Should You Go For FSBO Or Not?

This is the second time I've got this already this year. Three weeks into the year. We are already gearing up for the season to sell homes and I think it's been a pretty wild year, but the second one I've got already. I just want to kind of drop a few thoughts on this. People always have like the pros and cons of selling for sale by owner. And really it just goes for anything, whether you're selling a home, whether you're trying to go fight a court battle on your own, whether you're trying to go fix your car alone, whatever it may be. The same applies and would you rather have you, yourself, an inexperienced person doing this or would you rather have an experienced professional doing the job for you in it?

Get a Professional

The answer really always should be, "I want a professional doing it for me." There are so many little intricacies that aren't thought of. When someone asks that question, what they really are saying is "I don't truly understand the value of what you are providing me or what a realtor is providing me or what other an attorney is providing me or what a mechanic is providing me." They don't understand, I don't understand - x. That is at the heart of this issue. What I think a lot of service providers do not do well is they do not provide what they do and set the expectations well. They don't provide that clarity and they don't get to the why. What is that person actually asking, what are they seeking? Then you can solve their problem and then you can give them exactly what they want. And that's what the consumer wants, right? They want what they want. If you can provide that to them, that's what they're going to get.

Get someone who knows what to do

So again, that's kind of the overarching macro and the micro is when you're selling a home on your own, do you know all the ins and outs? Do you know all the paperwork you need to have? Do you know how to qualify a buyer when they come in? The problem with a lot of buyers is they get a lot of FSBO buyers, which are people that are unrepresented. They don't have proper documentation, they don't have any preapprovals, they don't even know they need preapprovals and they are coming in and they don't know inspectors. They don't know the right lenders. They don't know really much of anything, unfortunately, and both sides are kind of working this uphill battle and not knowing the right paperwork to have. Then you get to an attorney maybe or a title company and those people aren't entities that handle real estate transactions. They might know the legal ease of maybe looking at a contract, but that's it. They don't know all the paperwork that's needed. They don't know all those ins and outs. They don't know how to handle the different vendors all at once and make sure things are coordinated, make sure things are in the timeframes that are allotted in the contract. They're not making sure the inspector to do an inspection within a certain amount of time. The lender, the mortgage application is getting done within a certain amount of time. An attorney doesn't know any of that, they're not there to do that. They're just there to look at the T's and dot the I's across the T's and that's it.

When you think you can but you can't

So you have to know what it is you're getting into. Just the other day, he was kind of like a mechanic, right? Like we just had an issue with our car the other day and a wheel bearing got out. Well, I looked at my dad who was great with cars and I was like, "Hey, you know what? We'll be able to fix this. Right?" And he looked at me and I was like, "It was going to take six hours to fix." And I had thought we had done the wheel bearings together before, but we had not. I don't think we've maybe done some front bearings years ago, but they still did take a couple of hours because a lot of times you don't have the right parts and you gotta go back to the store and it takes hours and hours to do something that literally we ended up going to Belle tire and it took us one hour.

So I got dropped off, the car got dropped off, they said it might take a few hours. One hour later, that's because of just other cars in the shop. One hour later it's fixed. And it obviously it costs money for a service. Right? A lot of times maybe the more you pay, the better the service you get, right? If you do your due diligence correctly. So that's what's really important, it's the upfront due diligence. It's not, should I sell on my own or should I have someone else do it? It's finding the right person. It's just like a CPA, right? A good CPA is going to save you more money in the end than doing the taxes on your own. It's just a fact of life. It's been proven over and over and over again. If you're a business owner, if you're an employee, there might not be a ton of CPA can do. They can do a little bit for you. But if you're a business owner, a 1099 or independent contractor or something like that, there is no doubt about it. A CPA will save you more money than you do on your own. None of us know how to do work the tax code. It's just you don't know. You're not doing it every single day, all day long, and not only that, you don't have the time to do that. A real estate transaction might take 30, 40, 50, 60 days. Do you know how to do it or do you have the time to do that? Do you have the time to schedule and do all the showings? Do you have the time to be doing your regular job and then trying to do someone else's job as well? That's where the vast majority, 90 percent of for sale by owners blow up because they don't have all the documentation. They don't have all the timelines in order, they don't have the wherewithal or the time just to get things done in a proper way. Time is of the essence, right? In contracts. Also, getting a purchase agreement. Do you know it? Was this a purchase agreement that was just off the internet? Is this an actual purchase agreement? Did they slip things in there and write their own purchase agreement and make it look nice, make it look like they know what's going on.

So you have to know all these things and have someone who's adept at what they're doing so that they can tell you, "Hey, you know what? Woah, Woah. This is not good. This is something that you really got to think of. So this is again, it's a question that we hear all the time. This is the second time I've already received this question. Fortunately, the percentage is low. Most people don't think of doing that, fortunately, but there are things we really got to consider. Time-saving you money, in the end, saving me time and money from fixing my own car, fixing my own wheel bearings on my car. It saved me a ton of time and money. I was able to go spend that hour or two going and working, making more money instead of worrying about how I'm going to spend six hours to fix my car. It's the same thing with selling a home. Same thing with battling and arguing your own court case, whatever it may be, using a CPA, et cetera. They're all the same. It's the same principles apply. I think something that school doesn't teach us well is what is our time worth?

You can't have all the time in the world

Time is money. And that's again something that we're not taught in school. People just think that time is this thing.O"h, I'll do this on my own or I'll do this, I'll do this, I'll do this, I'll do this." And then we run out of time to do the things that we really want to do. Going on a trip, going on vacation, spending time with your family, making more money, whatever it may be. So I think getting our priorities straight will actually help us determine should I do this on my own or should they have someone who knows exactly what they're doing and do this for me. And like I said, I think what it comes down to ultimately is finding the proper person. Instead of spending the time trying to do it all on your own, spend that fraction of time that you were going to spend on doing that thing on your own. Spend that fraction of that time just finding and doing your due diligence. Finding that proper person to do it for you, vetting them, getting a couple of referrals, interviewing some people, and finding the proper person to do it for you. That way you know you're in the right hands and that way you can be taken care of and know that your money is being spent wisely by someone who's gonna take care of you.

So that is my thoughts on the FSBO starting here early in a 10-degree night here in January. So I hope you guys got something out of this. Let me know if you have any questions on this. It's just an interesting topic, like it spans the whole chasm, right? It's everything. We hear this all the time in our world, right? Should I do something on my own? Time is money, et cetera. What is the truth behind it? And like I said, I'm a firm believer that time is money and that spending all my time, spending six hours doing something or spending 35 days, 50 days, not knowing what I'm doing cost me a whole heck of a lot more money than it would if I found someone and did my due diligence. Spent a fraction of that time just finding someone who is very skilled to do it for me.

So I appreciate you guys more than anything. Let me know your thoughts, comments, opinions, please keep them on here. We tried to, we love the emails and the texts and when we see you guys and all that stuff, we love the comments we get. But again, if we are getting debates going, we'd love to have him on here. That way we can affect more people and help more people. So I appreciate you guys. We'll see you soon.