Edmonton, St Albert, & Area RE/MAX Real Estate Professional

Thinking of Selling Your Home Yourself ?

A lot of people don't realise that selling a home is a very detailed, time-consuming endeavour. You have to factor in considerations such as open houses, advertising, pricing, negotiating, and handling numerous questions. Even letting strangers into your own home can be worrying at times. All of this can be very exhausting and even worse - unproductive. Many homeowners report the familiar grief after an open house: "I had lots of people, but most were just looking." "They want to offer me way less than what its worth."

1. Did you realize that any time a FSBO seller is away from home, the home is OFF of the Market? I guarantee that someone will always be available to handle and follow up with inquiries during both peak hours and off-peak hours.  
2. REALTORS® can: a) show the home at any time using the secure KeyBox system. b) screen potential buyers safely to ensure they have the interest and means to make an offer. c) advise on pricing strategies using actual sales prices for similar homes. d) assist with price and condition negotiations. e) help to overcome or satisfy buyers objections and conditions. f) assist with the conveyancing of documents or the delivery of deposits and keys. g) assist the home buyer to become familiar with the neighbourhood using printed maps and other mapping tools provided online. h) provide comfort and support to the buyer and seller to ease the strain of making one of the biggest financial decisions of their lives. (On the other hand the FSBO client gets “training and a manual” from an unlicensed salesperson and “24-hour automated telephone information.” Family members have to admit strangers to their home with no background checks and be available whenever a potential buyer wants to view their home)
3. If you try to sell privately, you can expect to put a minimum of 60 hours of effort into the project, without an assured result. This does not account for out-of –pocket costs such as advertising, lawn signs, etc. Selling a home CAN be extremely stressful! I take care of the details, from the first step of marketing to the final sale, so you can continue on with your life.
4. MLS(Multiple Listing Service) This is the most powerful tool to market your home available. Its not just a magazine or a web-site, it's marketing your home through the other 3000+ REALTORS® in the Edmonton Real Estate Board. It's also seen Canada-wide & world-wide via REALTOR.ca [formerly MLS.ca] and hundreds of other REALTOR® web-sites. If your home isn't on MLS, then it's not being marketed to it's maximum potential.
   There are over 7,000 homes listed for sale in Edmonton on the MLS®. With over 1,000 sales a month that is a six month supply. And over 2,400 more homes are listed each month. A REALTOR® can keep up, because MLXchange (our program)  is updated every three minutes and lists all homes currently available for sale through the Edmonton and Calgary MLS®. The average home is on the MLS® for less than 70 days and many properties sell in less than a month.

5. If you scan properties in a typical FSBO catalog you’d think it never snows in Edmonton. How long have those properties been languishing on the market? We haven’t seen green grass like that since last November. Why is the FSBO catalog so large? Because the homeowner paid up front for advertising for up to a year with no guarantee of a sale.

   A REALTOR® working with marketing tools offered by the REALTORS® Association can outsell a FSBO every time.

6. Some For Sale by Owner assistance companies give you an "appraisal" of the value of your home. If you want a true appraisal of your homes value, you should have a licensed Appraiser see the inside of your home too, and not just check the comparable homes in the area. Homes are like people, its also whats on the inside that counts. As a REALTOR® I don't do appraisals, I do a Comparative Market Evaluation. For my Market Evaluation to be effective, I come and see all of your home, so I can give you the best evaluation I can. When I go to work with you, I ensure you receive the most current market stats along with a thorough comparative market analysis report  to make sure your home is in a solid market position.
7. A property depreciates the longer it is on the market. Many owners fail to take advantage of this excitement by limiting the marketing to their immediate contacts and misdirected advertising. With me, your home is advertised 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, until it is sold.

a. Investors/Bargain Hunters:

These are sometimes people who are looking to capitalize on a FSBO’S lack of negotiating experience and market knowledge to profit on their next purchase. Any time a buyer doesn’t buy from a store or through a sales person they expect to pay substantially less. In a sense they would expect to save the sales commissions or profits that would normally go to a sales person or store owner. Why should someone do all the work a salesperson would do and still pay the same price? For example if the seller is trying to save six percent and the buyer is trying to save six percent, now they are 12 percent apart!

b.   People who can’t qualify to buy your home:

These people will often approach FSBO’s because they have had previous financial difficulties and would want the owner to finance them. While, for the right seller, this could be a profitable investment, but in reality most sellers need to pull as much equity out of the property as possible to be able to move on to their next home.

If you are considering selling your home, give me a call to show you how I can get your home sold in less time, with the least amount of hassles.