What are the benefits and disadvantages of selling a home yourself?

There are pros and cons to each method which will be reviewed in this article. 

To immediately identify the elephant in the room, I am a Real Estate Broker. I also believe in hiring competent professionals. Hiring pros leads to better outcomes and better overall experiences. 

However, I still believe there are pros and cons to each method.

Benefits of Selling a Home Yourself

  • Eliminates the Risk of Incompetence. We have all worked with incompetent professionals before. Lack of professionalism and/or skill can greatly affect any process.
  • Eliminates Personality Mismatches: We all can’t get along with everyone. Sometimes two people just don’t match. Some agents actually do not get along well with other agents. I never understood this. Agents are likely to work together in the future. Some agents (just like some people) are very emotionally immature and do not handle conflict well. Successful agents have to always take the high road and work well with everyone. If you decide to go FSBO on your own, you will unfortunately encounter many of these prickly individuals who will call you to solicit your listing.
  • Getting Trapped in an Agreement: some Realtors have unnecessarily long-term listing agreements. If things do not work out, we have seen agents keep the owners locked in the agreement. This is another thing I never understood. The agent is not going to sell the home anyway. Why make an enemy? Move on to the next seller you can help. 
  • Entrepreneurial Juice: It’s exciting to work on a project like this! At least for a little while. The process loses excitement pretty quickly as the continuous calls and showings roll in.

Disadvantages of Selling a Home Yourself

  • Liability: In today’s litigious world, you really have to know ALL the laws, rules, and regulations. Many do not know this, but everyone is held to the same standards of Fair Housing and other Housing Laws and Regulations. Hiring a professional alleviates this risk, effectively serving as a shield to protect yourself. 
  • Safety in the COVID-19 World: The real estate industry is yet another industry that was changed by COVID-19. There are more risks and variables. Our meticulous screening process keeps our sellers safe health-wise and legal-wise from COVID lawsuits. 
  • Missing 90%+ of the Buyers: For Sale by Owners typically account between 6%-8% of the total home sales. That obviously is a huge piece of the pie that is missed. You will simply never know the buyers you could have missed out on in the 90%+ pool.
  • Missing the Best Buyers: Pretend you are a buyer for a moment. The path of least resistance would be to hire an agent. The agent will make calls, check if properties are still available, and set up everything for you. It’s the equivalent to buying something on Amazon except that it is not only easy, but FREE. Why would a customer do all the extra work which they do not have to pay for? You guessed it: to save money. It’s like targeting dollar store shoppers vs Nordstrom, Spirit Airlines vs Virgin, etc. You understand the concept and can probably think of better comparisons! 
  • Eliminates Competition: If you have something of value, why not let people fight over it? Competition forces someone’s hand. Putting your home on the market against the best buyers forces everyone’s best hand. eBay is better than a Garage Sale. 
  • Save Time & Stress: There is a tremendous amount of time and energy that goes into effectively selling a home. Not just with showing the home and interrupting your day, but your phone going off non-stop from calls from the public and badgering agents. It’s about leverage. Hiring a professional makes the process peaceful. The more seamless and less stressful the process, the better the result.

Don’t Take My Word for It

Our Solution

The benefits of putting your home on the market to attract the best buyers and have those buyers compete with each other is undeniable.

We crafted a strategy to eliminate the disadvantages For Sale By Owners face. 

Putting Ourselves in Your Shoes 

  1. Eliminates the Risk of Incompetence: We have a great track record of selling homes and delivering results. You can have confidence you are hiring a professional.
  2. Eliminates Personality Mismatches: We see other agents as our partners in selling the home and treat them with the utmost respect.
  3. Getting Trapped in an Agreement: We have flexible win/win agreements. At no point will we ever force you to keep a home on the market if you are not comfortable or plans change.
  4. Entrepreneurial Juice: We will actively collaborate with you in a custom, proactive game plan to sell the home. Then, we take over and do the boring/grunt work of managing all the leads, showings, negotiations, etc.

I hope this clarifies and eases any concerns you may have. As always, feel free to get in touch to book a consultation

www.calendly.com/robokeefe

For Sale by Owner vs Realtor – Advantages and Disadvantages of FSBO
By Robert O’Keefe, ROK Realty
Broker of Record – Keller Williams Park Views
(201) 372-4084 (cell: text/call)
(201) 939-0050 (office)
[email protected]