Should You NOT Sell Your Home as a FSBO?

Selling your home yourself can save you thousands of dollars in commissions.
However, that doesn’t mean you should necessarily do it for the following
reasons:

Demanding Work

Selling your home yourself is demanding. What if you spend enormous amounts
of time, energy, and concentration in your business or profession? What if you
have to travel a lot? Entertain a lot? Invest long hours? Do a great deal of
study reading just to stay as good at your work tomorrow as you were today?
People whose work life includes those sorts of demands probably don’t need
another project that requires time and attention.

My suggestion is that if your work is exhilarating, challenging, and consumes
large amounts of time, you will probably be better off working with a Realtor.
Take the time when you first put your home on the market to interview an agent
or two. Ask how they market their listings. Ask if they keep their clients
informed about the status of their property’s marketing. Ask for references.
When you find one you feel can and will do a good job for you, sign a listing
agreement. A good agent can give you sound advice and save you a ton of time.

Inexperience

You are probably a good candidate for working with an agent if you have never
bought or sold a home before. The same thing is true if it has been a number of
years since the last time you bought or sold. Ditto if you have not bought or
sold a home in this part of the county before. People who work for settlement
agents, lenders, and the like are probably exceptions to these general ideas
about who shouldn’t go FSBO. You can get experience if you work in the
industry without actually buying or selling your own home frequently.

Older people are usually better off working with an agent. A typical
situation is that they have owned their home for a number of years. The home has
appreciated – often more than the owner realizes. The owner now wants to buy
something all on one level in a community in which the exterior and grounds
maintenance chores are handled by an association. They need to sell one home and
buy another. It’s often also desirable if they can add to their savings from
the sale, and have the operating expenses of the new home be lower than the old.
The idea of making a big change and the multiplicity of accompanying concerns is
daunting. A good agent can make a world of difference.

If either of these situations describe you or your situation, going FSBO is
probably not for you.

Raynor James is with http://www.fsboamerica.org
- FSBO homes for sale by owner. Visit our "sell my home" page at http://www.fsboamerica.org/seller.cfm
to sell your own home yourself with a free 1 month listing.