FSBO: "For Sale By Owner"

A professional real estate broker negotiates for a living. We sell more houses in a month than most people buy or sell in a lifetime. We know the purchase and sale contract components along with Georgia law as it pertains to making a contract enforceable. "This is what we are trained to do."  

Yes, there are good and bad real estate agents; just as in any business you can hire a slacker.. but it is also OK to fire them if they are not doing their job.

On the surface, the commission a real estate agent makes on the sale of the house sounds like a ton of money, but let's break it down. 

First and foremost, if real estate is the agent's full-time job, then this is how they make their money. There is no guarantee of income. There is no pay check at the end of each week; the income an agent makes comes only when the house sales!  So this is a huge incentive to get a house sold. The operative word here is "sold." There is no money until the house is sold, but the expenses begin the minute the house is listed: i.e., signage, lockbox, brochures, advertising, multiple trips showing the house, FMLS, photographing the house, just to begin with.

I know that it seems tempting to try to sell your house on your own, but there are many problems with this: Sellers almost always overprice their house. They sell on emotion and they are not normally in the business of negotiating. Attorneys have a motto: "If you represent yourself, you have a fool for a client!" That is just one reason not to be a FSBO.  

Another one is: Safety. How do you know who is coming into your home? Agents pre-qualify all buyers, and they get a letter from a lender or proof of funds for a cash buyer. It's sometimes difficult because buyers are also sensitive about the information that they want sellers or agents to see. But if they want to get in the car with an agent, they have to prove that they are real buyers, not just "lookie lu's," or someone casing a house. Also, this is a flaw in the "Sunday Open House" – just anyone can come into your home. 

The third issue with being a FSBO is contract law – do you really want to get a contract from Office Depot or Legal Zoom to sell your house? The Georgia Board of Realtors has a forms committee for the express purpose of making sure that the contracts agents use are legal and contain all of the necessary items that make a contract enforceable. It is easy to use terminology in a contract that makes it voidable and even void, so making sure that the contract is a good enforceable contract is essential – not to mention making sure that once the house is sold, the buyer doesn't sue the seller for things that the seller should not have been responsible for in the first place.

In the end, the money an agent makes when they sell your house will probably save you money. Pricing your home properly and negotiations make a big difference.