subject: Methods Home Owners Use To Sell Their Own House [print this page] Some interesting statistics came out lately regarding for sale by owner, or FSBO as professionals in the real estate business refer to it. These statistics for people who sell a house come from the 2010 National Association of REALTORS (NAR) Profile of House Buyers and Sellers. Here they are - as of 2010, only 9% of houses sold were for sale by owner in the United States.
According to Wikipedia, however, quoting statistics a couple years older, 20% to 30% of houses in Canada were sold by owner, which means a real estate agent was not involved. Comments on the NAR profile say that a more accurate percentage in the US is probably 20% because another 10% of for sale by owner transactions include a flat fee commission for a real estate broker to list the house on the multiple listing service and provide some assistance at closing.
Other statistics included in the NAR profile indicate that many sellers are curious about what it will mean to them personally if they decide to sell a house for sale by owner. Now I'll quote the NAR Profile again to share more of those statistics of interest to individual homeowners.
These are the "methods used to market and sell a house by owner" statistics for you: Listing on the internet - 27%, For Sale By Owner website - 11%, Yard sign - 46%, Talking to friends and neighbors - 39%, Newspaper ad - 12%, and Open house - 14%.
Check that list again, and take a closer look at these items: listing on the internet, yard sign and friends and neighbors. Those three items reflect the largest percentages by far, and coincidentally they are the same things you should also do when you are selling for sale by owner. For several years I've been encouraging sellers to post their houses on craigslist.com and ebayclassifieds.com because even if they are working with an agent their own ads posted by owner will get more traffic.
I have noticed that ads posted by the owner generate more attention than ads posted by brokers, and if there is one thing you need it's the attention of more than 63 million people per month looking at craigslist ads. That's a recent statistic for you to keep in mind if you're reluctant to post. Online ads are without a doubt an extremely powerful marketing tools when you're selling for sale by owner in any part of the country.
The good, old-fashioned yard sign comes in first, however, followed by talking to friends and neighbors. Even the internet cannot beat word-of-mouth advertising that only happens when real people get together and talk. Much of that communication happens on Facebook these days, too. Even people in the same neighborhood are more likely than not to communicate online with each other.
