The FSBO Blog

“Home Staging” is a common name for that series of tasks undertaken to make your home look the best it can. It’s like “primping” for houses.

Several weeks ago there was a post about some resources for people trying to “stage” their home. Now we bring your attention to another option that may be available to you: hiring a PROFESSIONAL Home Stager. A story in the South Bend Tribune this past Saturday focused on this little-known niche service. Good people to talk to are interior decorators and designers (there is a difference, so I’m told! To call a Designer a Decorator is akin to the worst “your momma” insult you could dish out. “Designers” are the uber-experts.)

Another term I’ve heard, which I hope catches on because it’s far more user-friendly, is “House Fluffing.”

In light of this topic and some others that have come up recently, look for a set of survey questions here, soon. We are working on a study to try and determine how effective practices like “house fluffing” really are on maximizing the profit from a home sale. And we’ll also put together a “Top 5″ type list of the most and least effective suggestions. If you have any particular items you would like to see results from, please post a comment with it.

~Robert Creek
The FSBO Blog

A few days ago I brought your attention to a new blog created by “Bob & Martha Bradford” - the pen names of a very credentialed couple. Well, today they make it back in the que because they’re in the middle of an excellent series on negotiation - the weakest area, generally speaking, among buyers and sellers of “By Owner” real estate. Negotiating is not rocket science, and there are a few simple things you can do that will get you a lot of mileage, as “Bob” talks about in his “Negotiation Basics” post. And if you find that interesting, they’ve posted some links to free negotiation tips and resources.

~Robert Creek
The FSBO Blog

Like Catherine Myers and Frances Thorsen, I too am proud to be a part of the Real Estate Blog Squad - uniting this October in San Francisco to cover the 2005 Nat’l Association of Realtors annual convention.

The Blog Squad will be behind the scenes, in front of the scenes and everywhere offering up our commentary to the world thru combined efforts. Inman Real Estate News just posted an article about the Blog Squad, and while I’ll be one of the bloggers covering the convention remotely, I am in great company with some very exciting fellow bloggers.

Thanks to Frances Thorsen of the Realty Gram Blogger for coordinating this ambitious effort! Check it out for yourself at www.RealEstateBlogSquad.com, and see the article from Inman here.

~Robert Creek
The FSBO Blog

Even though it’s only a few days old, I ran across this new blog by “Bob & Martha Bradford” (pen names). The writers seem to be systematically covering a broad array of how-to topics for “By Owner” sellers.

I was curious about the pen names and concerned that the credentials listed in the “About Me” page may not be correct, so I contacted them. It all checks out, and they seem to be for real. He is an economist, attorney, and professor at a prestigious university. She is a top-producer at a large brokerage, as well as a well-known public speaker. So for the sake of prudence — wanting to be able to speak their mind without her being black-balled, professionally — they are writing anonymously for the timebeing. Very intriguing….

~Robert Creek
The FSBO Blog

An article from the Orlando Sentinel looks at discounted real estate services (”fee-for-service”), and observes their growing popularity among consumers - and even some agents. Key quote: “I’ve been in traditional real estate for 23 years, and it’s not what the customer wants anymore. Fee-for-service is the future of real estate, in my opinion.” ~ Julia Parsons, Broker

This tidbit from technology news provider ZDNet & Borrell & Associates: while overall real estate advertising is flattening, the online portion is set to grow by 55% in 2005. It is also interesting to note that much of that growth is from agents paying for lead generation, and consumers paying for searches. I’ll cover that topic in another post…..

~Robert Creek
The FSBO Blog

According to this article in the Washington Post, 21-year old Getinet Bantayehu has already bought and sold several investment properties without using real estate agents.

Getinet has earned the right to be quoted, with his keen ability to articulate the truth in a clear way:

“If you have the time and energy to do the work, then it doesn’t make sense to use a Realtor,” he said. “I mean it’s not like being a doctor. Obviously you wouldn’t want to perform your own surgery. But it is like being a barber. You could save 20 bucks and give yourself a haircut. Except when you’re your own Realtor, you save like 20,000 bucks.”

It has happened with air travel, stock trading, insurance rates, and even relationships. The next industry on the list for “reform by internet” is Real Estate.

Michael Poythress

We’ll start off answering the questions posed by searchers of The FSBO Blog with this one. Good question!

There is not supposed to be a set commission rate, legally - that would be collaborative coercion, and violates anti-trust laws in our wonderful United States. In fact, a couple decades ago the Federal Government forced real estate agents to break up their shared database (the Multiple Listing Service, or MLS) into independent, local directories - specifically to prevent agents from collectively setting a standard commission. (It worked.)

These days, according to sources such as the Wall Street Journal, Real Trends, Inman Real Estate News, and Newsweek, the national average for real estate agent commissions is somewhere around 5.1% to 5.4%.

Hovering at this level from around 2002 until today (2005), it’s down from 6% in the 90’s - and many agents indeed would still like to portray 6-7% as the going rate benchmark.

Even though there’s a national average, each locality has it’s own average “going rate” - that can vary from 5% to 7% (Rumor has it that in some areas, such as North Carolina, real estate agents have even been starting creeping as high as 8%). Also, even though that’s the high/average, it’s worth noting that some discount-commission agents will do the exact some work as full-commission agents, JUST AS EFFECTIVELY, and only charge anywhere from 0.1% to 3%.

But the real point to remember is this: commissions are negotiable.

An agent’s listing agreement is just like any other contract you would negotiate for, and nothing is set in stone. There are no laws about how much a realtor’s commission must be, and it matters little to you what the going national average is; what matters is how much your house would sell for and how much cold, hard cash that would translate to for the agent. If you house will sell for over $1 million, it is expected that your negotiated commission percentage would be a fraction of the percentage on a $100,000 house.

~Robert Creek
The FSBO Blog

The Dust Settling
Well, after a tremendously busy last few weeks, everything is finally slowing down enough to where the content of this blog can get the attention it deserves. As great as blogging software is, and as easy as it has become to setup a blog, it’s still not that easy when you’re trying to get everything working EXACTLY the way you want. But FINALLY…the technical setup is finished, the tweaks are done, and we’ve begun inviting additional contributors to author for The FSBO Blog (if you believe you have something to offer this audience, drop me an e-mail).

The Cream Rising To the Top
Now that we’ve gotten everything up and running and can finally spend time reviewing statistics and comments, some very interesting - and very helpful - information has surfaced. The “search” history is giving insight into the best posts on this blog, along with what kind of topics you’re looking for and interested in. And unfortunately, some of your favorite topics aren’t posted about enough. Some searches are for specific people or companies, and one can only guess why. But others are very clear - such as “what percent are realtors paid” or “FSBO Paperwork.”

We’re listening! Starting now, we’ll begin posting as soon as we see you’re looking for it. Being a blog, of course, we’d love to have your interaction and comments - post questions or requests if you have them. But if you don’t post, and you simply search for something that’s not here, rest assured that alarm bells will go off and lights will start flashing so we know something needs to be added.

Over time, an “About the Contributing Authors” section will appear over in the right hand column so you can learn a little about who we are and why we’re running this blog. We look forward to a long and bright future ahead!

~Robert Creek
The FSBO Blog