How many people bought a Home For Sale by Owner?

How did you find it and how was the expereinece? Did you find that you could negotiate the price? What were your initial feelings about it - I'm apprehensive.

Re: How many people bought a Home For Sale by Owner?

I felt the price was more negotiable because they didnt have an agent advising them to stand firm on a higher price and also they werent paying a commission so I automatically took off 4% of the asking price in my mind.


It was very easy dealing with the sellers because it was more of a personal level than a third party- going through a middle man.

We went to an open house they were holding. (they had OH signs up where we were driving around looking)

Re: How many people bought a Home For Sale by Owner?

I had/have mixed feelings about it.

We have a friend who is a realtor and next time we look, we will probably go through him to see houses (unless they are FSBO).

At first, the guy seemed great and was actually someone my DH knew from around town. But he did not negotiate one penny, even when there were problems. But we were in a tight spot and wanted/needed this condo badly.

I kind of wished in that situation, we had someone pulling for us. We also went with a family friend as a lawyer and that was a mistake as well.

Re: How many people bought a Home For Sale by Owner?

We found the ad in Newsday and overall, we liked it for our first experience. We didn't really try to negotiate because we were afraid of losing it.

Re: How many people bought a Home For Sale by Owner?

We did and wind up having lots of issues with the sellers.

Re: How many people bought a Home For Sale by Owner?

Our house was a for sale by owner. We were actually with a realitor looking at the house behind ours when we noticed our home was having a huge garage sale, including the home. So after the realitor left, we walked over and noticed that our house was in better condition than the other one. So we made an offer right then and there and they accepted and we went into contract. We have no regrets about it either.

Re: How many people bought a Home For Sale by Owner?

I did and it was a very good experience. The seller was really nice and easy to deal with. We did negotiate the price down to originally $12,000 below asking (ultimately we paid $18,000 less, long story). At first she said "Sorry!" but it turned out she was a big believer in karma and I was pregnant at the time and she raised her daughters there, so she felt it was "meant to be." Did I mention she was a bit of a hippy?

It didn't hurt that my DH and my BIL are real estate attorneys and BIL owns a title company and that my other BIL is a CPA/mortgage broker, so we definitely weren't going in blind!

PS...and my dad was the mailman in the neighborhood and found the house for us (the seller loved him!) --he turned out to be our mailman until he retired two weeks ago! So I think it was meant to be!

Message edited 9/20/2006 8:17:58 PM.

Re: How many people bought a Home For Sale by Owner?

Message edited 10/11/2006 9:21:02 AM.

Re: How many people bought a Home For Sale by Owner?

Message edited 1/30/2009 2:32:48 PM.

Re: How many people bought a Home For Sale by Owner?

Thanks for the tips guys. I really appreciate the posts.

Re: How many people bought a Home For Sale by Owner?

we bought our first two family fsbo.

personally, we prefer to deal with fsbos - takes away the games the realtors play -or the games that MOST of them play!