{"id":193,"date":"2020-04-03T09:57:06","date_gmt":"2020-04-03T13:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zealrealty.com\/?p=193"},"modified":"2020-04-03T10:11:14","modified_gmt":"2020-04-03T14:11:14","slug":"what-i-wish-i-had-known-before-trying-to-sell-my-house-by-myself-fsbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zealrealty.com\/blog\/what-i-wish-i-had-known-before-trying-to-sell-my-house-by-myself-fsbo\/","title":{"rendered":"What I Wish I had Known Before Trying to Sell my House on my own (FSBO)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As a real estate broker and investor I am no stranger to buying and selling real estate, so when it came time to sell my own property I thought; \u201cI can do this by myself and potentially save some money,\u201d except there was one small obstacle I had to overcome.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me begin by saying that just because someone is a licensed sales agent or broker in the state of Florida that doesn\u2019t mean that they have unfettered access to resources across the state.  You see, every area is controlled by regional associations which limits the amount of access to information, including that of the MLS that you can obtain \u2013 hence, herein lies my problem.  My property was located far away from my area of main practice and I was not a member of that small association, and to become a member would not have been cost effective for this one transaction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You might be asking yourself<\/strong>, \u201cwhy does this matter to me? I\u2019m not a Realtor I\u2019m just a homeowner trying to sell my house.\u201d  Allow me to explain.  I posted my for sale by owner <\/em>advertisement to individual sites, such as Zillow, with the anticipation and hope that I would get some response from home buyers as well as Realtors (and yes, I would have paid a commission to them).  Even after price improvements my property sat for more than a month and the only activity that I received was dozens of calls from Realtors, not because they had customers in hand, rather they wanted to snag my property and list it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what did I do?<\/strong>  Having just paid yet another mortgage payment and HOA dues, the savings I thought I\u2019d stash away by not having to pay extra commission were just being eaten away \u2013 so I succumbed to the inevitable notion that I must list my property on the MLS.  Within DAYS of being listed on the MLS at my original FSBO pricing and by offering fair compensation to a buyer’s agent, I received not one, but three GREAT offers and was under contract! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

W<\/strong>hat did I learn?  <\/strong>There are more than 200,000 real estate agents in Florida so why not employ them to find me a buyer?  Listing a home as FSBO on consumer sites is not backwards compatible.  Meaning, if you list it on Zillow, it\u2019s not going to magically come up in the agents MLS, nor will they know if there is any financial incentive to show and sell your property.  I ultimately learned that you need to leverage the power of a great agent and offer some compensation in the MLS to help get your property sold more quickly, otherwise every mortgage and HOA payment you shell out is money wasted in the long run. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can Zeal Realty Help me?  <\/strong>We are sensitive to every customers situation.  Our customers and agents are at the heart of everything we do because we know that at the at the end of every transaction there is a person or family involved.  We will assist you in having the right tools, such as: <\/p>\n\n\n\n