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lmrinc_gw

post more or less photos and tips for fsbo?

lmrinc_gw
10 years ago

I'm about ready to list our house fsbo. We are thinking if just listing it on Zillow but we may also buy an MLS.

Should we post photos of every room or leave something to see for showings? What's the best day to list?

We are either getting a real estate attorney or doing it through Legal Zoom to finish the deal.

I would love any tips anyone can offer.

Comments (10)

  • kirkhall
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I think you need to be on the MLS. I am "just a buyer" (not a REA or have any reason to be a big fan of the MLS). But, when I am looking, I am looking through the MLS. I rarely think to look on zillow. And, when I do, I am usually looking for comps rather than a specific house for sale.

    In other words, the MLS informs when I'll go to Zillow and not the other way around.

    In fact, I sort of assume Zillow is not correct most of the time.

    Just my .02.

  • xamsx
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    You'll get varying opinions on this. I am one who thinks less is more. In my opinion, a seller wants enough pictures to entice, but not so many pictures that a potential buyer thinks they have seen the entire house, and dismiss it if not "prefect". People fall in love with a house when they visit, so you want them inside. Enticing gets them there.

    I would strongly urge you to hire a professional real estate photographer (unless you are one yourself). Homeowner or Realtor pictures can fall short when presenting a house at its best (and can be downright off-putting). Spend the money and hire someone whose pictures will help you sell your house.

    Good luck!

  • weedyacres
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Definitely buy into a flat-fee MLS if you've got one in your area. That's how you'll get realtors to bring their buyers through. We don't have FFMLS here, so I emailed all the local realtors a link to our listing. A few brought buyers, but many won't take the time to look outside the MLS.

    Make a web page (free on weebly, with lots of easy-to-use templates), reserve the domain for your address, like 123Main.com ($10 from godaddy.com) and put up professional photos (wide angle, good lighting). You can post a preliminary link here and/or in the decorating forum to get staging feedback.

    I'm in the camp of showing more photos and info, as long as it's positive. I can't see how someone would look at 30 fabulous photos of fabulous rooms and decide not to visit in person because they saw too much good. You're trying to entice them in, and there might be little amenities that show up in photos that entice different people. I wouldn't care about a darlingly decorated nursery, but someone who's pregnant might, and I wouldn't cross it off my list because I'd need to repaint.

    The only time I would say more info is not good, is if the info might deter a potential buyer. For example, I didn't say we were on septic, because those unfamiliar with septic may get deterred by it. If anyone asked, I said "we're on septic, it's oversized for the house, and the only maintenance it takes is flushing a pellet down the toilet once a month." Similarly, I wouldn't show photos of boring/ugly landscaping or a garishly-painted room. They're things that can be changed without too much trouble, and most reasonable people walking through your house could overlook those things if they liked everything else.

    But I do have an exception to the "don't say/show anything negative" rule. If it's something that will be glaringly obvious to anyone that looks at the house, and will have a big impact on who buys it and how much they pay, then be up front about it so you don't waste time showing the place to people who aren't going to buy it. So if the house needs some major repairs, or has foundation damage, be up front and list the issues.

  • nosoccermom
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Do you have redfin in your area? If yes, you may want to see what FSBO listings they list. In my area, they list them with something like forsalebyowner.com.

  • nosoccermom
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Do you have redfin in your area? If yes, you may want to see what FSBO listings they list. In my area, they list them with something like forsalebyowner.com.

  • Mmmbeeer
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I think I read 12 is usually plenty for someone to get a sense of the home. The purpose of the photos is really just to entice people to your home. What is pictured is more important than having dozens of photos. Keep them in a logical progression as to how you would see the rooms entering the front door. Don't include any photos that don't show the details of the home itself--such as pictures of your armoire or a hallway with doors. Always include pics of the front of the home and the kitchen and living area--people expect to see these features at a very minimum.

  • Mmmbeeer
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    We sold our home last year, in 10 days for full asking price, by listing only on Craig's List and Zillow. We have always priced our homes attractively as we know buyers can see we didn't intend on paying a commission to a realtor and that we had calculated into the price. We had multiple signs up in our neighborhood, professionally made, that included the link on the Zillow site. Our flyers all had the Zillow link and the link to our site on Craig's List on them. In our Open House ads we placed in the paper, we added the address to our listing on Zillow. Part of our strategy has always been to hold weekend Open Houses for 8 hours each day--Saturday and Sunday. It has always cut down drastically on miscellaneous showings because people have such large timeframe to work around to see our home. The only showings we've ever specifically had (in the experience of selling three homes ourselves) have been to second look buyers who had already been to the Open House. All day Open Houses have been the key to getting the buyers into our home. We have had multiple offers on every home we've sold this way.

