Fsbo

The hardest part about a buyer’s market is the education of the seller.  Sellers are slow to move from one market to the other, not willing to drop prices by $5,000, $10,000 or even $25,000 to bring the price in line with what the market currently demands.

Most Sellers can only remember what it was like when they bought the house a few year’s earlier – it was a Seller’s market then and they had to bid up by 5 or 10 percent and had to put down a lot of money.  They just can’t fathom the fact that now the Buyers will get to come in and bid 5 to 10 percent below their asking price.

Here are some strategies that will work in a market that is becoming competitive from the Seller’s perspective:

Drop the Price

Pretty simple, but it works. The Buyer doesn’t care how much you paid for the house eight years ago, or how much work you put into the place.  If you’re overpriced, they’ll buy someone else’s house. So, if your home isn’t moving, check the price first.

Offer a Deal

If you are bent on keeping your price, then sell the deal instead of the house. Take the initiative to place an offer on the table before any Buyers even come into the house.

"Move in and make no payments for four months."   Plenty of Buyers would love to move into your house and live "free" for four months. The catch is – your offer is only good on a full price contract.  Instead of just dropping the price, sellers could offer other incentives, such as vacations, home warranties, vehicles – even boats.

Some loan programs allow the Seller to pay off Buyer’s bills. The biggest key in all of this is to not wait for a Buyer to show up and then offer it.  Make the offer early and often to attract the Buyers.  In essence, you’re not selling the house as much as you’re selling the deal.  In a Buyer’s market, the question is not if the Buyer can find a house, but which house offers the best value for the money.

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 5:36 am and is filed under FSBO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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