For Sale By Owners (FSBO)

For Sale By Owners

The key to MASSIVE real estate success boils down to one word... LISTINGS! Listings equal leverage and leverage equals BIG return on investment (ROI).

There is a problem with getting listings though - it has traditionally been taught as a farming system that takes months and months of mailings which equates to months and months of cash going out of your bank account! In some cases, you may not have a bank account to draw on so that isn't an option. So, what is the solution? FSBO's, For Sale By Owners... these are sellers who want to try it themselves and are jumping up and down screaming "I want to sell my house!"

Here's another problem with FSBO's... or maybe not! EVERYONE is working FSBO's - this is true, but the key here is "how" they are working FSBO's. Let me give you a little taste of what most of those agents are saying in their approach:

"Ring ring" (this is the agent side of this conversation, you can imagine the home owner side)
"Hello this is 'agent' from 'company' and I'm calling to see if you still want to sell your home?"
"Well that's terrific - may I ask why you are trying to sell without a professional agent?"
(now up to this point the conversation was pretty good, but from this point forward it was downhill)

"All that's great I understand that you want to save some money. But do you realize that you will actually make less money trying to sell it yourself than you will with an agent? As a matter of fact most homeowners have no idea what they're doing - that's why there are professional agents that sell homes for a living. Do you realize the dangers and the trouble that you can get into trying to sell your house yourself?"

"As a matter of fact most owners that try to sell their homes themselves admit after they tried that it was a pretty stupid move. And after you tried it a while yourself you'll be in that same category."

"Now how would you like to go ahead and skip over feeling stupid and being an idiot and actually list your home with a professional?"

So let me ask you this: If you have received this call, how would you react? Probably the same way that most of the other people acted and reacted when the agent called.

If there's ever a time where you want to build a listing inventory quickly this is the lead generation system that you can always fall back on.

In comparison put yourself into the shoes of this for sale by owner:

"Ring Ring" (or a knock on the door): FSBO CALL #1

"Hello, this is 'your name' and I am a real estate agent with "RE/MAX United". I'm not calling to lie and tell you that I have a buyer that I want to bring by your house, and I'm not calling to ask you for your listing."

"I was driving through the neighborhood and noticed your sign (if you have the address, otherwise, just say I noticed your home was for sale) and because I do work in this area I would love to come by and see your home. Would you have a few minutes sometime today that I can drop by and take a look at your home?"

As you noticed I didn't call to try to solicit the listing and I didn't lie and tell them that I had a buyer that I wanted to bring by and show the house. These are techniques that are taught by quite a few trainers, the problem is that they haven't been out here in the real world in a long time. The public is looking for honesty and help from you, let's make sure that you are the one providing that.

Now, if you are the "for sale by owner" and you get both of those two calls, which one would you be more open to receive. I believe it's pretty obvious.

My approach is a little different. My intention is to earn their trust, and to provide them with consulting from day one so that if they ever do decide to list their home with a real estate agent I will be the first one they think of. I'm going to treat every for sale by owner as if they're already a client.

At the visit, it is my practice to ask the seller if we might leave some information with them in the event they eventually need our services. This information will explain our Sell'n'Buy REBATE Program where the seller gets back much of their listing commission, our Virtual Tour, and our high traffic on the http://www.homesone.com/ site where we will upload their home.

Let's get to it!

The 6 Key Ingredients to Converting 70% of your FSBO Contacts

1. Have a strong 60 day plan (92% of FSBO's list within the first 29 days - so you likely won't get to the 60 days). We recommend joining http://www.fsbotrac.com/ which calls FSBO listings every day. FSBOtrac has training sessions and has a data base management system that walks you through the phone calls and follow up.
2. Have a series of phone calls at least once per week that will ask the owner if there is anything that you can do to help.
3. Have a series of postcards and materials to give them that provide USEFUL information over that 30-60 days.
4. Be a consultant to the FSBO - not a salesperson.
5. Treat the FSBO as if they were already your client.
6. FOLLOW UP - FOLLOW UP - FOLLOW UP 
   

Using our own systems of Sell'n'Buy REBATES, and our buyers getting instant emails gives our agents a HUGH advantage in obtaining the listing. Once the seller realizes that they get a rebate of 2.5% of the listing fee, and no one else offers this, your listing conversion ratio should move to 90%.