Sale By Owner - any success stories, tips?

DH and I just put our co-op on the market (about 2 hours ago). We're going to try it on our own for a little bit before having to go the agent route. Has anyone had success doing this? If so, any tips on where / how to get the word out?

Re: Sale By Owner - any success stories, tips?

We placed our co-op on forsalebyowner.com when we first listed and we had some calls but nothing serious. We even tryed open houses/posting flyers everywhere, etc. but we recieved no offers and limited exposure. On the FSBO website we saw that they also have a flat fee mls listing service. So we decided to do that and give any agent who found us a buyer 2%. The serious agents and buyers started calling to see our place. We liked this instead of going with an agent because #1 the 2% commision and #2 we were still able to sell our place ourselves if we found a buyer on our own (with no agent of course) and #3 we were under no obligation to any real estate company. We had a very good experience so far.

good luck!

Re: Sale By Owner - any success stories, tips?

When we were looking, we had some weird experiences with FSBO and after a while we just would not spend the time looking at them anymore. I'm sure there were some good ones but it was even more hit or miss than looking in the market of homes for sale through brokers. Some buyers will not look at FSBO, so you have a litle less of a base of buyers, IMO.

Message edited 4/15/2008 11:59:52 PM.

Re: Sale By Owner - any success stories, tips?

My friend sold her co-op on her own.
She listed it here, on Craigslist and in Newsday.
She also held an Open House almost every Sunday. Figuring that people were driving into the development for the realtors Open Houses and they would stop and look at hers. She was very successful - she sold it in a couple months.
Oh, and she listed it for about $10K less than the going rate in her development. She had offers almost right away.

Re: Sale By Owner - any success stories, tips?

We put Danielle's uncles house on the market ourselves and ran open houses every weekend for a few months. We also had to drive there everytime someone wanted to see the house, and the house is about 30 minutes from where we lived.

We ended up signing up with a realtor and selling the house that way. We couldnt stand dealing with the buyers ourself. It was a nightmare.

Scott

Re: Sale By Owner - any success stories, tips?

We bought our condo FSBO and sold it FSBO. Totally different because we knew our previous owner and we sold it to our friend's sister. We never "listed" it or anything.

Even with that, there was some tense moments and you have to remember that you'll be dealing with issues that previously a realtor would handle. I felt like we couldn't get "tough" either on the sale or the buy because we were dealing directly.

The big PRO was not paying any realtor fees, of course. I would suggest at least putting it on MLS with the FSBO website if you don't find any bites after a few weeks.

Good luck!

Re: Sale By Owner - any success stories, tips?

We sold our house in California by word of mouth... We called everyone we knew and told them we were selling our house and a few hours later one person we called told their friend that we were selling our house and they called us.

Re: Sale By Owner - any success stories, tips?

We bought our house FSBO. It was through a friend of a friend.

The plus was that we got a phenominal price (they listed it lower than what it would've been listed at with a realtor so it would move faster).

Like Leese said, there were tense moments - it was tough to try to negotiate things directly with the sellers after the inspection (it got to the point where we almost weren't going to get the house).

In the end it all worked out though - I think though if we ever sold, we'd list with a realtor.

Re: Sale By Owner - any success stories, tips?

Thanks everyone. This is more DH's gig then mine - I don't think we're going to be able to do it but I promised him we'd give it a try for 2 weeks and reassess then.

The apt is currently on fsbo.com, nytimes.com, craigslist and, of course, LIF We're also going to post fliers for the open house at all the train stations (since that's our main market) from Flushing to Little Neck for Sunday and we'll see how it goes.

Fingers crossed

Re: Sale By Owner - any success stories, tips?

Re: Sale By Owner - any success stories, tips?

I bought my current co-op as a fsbo. I found it on craigslist.

I lvoed having no realtor