US. So you have a family member who may be interested in buying your home directly from you? Yahoo! Finance looks at some of the pro and cons of keeping it in the family: https://www.yahoo.com/now/selling-house-family-member-204821239.html
You've finally decided to do it! You're selling your home by yourself in order to take control of the process and save thousands of dollars in expensive real estate commissions. You've also decided to do it the RIGHT way! You called FSBO Sherpa. They came out to your house and helped you put together a comprehensive, step-by-step plan to get your home sold. They guided you through the Five Steps to success as a FSBO. You've followed all their advice: You prepared your home properly, you priced your home accurately, you've built a stunning marketing campaign with the folks at FSBO Sherpa and you just pressed "Go!" and your listing is now live for all the world to see. But instead of your phone ringing off the hook with potential prospective buyers, you're getting inundated with calls from a bunch of real estate agents. Why?
To understand why this is happening, you have to understand real estate agents. Most real estate agents work strictly on commission. They make money only after a home sells. In most cases, there is no weekly paycheck. In order to get paid they need to be involved in home sale transactions. The main way agents make money is when (A) a buyer that they represent buys a home, or (B) a seller that lists their home with the agent sells their home. Therefore, they are constantly on the hunt for leads. They are always on the lookout for people who are interested in buying or selling homes in hopes of introducing themselves and contracting to help them buy or sell a home. The best lead in the real estate industry is a listing lead. As a For Sale By Owner, you are often viewed as a listing lead. A For Sale By Owner listing is a definitive signal that someone is absolutely interested in selling their home! In fact, many new agents are often given the advice from their office to "prospect FSBOs" and get them to list with you. If you're a new agent and you need new business, calling up people who are actively trying to sell their homes isn't a bad place to start. There are entire industries dedicated to teaching new agents how to approach and turn For Sale By Owners into listings. If you don't believe me, Google the phrase "FSBO scripts" and see what comes up. When you list your home For Sale By Owner, you are in theory raising your hand and saying, "Yes please. I'd like to sell my home". To many real estate agents, that is a hot lead. Some of the things you'll hear from agents are "You know most FSBOs fail, right?" or "Do you know that most FSBOs sell for less than agent listed homes?" (FALSE) or various other discouraging messages telling you that you're doing it wrong. Don't listen to them! Some agents will tell you they have a buyer interested in buying a home like yours and would like to come by and "preview" the home for their buyer. Usually it's just an excuse to get invited over to your house so they can convince you to list with them. When you're waiting for buyers to call you, it can certainly be annoying getting calls from real estate agents either discreetly or overtly trying to convince you to list your home with them. But if you understand that they're simply trying to do their job and pay their bills, the calls can be a little easier to stomach. Our advice is to always be polite. There is no benefit in being rude. Calmly inform them that you are confident in your ability to sell your home on your own. Tell them you are grateful for their offer to help, but for now you're sticking with For Sale By Owner. You can even turn it around and get something you want out of THEM! Something like, "Thank you but we're going to try the FSBO route for now, but I would be very curious to hear your thoughts on our pricing". This will open a conversation up about your current pricing strategy. Do they think you're priced too high? Too low? What recent sales are they basing their thoughts on? You can gain a lot of useful information just by getting the agent to open up over the phone. Just don't be surprised if they push for a face-to-face meeting at your home. That's just Sales 101. So when those inevitable real estate agent call start coming in, remember to be polite, but stick firm in your For Sale By Owner plans. Direct them to your property website if they'd like to "preview" the home for their buyers. Ask them what they think of your pricing. If you are cooperating with buyers agents, explain what type of compensation you are offering and see if they'd like to make an appointment WITH THEIR BUYERS to see the home. Most of all, remember that you are NOT a lead. You are a motivated, educated, do-it-yourself homeowner who know what they're doing, is in full control of the sales process and is well on their way to saving thousands of dollars in expensive real estate commissions. Successful For Sale By Owners tend to share a few important qualities: 1: Organized: There will be a lot of documents flying around. A lot of contacts to keep straight. A lot of dates to be aware of. A hyper-organized FSBO with a strong attention to detail is key! 2: Tech-comfortable: Notice we didn’t say tech-savvy. But you know your way around email and the internet, and working with digital documents is a breeze to you! 3: Realistic/Objective: You can step outside your owner’s bubble and acknowledge what needs to be fixed on your home. You trust data and know your house might not be worth what you want it to be worth. You can keep it real with the best of ‘em! 4: Patient: Sometimes these things don’t happen overnight. You’re in it for the long haul! 5: Motivated: You’ve got a big “WHY” for selling For Sale By Owner. Maybe it’s a larger down payment on your next house. Maybe it’s paying off debt. Maybe it’s helping your family out financially. You have a solid personal reason for putting in all the extra work for the extra reward! That mission will carry you through the process. If you feel like you might have most (or all!) of these qualities and want to explore the option of For Sale By Owner, get in touch with us. We can help! Also, if NONE of these qualities sound like you, you’re honestly going to be better off listing your home with a full-service real estate agent. FSBO is not for everyone. But for the RIGHT person, in the RIGHT home, there are thousands of dollars in retained equity to be saved by not paying expensive commissions! ??? If you feel you fit the bill and want to explore the possibilities of selling your home on your own, and save thousands of dollars in expensive real estate commissions in the process, CONTACT US. As someone who is still playing Wordle everyday (and usually getting a 4... I have yet to get it in 1!), I was amused when I saw a link for a new daily Wordle-type game today called HOUSLE. You get 6 tries to guess the listing price of a house based on a photo. With each wrong guess you'll learn if you're too high or too low and get a new clue in the form of a new photo (maybe a water view, maybe a luxurious pool). If you get within 5% of the actual listing price, you win! In the interest of full disclosure, I skunked out on my first attempt and did NOT get within 5% of the listing price. I came as close as 5.2% of the actual listing price though! That's better than most Zestimates! I think the first photo should come with some sort of geographic designation ("Located in FL" or "Pacific Northwest" or "Menlo Park, CA" or "Tuscany"...) because as we all know, Real Estate is local and prices vary greatly from region to region. Have fun! We'll see if this game has the stickiness that Wordle has continued to provide for this guy.
