I had an open house on Sunday and we got a decent turnout (7 couples), though a couple of the people were neighbors. We have also had a number of private showings and have another scheduled for tonight too. So far, I haven’t done much advertising beyond asking friends to spread the word and placing a couple ads on Craigslist. We have had a lot of positive feedback about the house showing well too.
We are looking at the possibility of placing our house on the local MLS. I have heard that houses in our neighborhood/pricepoint are flying off the shelves right now. I am feeling pretty optimistic that we can get this thing sold in a reasonable time frame.
If anyone reading this has experience selling FSBO and working with buyer’s agents, I would love to hear a little about your experience (either in the comments or privately). Any suggestions/advice would be much appreciated.
I can’t believe how relieved I am to have the house on the market. It feels like all my house-craziness has been shelved for the time-being. I am not obsessively looking at listings or imagining dream houses, because I know we will find the house we are supposed to have when the time is right…AND (knock on wood) we will be able to move on making an offer without the added complication of having to carry 2 mortgages. What a relief!
How are you working out the commision? Moreover, are you lowering the percentage since you don’t have to pay a listing agent?
I did FSBO and got my asking price. I did work with a company that gives you all the tools and lists it in MLS for a few hundred dollars. It’s all fuzzy now-but I can look up the details for you.
We sold our house fsbo, but with an MLS listing service. The responses off of craigslist were insane and insulting for the most part, partly because the market here was already weak two years ago. We also got really jerked around by the buyers’ agent to the point that the MLS-listing guy offered to comp us his (separate) services at the signing table. Unfortunately, the buyers’ agent wouldn’t budge on her claims that she get over the usual percent profit because the market was so sucky – she claimed it was normal, but I don’t believe anything she said.
Please, you have to tell me what the color of your guest room is! That yellow is gorgeous!
I tend to be a person who tries about 15 different shades of a color before finding something I like, so please…for the sake of my husband’s sanity…tell us the name of the yellow color. We’re painting our den soon and that color is exactly what I had in mind.
Best of luck in selling your house. It’s beautifully decorated…I’m sure it will sell quickly.
E,
The guest room is Benjamin Moore Barley. It looked much more beige in the sample than it does on the wall. I LOVE that color. I suggested it to another friend and she loves the room she painted Barley too.
I would buy your house, it is too cute! And with houses in our Sydney neighborhood going for 1-2 MILLION dollars (cute, old fashioned, 3 bedroom houses – with nothing fancy at all!), your price seems like a dream. In fact, I dream of moving back to the States JUST so we can buy a decent house. I think you should ask more…but maybe that’s the Sydney talking.
AmFam you can ask away on your questions about FSBO versus MLS Service…versus listing with a realtor. While I am in the in real estate business, I still align myself more with being a marketer (which I did for 20 year pre yahoos) since realtors by in large are NOT my crowd… I will give you my unabridged take on the pros and cons of each way. This market is an unsual one…that is for sure.
You can email me off blog if you want…
Dawn in Sac
We sold our house 1 1/2 years ago. We had a realtor who did open houses for us almost every weekend. She also put a sign on our front lawn with a box containing flyers with details about the house, the community, and the school district, plus her contact info. She advertised in all of the local papers for us. We were listed on MLS, as well as realtor.com, as well as the local paper’s online website. We included lots of pictures of the house online (As a buyer, I think this is key!) We kept the house as spotless as possible (that was stressful!) and moved out a bunch of our junk. It took 6 months–we only got 1 offer & it was kinda low. We bargained up the price a little, and we finally took it, & we’re so happy that we did.