FSBO (for sale by owner) listings could be tempting to opt for, especially if you don’t want to spend on real estate commissions. However, selling your home on your own in New Jersey is a complex and lengthy process. It has its disadvantages too. Some of the key ones are listed below.
A Lengthy and Complex Process
If you take up the FSBO route to find an answer to your question – “how do I sell my house fast in NJ?” you’ll be up for disappointment. Selling on your own would mean doing all the legwork and associated tasks by yourself. From researching the market, setting a sales price, learning about the relevant financial and legal details, creating marketing materials for the home, and advertising the property to screening potential buyers, scheduling house showings for them, and negotiating contracts, you’ll have to do all these and more. That’s why FSBOs will take a lot of your energy, time, and patience but may still not sell fast. A faster alternative is to come to us as we buy houses in NJ for cash.
The Risk of Overselling or Underselling
Since you have an emotional investment in your home, you may tend to oversell the features and amenities of your home. Attracted by these, when interested buyers come to check the place in person, they’ll find how exaggerated your claims and price have been. Thus, they’ll trust you less and may not be interested in buying. In case your house has been sitting on the market for long, you may end up selling it for a price much lower than what its fair price should have been (by failing to negotiate well) or sell it to the wrong buyer.
Lack of Experience and Access to Necessary Resources
Experienced realtors have their own networks, are adept in social media marketing, and have access to multiple listing services, websites, newspapers, etc. By using all these platforms, they can give your home the desired exposure to target the right buyers. But you won’t have access to most of these insider resources or may not know the right way to leverage them. Thus, you could end up attracting casual buyers who’re “just looking” and don’t really have any solid plans to buy a home. Even when clicking photos of your home or staging it, your lack of experience and access to the necessary resources could mean an amateurish listing that fails to impress and attract potential buyers.
Navigating the Complex Closing Process Is Tough
After you have found a buyer, you’ll need to negotiate with the buyer’s agent. Usually, you may also have to meet their attorney to sign the closing papers. Doing it on your own could make you miss some important documents like the final home inspection report, a written mortgage commitment, attorney-approved contracts, etc. If you had engaged an experienced realtor, you could have sailed through the closing process stress-free as your realtor would have competently dealt with the legal and financial aspects of the process.
Even if FSBOs sound lucrative, going with a realtor is a wiser decision when “I want to sell my house fast in NJ”is your goal.
