Analyzing “For Sale By Owner”

How much is your time really worth? The reason to sell your own house is to save money, right? On the surface that makes sense, but once you’ve factored in the amount of time and stress that you’re going to spend and experience in this process, are you really coming out ahead?

Let’s say you’ve got enough free time and you’re not easily stressed out. Consider the fact that FSBO (For Sale By Owner) takes an average of 19 additional days to sell. That may not seem substantial, but 20% of FSBOs eventually re-list on MLS which ends up taking an average of 68 days longer than homes sold by Realtors.

Marketing is everything. Real estate agents have marketing strategies and resources already in place before you’ve ever met them. They’ve spent time and money to figure out which marketing platforms work well for specific types of properties, and have valuable resources like a Facebook audience, a newsletter list, etc. which would be very difficult to match.

According to recent, official numbers from the National Association of Realtors…

  • ‘The average FSBO property sells for $208,700’
  • ‘The average agent-assisted property sells for $235,000’
  • ‘That’s a $26,300 difference … or 12.6% more’