A Washington Post article Friday highlights several homeowners that are selling their home For Sale by Owner right now. To me, the interesting highlights are the varied reasons the home sellers give for going FSBO:
- Marginal equity. Some people just don’t have enough equity in their homes in this economy to support paying a real estate agent, so they need to sell it themselves.
- Been there, done that. Some homeowners have already successfully sold their home FSBO in the past, so don’t see a reason not to now.
- No downside. Why not try? Even if they don’t succeed, there is little perceived downside risk as they can always hire a real estate agent if they don’t get many offers or decide they aren’t the Do-it-Yourself type.
The Washington Post article coincidentally comes out the same time as one from the Seattle Times about how many more million dollar homes are being sold FSBO. This new trend for high-end homes is being driven by folks not necessarily needing to sell but wanting to slowly check out their options while avoiding paying a large commission check:
“The Kellers haven’t made a firm decision to sell, so the FSBO route allows them to evaluate offers without committing to pay roughly $90,000 to a real-estate agent.”
The anecdotal evidence in these articles supports the general trend that the National Association of Realtors has been reporting – FSBO sales increasing over the last few years up to 16% of home sales for 2008. I think the reasons for this are a combination of factors similar to those highlighted in the articles – web-savvy consumers, squeezed equity, and a willingness to try as the trend becomes more pervasive. (Everyone’s doing it!)
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