How do you decide whether to sell your home (or land, farm, ranch, etc.) on your own or use a real estate broker? There are pluses and minuses to each approach. Lets look at some of the key ups and downs. Only you can decide which approach has the most pluses in your situation.
Why go FSBO?
FSBO stands for for sale by owner and tells buyers you are not using a realtor to represent you. The biggest upside to going FSBO is you save thousands of dollars in broker commissions when you sell the property. This may seem obvious, but the savings are very real.
The downside to going FSBO is it takes your time to market and show the property. (Youll need to prepare your property for sale in either case, but thats a whole separate topic.) You also need to be familiar with how the real estate sales process works in your part of the country. It isnt necessary to be an expert; just make sure you understand what things one must generally deal with in a real estate sales transaction.
Also, its important to have access to the helpers you need. Examples include a lender who is willing to qualify your prospective buyers, someone qualified and willing to draw the sales contract and a person or firm qualified to close your sales transaction. Fortunately, there are many lenders and settlement offices willing to work directly with the principals to a transaction. And, for the brave and hopefully, very experienced, there are on-line, fill in the blank, sales contracts.
Why use a broker?
Does the above discussion leave you feeling insecure instead of alert, thoughtful, and excited? If so, you probably want a real estate broker to sell your home for you.
Other instances when you may want to use a broker include:
1. Inexperience – If you have not had much experience buying and selling homes, a broker may be the answer.
2. Local Conditions Are you aware of the unique issues of the geographic location? If you have bought and sold in Virginia (where termites and radon are concerns) and you are now planning to sell the one home youve owned in Colorado (where water and mineral rights might be on the discussion table), its possible you may want a broker.
3. Time, Time, Time – If your profession provides for you and your family very well, but takes up enormous amounts of your time, ditto.
4. If you have no notions about how youd go about marketing your home using the Internet, magazines, newspapers, bulletin boards, brochures, signs, word-of-mouth, etc., a broker can get you the marketing exposure you need.
The Right Choice?
There is no one right choice. Only you can decide whats best for you. Hopefully, this look at the pros and cons will get your mental juices flowing nicely. I hope your sale goes smoothly.
If you are in the market of purchasing or selling a home, it is likely that you will come across many different documents of a wide variety, each of these will likely have different uses, functions, and names associated with it. When selling or buying a home two documents that are misunderstood the most are called quit claim deed and warranty deed. People tend to believe that both forms are exactly alike, well I am here to tell you differently.
Warranty Deed
This document is a deed that is presented to you by the seller and can be used in a wide variety of transactions that involve sales. This warranty basically tells you that the property being sold is indeed owned by the seller and that there are not any types of liens placed upon it, essentially saying it is free and clear. This assures the buyer that the seller has all legal rights in transferring ownership to them without any type of holdings on it. This means that there are no claims that could be made by anyone that may include financial institutions or otherwise, on this property. With the warranty deed, the buyer is protected by the court of law if the claims should prove to be false or the event occurs when someone does have the ability to place claim on the property. The law states that in either of these events, the buyer would be entitled to compensation of some form. It is seldom that the warranty deed will not be coupled with an insurance policy on the title, so the buyer is assured a free and clear title.
Quit Claim Deed
This deed is on the opposite end of the spectrum from the warranty deed. The quit claim deed, is generally presented to you by a seller who likely does not personally own the property in question, however, they do have some responsibility over it. There are a variety of reasons that a quit claim deed can be used this can include, when the actual owner has died but has left the property in question to a friend or family member. Additionally, it can be used when a couple has gotten married and the spouse wants to include the other party on the title. This type of deed does not offer the same type of assurances to the buyer as the warranty deed does, it is for this reason that this is typically used when the sale will occur within the family.