Austin Event – For Sale By Owner Group

September 29, 2009

If you live in Austin and have ever thought about selling your home For Sale By Owner (FSBO), here is your chance to learn how to do it.  Yigdigs will be hosting a free “unconference” at the Iron Cactus North on October 14th at 6pm.  Event details below and at www.forsalebyownergroup.com. Please RSVP today.  Hope [...]

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How to buy a home – 5 great tips for FSBO home buyers

September 17, 2009

Buying a home can be an intimidating process, especially if you are considering buying a home without using a buyer’s agent.  Luckily there are a few easy steps to make the whole process less daunting.  These top five home buying tips will make you more confident and ready to buy either your first, or next, [...]

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For Sale by Owner Blueprint

September 6, 2009

A lot of people I have spoken to would love to sell their home themselves, but they are apprehensive about it because they don’t know exactly how to do it.  I agree it can be intimidating – it is your home after all and worth a lot of money.  No one wants to mess it [...]

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Signs the Real Estate Market is Improving

August 4, 2009

Visiting Canada this week I had the opportunity to speak with a family currently selling their home and buying a new one.  The family has bought and sold a house three times in the last five years, so they are a good data point on the recent housing market around Toronto. It seems that the [...]

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The brilliance of Paul Graham and Y Combinator

July 12, 2009

When Paul Graham started Y Combinator in 2005, I wonder if his business plan looked like what Y Combinator has become today.  Since he says he doesn’t care about business plans for companies that are part of Y Combinator, perhaps he didn’t have one.  Nevertheless Y Combinator is a very successful catalyst for companies like [...]

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Are you business friendly?

June 22, 2009

People often refer to business friendly states, or business friendly banks, but I think it’s most important to be a business friendly business.  Business friendly essentially means customer friendly, but to businesses rather than individuals. Many if not most businesses have companies as customers that use the others products or services as an enabler for [...]

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Unethical Bonus to Selling Agent – Part 2

June 3, 2009

Here’s another bad deal for home buyers.  A couple weeks ago I wrote a post about what I view as an unethical practice, and what should be illegal – a Bonus to Selling Agent (BTSA).  The issue arises because the buyer’s agent will get paid above and beyond the typical 3% commission, presumably to entice [...]

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For Sale by Owner success

June 1, 2009

Real estate agents usually get up in arms about For Sale by Owner (FSBO) home sellers.  Almost everything related to FSBOs is debatable.  What percentage of home sellers end up using an agent?  Is the percentage of FSBO sales going up or down?  Who gets a higher sales price for a home – an agent [...]

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Should a Bonus to Selling Agent be illegal? – cheesey sales people and real estate’s bad reputation

May 19, 2009

BTSA stands for Bonus to Selling Agent.   A BTSA is at best unethical and at worst illegal, and violates the fiduciary responsibility that a real estate agent has to their client.  If real estate is to succeed as an industry, in my opinion the practice needs to be banned.  The email below should be plastered [...]

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FSBO in trying times

May 11, 2009

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 [...]

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