Are You Committed to Selling For Sale by Owner?
By: Barry Milteer

In today's real estate market, a home-grown website, ad in the local paper and yard sign with directional signs on the corner, are just not enough. For most for sale by owners (FSBO), little incentive exists to invest the time and effort in building a meaningful web presence and the long-term upfront costs of running local newspaper ads to promote your property is impractical.

Unless you get lucky, illogical strategies like "I'll try it on my own for a month or two and then turn it over to a realtor", are doomed to failure. Such strategies illustrate a lack of confidence as well as a coherent plan for effectively marketing your property. It takes both to be successful and unfortunately, far too many for sale by owners (FSBO) start out with strategies like these.

Whether you're a first time for sale by owner (FSBO) or seasoned real estate professional, buying, selling or renting a property requires commitment and hard work. If you don't have the time, don't kid yourself. Hire a real estate professional. Trying to market your property on the 'cheap' usually offers little reward. In most cases, you'll end up wasting valuable time and money. But if you're serious about going it alone, do some research to understand what you're up against and how to avoid common pitfalls.

Fortunately, most of the information you will need is readily available. You only need to avail yourself of the numerous for sale by owner (FSBO) resources currently available on the web. Since much of this information is written by real estate professionals, it's fairly comprehensive. These resources cover every aspect of the for sale by owner process, including property preparation, determining and setting the selling price, the advertising process, buyer/seller negotiation, as well as understanding the closing process. Even the contracts and forms required to close a property are available and best of all, many of these services are free!