I read a surprising article today about The US Consumer Product Safety Commission considering a ban on indoor natural gas stoves. As someone who has always preferred cooking on gas as opposed to electric, this seemed like an odd proposal. After reading the article, I now better understand where this is coming from, but not sure I'm ready to turn in my gas stove for an electric one (even considering the $840 rebate now offered by the Inflation Reduction Act). What do you people think? My foodies and chefs out there, am I wrong in thinking that cooking on gas is the preferred method? It seems like in real estate, gas stoves are always promoted as an "upgrade" over electric. Curious to hear people's thoughts on this. Gotta run! Dinner is on (on gas btw...)! In today's video we explain how 5% can really be 20% when selling your home with a real estate agent! If you're interesting in paying less commissions and retaining more of your hard-earned equity by selling your home yourself (with our professional guidance and marketing) CONTACT US. At FSBO Sherpa, we help motivated, DIY homeowners navigate the journey of For Sale By Owner, saving thousands in real estate commissions and retaining more of their hard-earned equity. We'd love to hear about your For Sale By Owner plans for 2023! In another indicator that the crazy "sellers market" of the past two years is over, Redfin reports a record number of Sellers gave concessions to their buyers in the fourth quarter on 2023. What does this mean for For Sale By Owners in January 2023? Well, you can probably not expect to see multiple parties bidding (and over-bidding!) for your home. You can also probably expect to be asked for some sort of concession at closing. A Seller concession is simply something you, as the Seller, agree to compensate the Buyer for. Sometimes it means you perform a repair they ask for. Sometimes it means you take some money off the price to help pay for their closing costs. Your Buyers may ask for a credit for a new roof, or ask you to fix some repairs that come up during the home inspection. They may also ask you to credit them back some money towards closing costs. Although these kinds of asks were virtually unheard of over the last two years, this study is another indicator that things are returning to more of a "normal" level.
So as a FSBO, how do you deal with these shifting dynamics in the real estate market? Firstly, remain calm. Take a breath. Understand that Buyers asking for concessions from their Sellers in actually pretty common, just not so much over the past couple of years. If you have only one single offer, it's probably best to consider what your Buyers are asking. Work with them. Keep in mind the money you are saving by selling For Sale By Owner. When factoring this into the equation, are you still ahead of the game? You also don't have to say yes to everything your Buyers are asking for. The risk is that they walk away from the transaction. In an ideal situation, you have more than one offer and that will shift the power of negotiation back to your corner. Did you do a pre-listing home inspection? Are some of the things your Buyers are asking you for come up at the initial home inspection? If your Buyers were aware of these "issues" before making the offer, their offer should be reflective of these conditions. Most importantly, do not be insulted or offended if a Buyer asks for a concession. This is normal, and although it kind of went away over the last couple of years, the market is indeed shifting and the "new normal" includes a return to Seller concessions. At the end of the day, you will mentally establish a point that you feel is fair. If what your Buyers are asking for exceeds this point, you're not going to feel good about the transaction. There will come a point when you start to feel taken advantage of by your Buyers. That's usually when it's gone too far. Thoroughly study your net sheet, factoring in the different scenarios. As a For Sale By Owner, one who is saving substantial amounts of real estate commissions, are you still walking away with what you feel is fair, even with some Seller concessions? Then go for it! If not, it may not be the right Buyer for you. |
AuthorField Notes from the FSBO Sherpa. Helping guide motivated, DIY homeowners through the For Sale By Owner journey, one real estate transaction at a time. Archives
December 2023
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