My husband and I have just started talking about relocating and looking at properties in the new area. Which leads us to pondering the sale of our current place.
We’ve got a 1700-ish sq ft 3 bedroom 2 bath double wide mobile home on 10 acres - with the land being surveyed into two distinct parcels (we did the house / barn and all horse amenities on the first 6-ish acres, and several years later we purchased the additional 3+ acres up front). So we could sell it together or separately (the ‘land alone’ 2nd purchase is paid off in full so we could even hold on to that).
It’s not a fancy place but it is very workman like and I’ve been using it to run a small boarding and lesson business for the past 18 years.
We are not too far from a large military base and two larger cities.
I’d love to hear if anyone has sold their small farms / smallish homes themselves.
The market is hot - in some places, not so in others. How is your market? Maybe do some research on Google on how to sell your own home. You will have to consider compensating buyers agents in some way during the transaction since they will bring you business. Good luck!!
Yes, we did it. In fact, in our opinion, if you can be present to show the farm to interested buyers, and answer questions etc, you do not need an agent. You only need a “real estate lawyer” to look over the agreement of sale prior to finalizing. If you need to sell your place and have already moved to a different country, and are not present, THEN you need an agent to represent you. If you are dead, or mentally incompetent or unable to show the property for any reason, then you need an agent to represent you. If you are present, competent and able, you are better off representing yourself. The fees for the lawyer are far less than the fees that a real estate agent charges, and it is better to have a lawyer involved anyway, even if you do use an agent. Trust no one (except, perhaps, your own lawyer). Good luck.
We bought our place FSBO last August. In my area, properties with 5 - 10 acres sell like hotcakes. Many times you don’t even have to advertise, just put the word out and interested parties will find you. I’d say try it FSBO for a few months, and if it doesn’t work, then list it.
We bought our farm FSBO … Owner and I sat down in Living room and dealt face to face … Then had a real estate lawyer draw up sales contract and final closing. The key is having the professional guide through the legal procedure. Everything before that, is between you and the buyer to agree on. (price, timing, amount of land, etc.)
We bought our farm FSBO through craigslist. Used an agent in the end to help us get the details straightened out bc the seller was so random. Would still do it again if we could - it was an amazing deal on a great property.
Are you in Sneads Ferry? To answer your question, there is an intermediate option between FSBO and full commission. It’s called purplebricks.com It’s a very cheap flat fee that still gives you listings in all the listing services. I’m not sure what other services you get, but it’s worth a look if FSBO doesn’t give you the exposure you need.
How did you establish your farm’s value? About 10 years ago I had two appraisal companies give appraisals on mine. The appraisals differed by 30K :eek:. I went out and looked at one company’s comps and they were no where near like my place. I refused to pay for that particular appraisal.
We/I did!! The last two farms…one a big TB training center and the last a home/horse farm/80 acres. Realtors just jacked us around…showing it to people who couldn’t afford it or weren’t even looking for what we had to offer…or realtors who were way overpricing it to make more commission!! Zillow (picked up by Realtor.com) and CL is the way to go!!
WOW, thank you everyone for your comments! I had forgotten to come back and check this again.
We will be closing on our new land next week so while we are excited about the new we are starting to get a little anxious about selling the current.
I just posted this same question (that I posted here) on a local horse group FB page and I had people ASKING ME where our place for sale is!
We have an 8 stall barn set up for lessons and boarding (which is what I did out here for the last 18 years) - with the horse facility and house on 6.9 acres with an additional 3.6 acres of pasture (separately surveyed). So we could market to either a family or someone wanting to do business.
But, yes, I think just posting it on our local FB horse pages would probably get it enough attention.
AND YES, we had our current realtor (who is handling the transaction of the land we are now buying in another town) work us up a sale price on our place and he was, in my opinion, WAAAAAY OFF and using comps that are not even RELATED to what we are selling! I mean, I understand having kennel blindness, but gosh almighty. I was like, dude, possibly look at other HORSE FACILITIES that are for sale in similar type towns… not a similar sq ft / year house on 3 acres for sale up the road from me!
