FSBO: Is it worth it?

[Robin L.]

My husband and I are looking to move soon. We were considering the idea of selling our place ourselves. 

Reasons I think we can FSBO:

1.This is the third home we have purchased (and now will be selling) in a 10 year period, so we are familiar with the process. 

2.For our last two places, I read a lot about staging and worked hard to clean, repair and stage well. My husband took the photos (he has a nice camera and has taken photography classes) The realtors were so impressed one shaved 0.5% of her fee off since she didn't need to hire a stager or photographer and another agent asked us to stage and photograph another one of their listings. 

3. Our neighborhood is only 5 years old and there are only a handful of floor plans. There are 4 identical floorpans that have sold in the last 6 months so I've got great comparables. We also had an appraisal done in the last 90 days so we have a pretty good idea of what it will sell for. Since it's so new (our house is 2 years old) there are no problems with the house--it still has that new house smell. 

Reasons I'm afraid to FSBO:

1. You hear horror stories of things going wrong. The Real Estate Profession exist for a reason, they are professionals with a lot of knowledge and in my experience a good one can spot and handle issues before they become big (and costly) problems. There are a lot of I's to dot and T's to cross in a real estate transaction and they do this day in and day out. Real estate agents can take a lot of the stress out. 

2. How much do you really save? Real estate agents say they can get better prices so is it really worth the hassle? Most people around here  use a real estate agent so I don't think I will be able to avoid the buyer's agent fee, but saving 3% would be a huge number as our house appraised for $480,000 and most of the comps are in the $460's 

Thoughts?

[Thomas S.]

Down side to FSBO is the buyers think they can get a discount because the seller is saving real estate fees, Agents tend to steer away from FSBO to simplify their job. Unless buyer is saving money on the purchase price there is no benefit therefor no incentive to convince their agent to show them a FSBO.

FSBO is a crap shoot.