Understanding FSBO -  Is This for You?   There are obvious advantages of selling FSBO, such as paying no real estate commission.  But there are disadvantages of selling FSBO too, and some FSBOs do not succeed.  Many FSBOs spend money and time trying to sell their property themselves, and still end up listing with a Realtor.  If you study the FSBO-CD and do not feel confident to proceed with your FSBO, then  you should not attempt it.  But if you are able to comprehend the material and follow the checklists and guidelines, and if you feel you are in a strong real estate market, then you will certainly have a better chance to sell your home yourself, and save money.   Neither you nor a seasoned Realtor will be able to sell a home easily if the price is too high, or if the condition of the home or neighborhood is undesirable.  If the demand for your home is not strong, you may be better off listing your property with a Real Estate broker, and hoping for the best.

Pricing Your FSBO Correctly -

Three Ways to Price your home:

How to determine the selling price for your home:   1 - Your local tax office has public records of recent home sales in your area.  Go there and find out what comparable houses sold for.  Drive by the property and compare its features and condition to your home.  Make adjustments up or down to the price of the reference property to determine what your house should sell for.   2 - Most Realtors would be happy to give you a free Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) even if you let them know you are going to try to sell FSBO.  They know that in most cases you will probably come back to them to list the property if you can't sell it yourself.  Also, some Realtors may be motivated to help because they already have a potential buyer for your property (see One Party Listings below), and they may be able to make a quick sale with a reduced commission that you may consider workable.   3 - You can pay for a professional appraisal (usually between $200-300).  Getting an appraisal is a good idea for a number of reasons.  It makes it easier for the buyer to accept your selling price, and also because the buyer can use the appraisal to get a mortgage based on the purchase price.  The easier you make it for the buyer to purchase, the better chance you will make the sale.

Showing Your Home - Helpful Hints   Showing your home successfully is obviously very important to the success of your FSBO sale.  The FSBO-CD is loaded with ideas, advice, FSBO tips, checklists, and photographs to help you present your home professionally. There are even links to companies that give free FSBO advice for "staging" your home for a better presentation to potential buyers, and of course, there are links to professional staging companies.   Whether your home is listed with a Realtor or is for sale by owner, you will still have the responsibility to prepare your home for the sale. So make sure the home is clean, smells good, and is free of clutter.  Keep the garage door closed when showing the home.  Turn on lights in all the rooms and open all the blinds and shades.  Make sure there are no irritants like barking dogs, blaring TV's, and so on.  Remove personal care items from the bathroom counters.  Soft music can help set a buyers mood.  Take the initiative to make a good presentation for a quicker sale!

Some words about Realtors...

Realtors and your local market     A Realtor knows your market - what is selling and what is not.  They are also networked with other Realtors and Brokers, and can get questions answered for buyers easier than someone not in the Real Estate business.  Also, many Realtors already have buyers in their client base and know what their clients want.  Realtors often pre-qualify buyers, and know what they can afford before they show the property, thus sparing you from the casual Lookey-Lou.  When you list a house with a Realtor that already has a buyer lined up for the type of property you are selling, and at a price that works for you, the property usually moves quickly.  Obviously, Realtors love to get listings of property that they already have buyers for, and that can be good for you too if you net an acceptable amount of money for the sale.  So keep an open mind to Realtors even if you are selling FSBO. The FSBO-CD-ROM will teach you how to take these factors into consideration.       Should you listen to a Realtor that suggests a  "One Party Listing"   A Realtor may approach you for a one-party listing because they already have a buyer that wants property like yours.  You can negotiate the commission the Realtor gets, and you may come up with a deal where everybody wins.  In this scenario, you may sell your home faster than you could have sold it yourself.  The 'Listing Agreement' will have the name of the party the Realtor designates as the "one party" and a commission that you can negotiate.  If you sign, you cannot sell to that person without paying the Real Estate Broker the commission.

How to Navigate through gobs of information (and have fun doing it)   There is so much information available to FSBOs, that we were inspired to launch an easier way for home sellers to wade through it all.  So we created the hyperlinked  FSBO-CD!  We did the research, compiled the information you need, and linked it all together so you can click to anything you want to find - quickly and effortlessly.    It's difficult for someone new to real estate to absorb all the information they need to know, let alone search the Internet for it.  So we found it for you, organized it, and linked it.  We believe that you will truly enjoy browsing the links in the FSBO-CD and that using it will bring you up to speed on FSBO faster than any other method available today.  We feel it's the perfect solution for novice and experienced Internet users alike, as well as people with all different knowledge levels of the Real Estate Industry.  With the FSBO-CD, you simply click to where you need to go for the information you need.