Question on for sale by owner property, How far should I take it?

[John Baeten]

I have found a property for sale by owner in my area from Zillow.com. It also appears on other MLS sites, but no site lets me contact the seller – they all point me to a realtor when I click on the contact button. I am unable to find the property on the site forsalebyowner.com.

I would like to deal directly with the seller and not use a realtor to get more information about the property. I would think I could possibly have more leverage dealing directly with the seller.

In looking more into the property, I have found the owner’s name and then doing a look up I might have his current address (he does not live at the property). My question is how far should I go with this? If he did not list it on forssalebyowner.com – maybe he doesn’t want to be contacted directly? I understand Zillow.com and other sites like that must make some of there money by sending potential buyers to realtor’s that have been pre-selected. Or should I go all out and get his phone number and try to contact him that way?

Any thoughts on this would be great, and as always thank you very much for you help/ideas.