Successful For Sale By Owner

By A.J. Smith

Dump your agent. Sell your house, quickly. And, keep thousands of dollars in your pocket by not paying a real estate agent a commission to do something as easy as selling your own property. In this revolutionary age of technology, consumers have become the ultimate do-it-yourselfers. With the detailed information and valuable techniques in this book, and the millions of homebuyers searching for the perfect property to purchase, selling your home is as easy as selling merchandise on EBay, Amazon.com or goods at a garage sale or open market.

As a former Realtor®, I am dedicated to passing the tricks of the real estate trade to the sellers to help increase your earnings. Learn why paying a real estate agent to list your house is throwing tens of thousands of dollars out of the door. Learn how real estate agents rip you off and make hefty commissions doing something you could have done yourself. Learn the true motivation behind the real estate agent's actions. And, learn how you can do what they do and get better results – without stressing yourself out and draining your real estate profits.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Allen & Allyn Books
• Release date: Jun 2, 2011
• ISBN: 9780982525852

A.J. Smith

A.J. Smith is the author of the Long War series, as well as the first two books in the Form & Void trilogy: The Sword Falls and The Glass Breaks. When not writing fiction, he works in secondary education as a youth worker.

Book preview

Successful For Sale By Owner

Dump Your Agent…

Sell Your House…

Make a Huge Profit!

by Allen Smith

Copyright Allen Smith 2006

This publication is the exclusive property of the author, Allen Smith and the publisher, Allen & Allyn Books, at Smashwords and protected by copyright laws and other laws governing intellectual property. You may not modify, transmit, publish, reproduce, distribute, perform, display, copy, disseminate, create derivative works from, or participate in the transfer or sale of, or exploit in any way the contents of this e-book – in whole or in part.

Published by Allen & Allyn Books, a division of Allen & Allyn, LLC.

Copyright © 2001 by Allen Smith

All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

ISBN:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Why Sell Your Own Home

Why FSBOs Fail

The Real Estate Exchange Process: Assessment

The Real Estate Exchange Process: Engagement

A Note Regarding Advertising Your Home for Sale

A Helpful Hint for Staging Your Home

Another Helpful Hint for Listing Your Home

The Real Estate Exchange Process: Contract Acceptance

The Real Estate Exchange Process: Transference

Final Thoughts

Real Estate Commissions by State or Territory

About the Author

Visit the Author at ajsmith365.com

INTRODUCTION

The do-it-yourself spirit is alive and well in all facets of life, and real estate is no exception. There is an abundance of information readily available via the Internet, user-friendly computer software, and cable television programming that can provide any layman with the necessary information and instructions to accomplish most tasks. Each year, I take advantage of the many tax programs to successfully complete my own taxes. I mean, why pay someone $500 dollars when you can do them for just a fraction of the cost. Similarly, individuals are writing their own wills, incorporating businesses, devising business plans, and performing their own general contracting work based upon information that is readily attainable in today’s technologically dependent, and non-global, society.

The practice of buying and selling real estate is not exempt from the do-it-yourself phenomenon that has permeated society. Initially, the do-it-yourself mindset began with buyers within the real estate industry. With technological advancements such as the Internet making information readily accessible to the public, potential buyers did not have to rely on a Real Estate Agent to locate properties for them. Buyers could, simply, search one of the numerous real estate databases on the Internet and schedule an appointment with the listing Broker to assess the property.

Now, homeowners are taking advantage of these resources to market and sell their own home while maximizing their profits by eliminating the use of a Real Estate Brokerage firm. Instead of coughing up thousands of dollars in commissions to a Real Estate Broker, homeowners are maximizing their return on investment (ROI) by utilizing the services of online discount Brokers that charge a fraction of what conventional Brokers charge, or they are simply selling their own house without the services of a listing real estate Brokerage firm.

As a Realtor® and avid do-it-yourselfer, I can truly empathize with the motivation of homeowners who have decided to sell your own home. Consequently, in an effort to help you become better informed about the for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) process and mentality, I have devised this book to help you in developing the perfect mindset for being successful in selling your own home.

As a professional Real Estate Agent and avid do-it-yourselfer, I would be doing you a big disservice if I gave you an overly-optimistic overview of the FSBO process. In fact, looking at the statistics, sellers would be better off relying on the skill and resources of a Real Estate Broker than pursuing the FSBO route. Typically, FSBO properties take longer to sell, and most homeowners, eventually, end up hiring a Real Estate Agent. The process is laborious, it requires a lot of attention and dedication that most people do not have the time for, and it also requires a particular skill that has taken Real Estate Agents years to develop – and they still do not have the science perfected. Moreover, industry data suggests that most FSBOs sell for ten of thousands of dollars less than comparable homes sold by a Real Estate professional.

Also, encouraging homeowners to go the FSBO route would totally contradict my philosophy as prescribed in my book The Real Estate Money Mindset, whose principle would tell you to value your time like you value your money. Selling real estate is a time-consuming process, and there is a lot of money at stake. It is not worth the gamble of exhausting energy on such a Herculean task when you could delegate this responsibility to an industry professional while you channel this energy to adding additional streams of wealth to your financial portfolio.

However, selling your house independently does fit some homeowners’ situations perfectly. And, with the proper mindset and strategic plan, you can become one of the elite few who have successfully sold their home and maximized their return on investment by minimizing (notice, I did not say eliminating) expenses. But, in order to do this, you must understand the skills that one must have, or develop, in order to become a successful FSBO.

WHY SELL YOUR OWN HOME

There are numerous reasons why individuals should not act as a Realtor® and attempt to sell their own home. They might not possess the professional skill sets necessary to strategically price, market, stage, and promote their property. Moreover, dealing with contracts and negotiating the terms of a contractual agreement may not be within some people’s comfort zone. Also, you could maximize your time by delegating this task to a licensed professional and let them handle the stress and anxiety of selling your real estate. But, what if you do possess the knowledge, skills, and abilities to effectively perform these functions? Why risk your potential profits on a real estate agent who may not be as skillful as you are in maximizing your profits on your real estate transaction? Of equal importance, why give a real estate brokerage firm a sizable chunk of the earnings on the sale of your home for average, or substandard, work.

If you hire a real estate brokerage firm to sell your house, you may be throwing away money that you did not have to throw away. In addition to paying the buyer’s agent a commission for his role in bringing forth a buyer for your property, you are going to have to pay your real estate broker a commission for representing you in the transaction. And, unfortunately, listing agents do not put forth the same amount of time and effort in getting your house sold as a buyer’s agent.

Before the emergence of the Internet, Realtors® were instrumental in getting real property sold. They used bible-sized books that contained current houses for sale