Confessions of a FSBO, Part 2

By Erik Hare

In Part 1 of “Confessions of a FSBO”, I told the story of how Cristy and I found ourselves in the position of selling a property before it had appreciated significantly in value.  We considered the possibility of selling it FSBO, and found that through a local minimal-service REALTOR this seemed to be a viable option, if not technically a FSBO.  So how did it turn out?

To start with, this is a difficult market for a small townhome.  As attractive as this house is, it’s still small and rather unusual.  Teresa has reported here how it is indeed a buyer’s market, especially for condos and townhomes, so we had our work cut out for us.  On July 17, it went up live.

The MLS listing that comes with   Buy Self Realty was, without a doubt, the most important source of interest, which we kept track of by counting showings.  In the first two months, there were 2 open houses and 22 showings, of which 12 came from REALTORs.  The minimal fee REALTOR was absolutely essential, as far as I am concerned.  There were an additional 5 showings that came from the Craig’s List offering, and another 5 that came from people who walked by and saw the sign.

That’s quite a lot of interest, especially in a tough market.  But it is an unusual property, and we had our share of the curious.  Sadly, though, it has not sold in the 3 months it has been listed, even with all of these showings. 

The Craig’s List offering had the most interesting side effect, however.  Even while it was listed as “for sale”, inquiries about short-term rental dominated the contacts we had.  The people who called or wrote were generally listed in short-term (6 months) or very-short-term (week by week) rentals, and were willing to pay reasonable prices for it.  Apparently, few apartments are available for less than a one year lease, which can be quite a burden for people.  In addition to that, business people on temporary assignments or couples waiting for their home to be built can find very little in the way of week-by-week housing. 

Once Labor Day came, we made a decision to take some of these renters up on the proposal.  And the house has now been occupied ever since, excepting one week, at a rate that just covers the mortgage and utilities.  The property is essentially “parked” until after winter, although it’s still listed and the sign is still up. 

Have we gone to Teresa on hands and knees, begging her for help?  Well, let’s just say that we’ve had a long conversation with her, and leave it at that. 

Has the whole FSBO experience been what we were hoping?  In all honesty, it’s been working out very well.  It certainly was critical to have the minimal service listing that got us onto MLS.  There is no doubt that this is the best tool that professional REALTORs have. Craig’s List wasn’t a bad source of interested buyers, but if selling takes  certain number of showings the numbers suggest that it would take about 3 times as long to sell it that way.

As it was, we have trouble believing that a full-service REALTOR would have gotten us more showings over that period of time.  More importantly, since we had control over the process, we got the information in real time that told us it was viable as a rental property.  We could quickly switch strategies to keeping it mothballed over the winter, which has greatly lessened the burden that the property is for us.  When the winter is over, we’ll make a big re-evaluation and give serious thought to bringing in a full-service REALTOR, which is to say Teresa.

The amount of work involved was not that great.  The open houses were the biggest commitment of all, and we may not be as interested in them as time goes on.  But the resources that supported us, and the information we obtained, made the experience much easier than I thought it would be.  Cristy was right after all, and I’m very happy it’s working out about as well as you can expect, given the market situation. – More information about the property