5 Ways A FSBO Underestimate The Complexities Of Selling A Home

Real estate transactions are full of complicated idiosyncrasies that can make them tough to navigate without the proper knowledge or training. As an FSBO seller, without the benefit of much, if any real estate sales experience, you run the risk of unnecessary liability and financial loss.

Still, there are many sellers who want to sell their home without the use of a realtor. Especially since, selling a home as a FSBO can potentially save a seller a chunk of change since they won’t have to pay commission to a realtor.

Unfortunately, the complexities of selling a home as FSBO are not fully understood until a seller tries to do it. It’s usually not until it’s too late that sellers realize that they are in over their head.

Before you embark upon selling your home as a FSBO, we ask you to stop for just a moment consider what the process involves. In this post, we’ll cover 5 ways FSBOS often underestimate the complexities of selling a home along.

Pricing It Right

Pricing a home is a bit of an art. It’s finding the price that isn’t too high or too low, but in the sweet spot. Without a fair amount of knowledge on the current real estate market, it can be hard for many sellers to price their home right.

Without this knowledge, you’re putting the sale of your home at risk. When you price it too low, you could gyp yourself out of some serious cash. When you price it too high, it could mean that your home sits for days at a time without any offers and may be stuck significantly dropping the price to sell it. Either way, you’re hindering the success of your home sale.

Babysitting Showings

There’s no denying it: showings are a pain. They’ll happen during the work day, in the evenings, on weekends, and even on holidays. Are you prepared to oversee every showing?

Even if you have a fairly flexible schedule, showings can still be a inconvenience. They can happen at the last minute. Buyers can show up late or can take forever to look at your home.

Before deciding to FSBO your home, you’ll want to make sure that you have the time to invest in selling a home. You’ll also need the patience to deal with accommodating buyers. Otherwise you run the risk of upsetting them.

Qualifying Buyers

When you decide to FSBO, you assume many different roles in a real estate transaction. In addition to dealing with showings, you’ll want to confirm that buyers are qualified to buy your home.

So, what does this mean?

This is something that a buyer’s agent would normally take care of. They will make sure that a buyer has been pre-approved prior to look at homes or writing an offer. As a FSBO, you’ll want to make sure that any buyers that look at your home have talked with a mortgage professional.

Is this something you’ll want to hassle every buyer for? In addition to balancing scheduling showings, you’ll want to be able to confirm that anyone who sees your home is a qualified buyer.

Can You Handle The Emotions Of Negotiations?

Even when you’re ready to move on from your current home, there are still emotions that are attached to it. As a FSBO, it can be hard to know how to separate the emotion from business of a transaction.

Will you be able to keep your cool when you get a low offer? Or, will you be able to keep your anger at bay when a buyer asks your for a laundry list of repairs after the home inspection? While you may think that what a buyer is asking for it outrageous, you’ll have to keep your emotions in check. Otherwise you could put the whole transaction at risk.

The benefit of having an agent is that you have someone to negotiate on your behalf. Real estate agents are seasoned in knowing what negotiation tactics work and what tactics don’t work.

Finally: Are You Savvy Enough To Handle All The Details?

Real estate transactions are not simple transactions. Without a strong knowledge of the industry, it can be hard to protect yourself in a transaction. If you don’t know what potential issues can go wrong, you don’t know how to protect yourself when those situations happen.

Writing a contract is a very important part of selling a home as a FSBO. If it’s not done right, you could find yourself in a difficult situation if things go wrong. A majority of FSBOs do not have access to the standard Tennessee real estate contract that realtors use. This is a standard form that offers basic protection to both buyer and seller.

In addition, there can be tricky situations that occur when a home inspection goes poorly or the home doesn’t appraise. Are you ready to negotiate those difficult situations?

In addition to make sure that you’re able to handle these situations, you’ll also want to protect yourself from liability. Even though you’re not a licesnsed realtor, if you fail to disclose certain aspects about your home, you could still find yourself in trouble.

Are you thinking about selling your West Knoxville home this year? Please let us know if there is any way that Knoxville Home Team can assist you. Rick can be reached at 865-696-9002 or via email at [email protected]. Kati can be reached by phone at 865-696-1888 or at [email protected] or simply click here for our contact page.

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