FSBO Advantages – 7 Reasons To Sell The House Yourself

If you talk to a real estate agent, the odds are that he would advise against selling your house yourself.

You must be one really neutral individual to think anything otherwise.

And if you ask a homeowner who had taken on the challenge of selling his house FSBO style, the number one reason, and perhaps even the only reason he could think about was the savings on commissions.

While that makes a lot of sense considering how much brokers are making these days just from a single transaction, there are quite a few more that make FSBO the logical choice to make.

If the following situations strike a chord with you, go debunk the agent trying to convince you otherwise next time.

1) Save on commissions

As mentioned previously, the biggest reason for people to sell their homes themselves is for the money they would save on commissions.

Yet a lot of FSBO don’t choose this route due to them being on a shoestring budget.

No.

In fact, most of the time, they can easily afford the commissions.

It’s just that they cannot see the added value an agent brings to justify a fee that can run into the thousands.

They simple appreciate the value of a dollar.

And they simply cannot live with themselves to allow an agent walk away with 5% commissions just by smooth talking every party in the transaction.

2) There is already a buyer

As a seller, the biggest value you might expect an agent to bring to the table is a buyer with a beefy offer to buy.

But if you already have such a buyer on hand, there is little reason to spend that money on an agent just to do administrative work.

Even if you have already decided to go with an agent, you might be surprised at how easy it can be to find prospective buyers… especially in this day and age where marketing technology is available every person willing to look for them.

I have a friend who was in this situation recently. He wanted to use an agent by default. And he explained that the agent would be able to list the house on some of the online website portals. He had already prepared the description and took pictures of the house. What he did not know was that he could easily upload those listings himself! He still went with an agent in the end.

Imagine… a few thousand dollars worth of commissions just for putting up a few listings on your favorite websites.

If you just jump into it, you might actually find that you can find your own buyer without the help of any agent “in the know”.

That’s without mentioning that certain buyers prefer to deal with sellers directly too.

3) Local knowledge of the house and neighborhood

It should be a given that an agent would have better real estate knowledge compared to a typical homeowner.

But sometimes that is not necessarily the case.

Yes, an agent might have the data and statistics to draw up an impressive presentation. But numbers and figures are just quantitative information.

Does that agent have the qualitative intimate knowledge you have about the area and the house?

There’s a lot of things that only residents in a neighborhood would know about the particular area.

If you don’t trust an agent to be able to use these information to add perceived value to the house, it might just make more sense to be the appointed salesperson for your own house.

4) Unable to find a motivated agent

Real estate agents usually love self-improvement. They also regularly attend motivation workshops so as to drive themselves to attain more of their financial goals.

So sometimes it can be quite an irony to meet agents who simply don’t look the part.

They might have the expertise and motivation to serve you. But the manner they present themselves just don’t give you confidence that they can do a good job.

If you don’t know, agents are known to work smart instead of working too much.

And sometimes, home sellers just don’t get the feeling that working smart is good enough. Naturally people want to see someone working hard when they are paying them thousands of dollars.

5) It can be fun

This is no joke.

Among the hustle and bustle of FSBO, homeowners can actually find the whole process a fun and learning experience to go through.

You would be able to pick up skills and knowledge that could be useful in future should you go into real estate investing full-time.

From the experience, you might even realize that real estating is really not something you want to get too involved in in future.

However, do remember that you have to commit a certain amount of your personal time should you take on the task of selling the house yourself.

6) The house will sell itself

It might not be possible to tell if a house will not sell.

But you can bet that if a house is desirable enough to sell itself, you would know.

For example, if your house is a terrace corner unit, it don’t take a genius to tell you that your property is one of the two most desirable units along the stretch of road. The other being the house on the other corner end.

And if the housing market is exploding with reported record sales every week, you don’t need a scientist to inform you that they will be buyers for your house.

7) An experienced hand willing to guide you

The biggest reason why home sellers who considered FSBO decided against it on second thought is that they feel like they are walking into a new unfamiliar territory. And the fear that one mistake could be detrimental to their finances.

This is why if there is a steady hand who is willing to guide you, someone who had recently gone FSBO himself, someone who sounds like he knows what he’s talking about, a seller might feel more assured to go ahead with FSBO.

Make that call to a friend or a loved one who had recently gone FSBO with a successful close.

Ask for help. The whole shared experience could build a stronger relationship between you too.

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