Home Marketing

FIZZBO - Home Marketing.

Part 2 of a 7 part series on successfully marketing and selling your FIZZBO home buyer owner.

Step 2. How To Market and Sell Your FIZZBO Home

It's All About Exposure...

Marketing your FIZZBO property is the way you tell the world your home is for sale. The more people who know your home is on the market, the better your chances of selling quickly and for a higher price.

With a limited marketing budget, just what are the best ways to get exposure to potential home buyers when selling For Sale By Owner (FSBO - pronounced 'fizzbo')? Here is a list of the most common real estate marketing methods along with a percentage of homesbuyers who used each to find their home:

As you can see from the above chart, a listing in the REALTOR® Multuple Listing Service is, by far, the best exposure you can give your property. That's because nearly 4 out of 5 home buyers use the services of a real estate agent. The MLS is a database of homes listed for sale that REALTOR®s use to cooperate to sell each other's listings. (For more information on the MLS, Click Here). And, properties listed in the MLS also usually appear on one or more of the top Internet real estate websites and search engines, like Realtor.com, MSN.com or AOL.com.

Choosing the right marketing methods is a critical step in the FIZZBO homeselling process. (For Sale By Owner Home Marketing.) That's because as a FIZZBO For Sale By Owner with only one house (product) to sell, you're at a disadvantage when it comes to competing with REALTORs for buyer. You can not afford to spend the advertising dollars that REALTORs spend simply because they are averaging their costs over hundreds of properties.

The best tactic then, is to coopt the REALTOR®s marketing dollars with a listing of your own in the MLS. By listing your FIZZBO home in the MLS, you agree to pay a "buyer's agent" a percentage of the sales price or a flat fee for selling your home. This amount is usually just half of what you would pay a traditional broker for listing and selling your home.

In essence, as a FIZZBO "For Sale By Owner" you are acting as your own "listing agent". In other words, if home sellers in your area usually pay 6% to sell their homes with a real estate broker, then you would purchase a listing in the MLS through a Flat Fee broker (Click Here for more information on Flat Fee MLS Listing),thereby eliminating the listing agent portion of the commission and agree to pay a "buyer's agent" just 3% for a successful sale. You still save thousands of dollars in real estate fees, without giving up the exposure you need to sell your home quickly at the highest selling price!