who is a credible buyer and who is just browsing? Shoppers who cruise the FSBO section of your local newspaper are usually the type of shoppers who are looking for a deal at rock-bottom prices. A seller’s agent has been trained to ask the right questions about the qualification of the inquiry in order to save time showing to “looky-loos” who aren’t really serious or financially equipped to buy a house. Let’s imagine that you do manage to find your perfect buyer on your own. Now, you’re in water so deep that you might be in over your head. This is where you need help from an experienced professional, who will attend to every detail, mandatory disclosures, inspection reports, title searches, etc. At the very least, you have to engage a real estate attorney to satisfy all legal requirements. Real estate agents take care of it all, and you can relax, knowing that you aren’t going to face any potentially serious legal repercussions. The intent of this chapter is to provide the non-professional with a broad overview of what’s needed to get organized for selling a home — and the difficulties — without the services of a licensed real estate agent. FSBO is not for the faint of heart! Many find it far more productive to partner with a real estate agent because once you start infusing money into preparing your home with the upgrades and repairs, your budget for marketing might be lean. It’s to your utmost advantage to hand the task over to a professional who will foot most of the bill for the marketing.
NEGOTIATING AND THE FSBO SALE
An amateur negotiator — or a person with negotiating experience, but who is transacting business on his/her own behalf — is prone to several negotiating mistakes. FSBO sellers often tend to take negotiating personally and are offended if the prospective buyer makes repair demands or asks
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