For Sale By Owner...
A Few Pitfalls to Avoid

This page is not to advise on whether you should decide to become a For Sale By Owner or not as it's certainly an option for selling your home, typically I have found that it can be very difficult for most people to market and sell their own home. If you're selling your home and do choose to act without a Realtor then you'll need to be informed and much more prepared than what I've normally experienced with most For Sale By Owner situations.

Honestly, I've seldom seen these deals go together smoothly... if an offer does get accepted it seems that they often fall apart for one reason or another but I'm sure there's exceptions as with anything. From what I've seen, I believe that most who attempt "act on their own behalf" find the whole experience quite frustrating in general. I've noticed that sooner than later many For Sale By Owners homes usually end up listed with a Realtor, even in a hot market... 30 days seems to be the magic number.

I'm not sure why some folks feel that marketing a home is easy. I've also heard people suggest that Realtors do too little for their commissions so they'll decide to skip the Realtor and become a For Sale By Owner.

If I do get called into a For Sale By Owner deal with a water well issue I often end up regretting it, I seriously try to avoid them as both the For Sale By Owner and the purchaser generally have no knowledgeable representation... Realtors can make all the difference.

As a former Realtor myself I clearly understand that successful Realtors put in a lot of hours, I've noticed that Realtors today are required to be much more involved, especially with rural homes and properties before a "Sold Sign" is displayed. Yes, some deals run smoothly but I've been involved in some real nightmares too, that's when your Realtor can really help hold it all together for you. Unless you're not disclosing something you generally never see these problems coming, they can just magically appear. It's not nearly as easy as it may sometimes appear to the general public.

The Real Estate industry is a very costly profession to participate in... today's Realtor carries much responsibility, huge expenses with tremendous liability. Realtors have office expenses and plenty of them, many employ assistants, there's Errors and Omissions Insurance, licensing fees, MLS fees, advertising, vehicle expenses (if they're not in a newer, high-end vehicle people seem to automatically assume that they're not too successful... I've caught myself making that very unfair judgment) there's car insurance, fuel, cell phones and pagers, etc.... the list is long and costs increase every year. Realtor's expenses are payable whether the Realtor has a good month/year or not. Usually the Realtor is not double-ending a sale (listing and selling of a property) so the commissions will be split with another Realtor.

Real Estate is like running any other small business there's a high cost and time sacrifice, sometimes it takes a few years of persistence for the average Realtor to see a fair return on their investment. The known high producers of the industry work hard and that's the secret to their success, they're well connected and educated. They're known to sustain when the market is both up and down... they're not within same group of Realtors that'll often flee the industry because the market goes sour, they stick with it no matter what the market conditions are. It seems that every community has a group of Realtors that are exceptional at what they do, they persist for many years building excellent businesses along with outstanding reputations, adding many contributions to their communities.

Even with my level of experience within the Real Estate industry I would only have one difficult decision to make in the event that I decided to sell my home. I would not be thinking about whether I want to become a For Sale By Owner or not... instead I would do my homework and make a careful decision choosing a professional, reputable Realtor to represent my interests.

OK, so you still want to be a For Sale by Owner... please allow me to make a few suggestions if you do have a water well, pressure system and or home water filtration system. You'll find additional helpful links on the bottom of this page.

The intention of this site is not to offer legal advice but general information based on my 20 years of experience working in the field. If you have any questions please feel free to Email Colleen

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