Ever use FSBO.com, Trulia, Zillow etc?

[Speedling]

So, we aren't ready enough for the realtor to put up the house for sale. We are finishing up a few bigger projects, and with me working 80 hours a week or so, it's really not wrapping up until winter, when construction gets slow and I have weeks on end to get them done. In any case, we were thinking of throwing the house up for sale ourselves this fall.
FSBO.com asks for 89.95 to use their site to basically post an ad. $129 if I want the sign, the post with brochure holder and 50 brochures, and $350 for the MLS listing and an actual agent putting the house on Zillow etc. but won't show the house, but will still negotiate for closing cost fees of 2-3%.
So has anyone used this service?
I can easily post on Trulia and Zillow for free and put a sign up front, but will that be effective at all?
Is the FSBO cost even worth the money?

So what's your thoughts?
Experiences with any services?

 

[justason]

Hi Speedling. This an extension of your rental property pursuit of a few months ago? decided to go for it?

When we moved to NC I used FSBO extensively to find a place to live, I thought their magazines and formats were clean and well laid out. I have every intention of using them when we sold our 1st place here but we had a concern on timeline and turnover. In hindsight I wish I gave them a shot, we sold in a weekend at a realtor fee of "ouch".

I am not familiar with Trulia. Zillow I use as a reference and screening tool.

Another data point I use to access often here is the county real estate records. It reflects prices paid for a property, taxes and valuation. Might be useful as a negotiating tool on the other end of your venture. (wont reflect an equity loan debt of course).

I've sold property before without a real estate agent, and plan to do it with my current property in a few years, I will use FSBO at that time. It's rewarding and you save a great deal of cash. FSBO may have a P&S agreement to accept a deal or you can find one on the WWW. Once that part is done it all goes to an attorney, negating the agent.

I would think the biggest variable in FSBO vs. an agent is how fluid your current market is. turnover here is pretty solid lately. Selling/buying a house has so many fee's to it, adding in a gamble of $129-$350 may be in the noise or a worthy gamble.....Getting it on the MLS I would think it very important, Agents may "overlook it" out of spite, but anyone searching on their own will see it. My wife and I have found all our houses on our own, we've only used an agent to unlock the front door, and have never paid a buyers fee.

Have open houses, signs/balloons ....all about traffic flow and exposure......

My $0.02, FWIW. I use to enjoy playing in real estate would love to get back into it.

 

[BigN8]

I used a similar site years ago called myMLS.com I think. It was the same. I think it was $500 and I got a door lock, a sign, the flyers, but more importantly was the MLS listing. You really need the MLS listing. It was also recommended to advertise that you are buying agent friendly, meaning you will may a couple points to the buyers agent. Otherwise the other agents may black ball you.

 

[Julian]

Rumor is that the big boys under "Realogy" (and perhaps some others) are building a Zillow busting app of their own in an attempt to try and block them from the game. Waste of time IMHO, but we'll see what they come up with.

I used Zillow extensively to find my new home. My agent didn't find me any houses I hadn't already scoped out on Zillow.

I would definately try a sell by yourself approach first if time isn't a big factor.

 

[Speedling]

Sort of an extension of the rental thing.
We decided not to rent out the home. Just too risky with not enough funds up front for us to feel safe. Takes money to make money.

It did however make us think things through and we decided to move due to a few reasons mostly related to the train in the back yard and location to highways for work and lake Michigan access.

Before putting it up with a realtor he wants me to paint the whole house, redo both decks and finish the basement which is all but mudded and painted. Three different realtors said they think they could get $230k which looking around i think would be list price not sell price.
I put it on zillow this morning.

 

[jawsf16]

Mlsmyhome.com will get buyers realtors contacting you. Just post a set fee for their realtors and you save half.

If you have a military base in your area use militarybyowner.com. I did this twice and did not pay a realtor on one and paid a flat fee on another.

 

[jetboater4life]

I sold my last home by putting a sign in the yard while I worked on it to fix things up. I got a home inspection and then addressed all the things on the list and kept detailed records. We decided we could afford to own two homes for a while and felt moving everything out gave us the best chance of selling ours quickly. It worked. The people that bought it became our friends as well. To come up with a list price, I did research with realty.com, zillow.com, trulia.com and found comparables, not necessarily in the same neighborhood (because that is very limiting), but of similar style houses. We negotiated via emails and after a couple of rounds agreed upon a price. I had a trusted real estate attorney that I used to do the closing and everything went smoothly. Before listing, I got a rough number for a price from the agent we used to buy our next house. It was right in line with my own research. I priced less than that, essentially giving most of the real estate fees, in savings to the prospective buyer. Could I have gotten more by listing with an agent??? Maybe a few thousand, but I felt at that price it would have sat longer on the market. Remember the three L's Location, Location, Location.