  • kats_meow
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I would list on MLS. When I was looking for a house I looked at MLS and didn't search other places. I did look at Zillow since occasionally there was price history present on Zillow that wasn't on MLS. However, I only looked on Zillow at houses I had already found through MLS.

    I am a believer in having lots of pictures. I actually despise the idea of someone not showing pics of some rooms on the thought of leaving something for a showing. There are lots of houses listed and I can't look at every one of them that might possibly meet my needs. So, I weed out houses. I weed out or place at a much, much, much lower priority houses that don't have photos of all the major rooms. I generally assume that people who don't have photos of all the major rooms have chosen not to take photos of rooms that don't look good. I assume those rooms have flaws or the seller would want to show them off.

    The last house we bought I remember this one house that I liked from the listing. But, the seller did multiple things to cause us to never see the house. The house had a great outside (we drove by the house) and the rooms pictured were nice. But there was no picture of the living room or master bath. Maybe those rooms were wonderful and they were saving them for us to see when we came to the house. But, we never came to the house because he made this house lower priority to those houses that did have pictures of all key rooms. We ended up buying a different house.

  • liriodendron
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I think the need for the MLS depends on your local area, and also where your house ranges in the price scale relative to local housing.

    Extreme (and made up) example: in SF or NYC where prices are very high a $400K property might be low-end enough (in relative prices) that prospective buyers would be looking for such things on CL or Zillow. But in lower cost areas buyers in that price range would expect full concierge services of a realtor and not be looking on CL.

    I like pictures ( professionally-done ones) but I'm not necessarily interested in more than two or, at most three, of the same room. I'm expecting that there are four walls to most rooms, but I don't need to see them all to decide whether or not to visit. Too often I see pictures that are beauty shots of the home owner's decor, which is usually not to my taste. That's when I think fewer pictures are better.

    I second the idea of giving your pics a trial run here, even though I know the responses may seem overhelming, at times. (And there's the risk that comments are comiing from people in vastly different local markets.) But, even with that caveat, I think it is useful to take advantage of a lot of eyeballs who will see things in ways you can't.

    One thing to do, though, is post them under a different screen name, set up just for that purpose, with no references back to your main user name. Long time readers may put two and two together, but probably would be tactful enough to not note the connection in their responses realizing that you were attempting to avoid a searchable connection between your other (previous and on-going) comments that may contain questions or strategy about selling discussions that you'd prefer would-be buyers not know about. Often people who are active posters here think there's no way to connect a specific property address to their user name, but it's quite easy. And if you add images (attached to the same screen name) then it's all hanging out, so to speak.

    Good luck in your sale. I have both sold and bought FSBO, and I find it's an excellent way to handle a transaction. It does take more work, though, and it works best when everybody involved is determined to resist the temptation to turn everything into an adversarial contest. I know it involves unsually large sums of money (in compared to other economic decisions in most peoples' lives) and I know that houses arouse (in both sellers and buyers) uniquely poignant personal feelings. But I still think that it can be done w/o some of the real estate industry-fomented drama. (I'm not just referring to realtors, though they naturally have a stake in making sure people still "need" their services) but the entire world that feeds on real estate transactions from home inspectors to real estate-themed TV-show producers. If you have good legal representation (to avoid inadvertently falling afoul of local/state RE laws), I think you'll do just fine.

    One thing I've noticed, though, about FSBOs: both parties seem to assume that they will be the full -and only - beneficiaries of the avoided RE commission. In other words the buyers think that they should pay less because you haven't got to pay the commission and sellers seem to think they are saving (for themselves) the commission they would have paid. In fact, both parties will have more work to do to get to the closing (because REA do earn a portion of their commissions by facillitating the process issues).

    L.

  • tkln
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    We sold our house FSBO last summer in NYC...I would agree location plays a huge role in how you should approach listing on MLS/Zillow/etc.

    We had been listed on Zillow as a Make Me Move for awhile as we weren't really looking to sell right away and that actually brought quite a few people to see the house...when I placed the house on owners.com that cross referenced to Zillow and we had tons of showings, one that resulted in our sale.

    We were in a high demand area, and not in a rush to leave, so we didn't pay to get on the MLS.