Selling your home is complicated enough without trying to do it yourself. Plus, there are some serous pitfalls associated with marketing your home as
“For Sale By Owner. “
Liability – the liability for sales documents falls on you. This includes any unintentional errors in the contract, omissions on the disclosure forms, or problems with the inspections. If all the required paperwork is not done correctly, then the buyer may try to capitalize on your mistakes.
Everyone makes mistakes. A seller (or buyer) who doesn’t have the representation of a licensed agent pays for those mistakes. Attorneys can close a real estate transaction, but they don’t carry errors and omissions (E&O) insurance.
So if homeowner Sandy lists “hardwood floors” as a feature and the buyer discovers it’s just a wood veneer, chances are Sandy is going to pay for that mistake.
An agent would have either caught the mistake or covered it with E&O insurance. Let’s face it: this is a litigious society, so what homeowner wants to be a target for lawsuits?
Time – everything from staging, pricing, marketing, and beyond is entirely your responsibility. You must handle every call, text, email, and showing to ensure your house sells in a timely matter.
Depending on the state, there are a variety of legal forms that are needed, including but not limited to a sales contract, property disclosures, occupancy agreements and lead paint records.
Sure, ready-made contracts can be downloaded easily enough. But does an untrained seller understand what all that means? Would the seller know how to customize that one-size-fits-all contract?
Exposure – real estate professionals have many resources to market your home quickly. Agent j.Black is with the top brokerage in Beverly Hills, Malibu & Miami. With her connections, Westside Estate Agency sphere, together the exposure is set for selling any property at top dollar.
Homeowners selling by themselves simply don’t have the time to devote to the process, don’t know the market value, don’t understand market reports and don’t properly market the property.
If the FSBO seller sold to someone he or she knew, the median dropped to $151,900 (because cousin Sue is doing them a favor and expects a deal).
Cost – it is not cheap to make sure your home is only seen by a qualified buyers. Unless you have time to actively market your home, you may have to schedule personal time off from your work for showings walk-throughs an open house demands.
The mindset for most FSBOs is saving money. Chances are, these sellers are being nickeled and dime into a pretty big chunk of change.
The biggest cost to a homeowner is their time. You might hear the argument that it doesn’t take an agent that much time to sell a house. And honestly, given the technology at our disposal, that’s true — to an extent.
But it will take a homeowner a whole lot longer. They don’t have the expertise or the access to the resources agents have. What is their own time worth to them? How much time will the seller spend researching the market and contracts? Is the seller going to leave work to unlock the house each time there’s a showing?
They’re paying for a lot of extras: signage, flyers, photography, MLS listing, attorney (required in multiple states for FSBOs), home warranty (optional but hard to sell without one), home inspection, a wood destroying pest inspection, credit report for buyers (if applicable), contracts and the list goes on.
At Westside Estate Agency, we believe that every home has its own unique DNA, that each home is extraordinary to itself, unlike any other. We also recognize that every buyer and seller are equally unparalleled and highly individual. It is with this mindset that we approach working with our clients. Agent j.Black does not simply just list the homes she represents. Agent j.Black knows each home intimately, from its one-of-a-kind features to its finite elements. Combine this with an inherent understanding and knowledge of her clients, their goals, needs, taste, and interests and then harmonize both to ensure a precise, well-curated sampling of prospective homes for a perfect match — and avoid anything we don’t think will fit precisely.
Agent j.Black 