When we bought the 3-ish acres to add to our current location 5 years ago we didn’t use an agent (I was already leasing it from the seller) so we went directly to an attorney and it went fine. Of course it was only bare land, and land that I had been leasing for 5+ years so I knew it well and was comfortable with ‘what it was’.
I also came back to add— with the land we are purchasing now and building on, our realtor… sigh. WE found this land. WE scouted every piece of land we’ve looked at over the past year (and it was about 6 properties). Our realtor never once met us to go look at land. He never once gave us a listing. We are closing next week and I have yet to meet him in person, he doesn’t reply to my emails, and my husband has only met him in person once.
I really don’t feel like he has earned the commission he is making off this sale. :-\ The only thing he did was act as the in-between to the seller to communicate about where WE were with the due diligence period and getting the actual closing date nailed down.
I feel confident our place will ‘sell itself’ to either a family with horses or someone wanting a starter boarding and lesson facility which is why I was looking into FSBO.
But how does it work with the buyer on their end if they have an agent, and their agent’s commission?
@Pal Beach - I know nothing about real estate, I’ve never sold property, only purchased and both times it was where I was already living so I didn’t use an agent as I felt comfortable with exactly what I was buying.
How is the buyer’s agent compensated? What if a buyer doesn’t have an agent? Would they just hire an attorney as well?
You are smart to wonder about this in advance. Basically, you should decide ahead of time whether you are willing to pay a commission to a buyer’s realtor. This disadvantage is obvious; it will cost you half of the normal commission (usually 3%, half of 6%) which would go to that agent. The advantage is that if you are willing to pay that half-commission you will probably get more showings, you can advertise it on Craigslist and Zillow (“agents, bring your buyers!”), and the prospective buyers will be promising because they have been vetted already and in the market for what you are offering.
If you don’t want to pay the commission, tell the buyers they will have to pay the realtor themselves. This might eliminate them because they may not have the up-front cash to do this so be ready to lose a sale in that situation. If you advertise, “no agents” then you will probably not have to deal with this situation.
Or you can offer to go halves with the buyers and pay a 1.5% commission.
If I were selling, I would price my property to afford that 3% and advertise accordingly.
As for the buyers having a lawyer, I would not worry about that. I would have my own lawyer draw up a contract and leave it up to the buyers to decide for themselves whether to hire their own attorney.
As I real estate agent I am very discouraged to hear about the lack of service some of you have experienced in trying to purchase/sell horse property. If you do go FSBO, be prepared to compensate an agent who brings you a buyer. Some buyers will have signed a buyer broker agreement detailing what THEY will pay the agent should the property not be listed or the Seller not willing to pay commission. Obviously if an agent does bring you an offer it should stipulate how much commission they are asking you to pay - commissions are negotiable and normally a seller’s commission is divided between the Seller’s agent and the Buyer’s agent so keep that in mind.
Also keep in mind many states have required disclosure items which as a FSBO you will be responsible for in the state mandated format. I don’t know if you are in a state that closes with attorneys or with escrow officers but either should be able to assist you with obtaining the forms.
If you should need a referral to a real estate agent or have questions feel free to PM me.
SUCH a timely thread for me! We are in a contract to purchase a property in another state - we are moving later this summer. And so now I am faced with what to do with my small horse property (my SO and I are not married and I own this place). I currently have it on the market to rent it, but I am seriously pondering selling it. And if I do go that route, then I’m wondering about FSBO.
I’m here for another two months, so I could show it during that time. This is a compelling route to me, primarily because of our current experience with our realtor for the property we are buying. She had done absolutely ZERO in finding the home for us. We, like you, found and scouted all the properties ourselves. The only properties she suggested were in the three-acre and less range and/or wooded. I told her many times that it had to be at least ten acres and mostly cleared/tillable acreage. But she never changed the MLS algorithm.
We put offers on several properties but the deals fell through because of inspection outcomes - and in one of them, we learned that she had actually lied to us regarding a communication with the seller’s agent - who was completely sheisty. This was after an inspection - we had emailed a “to do” contingency list to her to deliver to the seller’s agent, and we assumed that he would present it to the sellers. We were told that the sellers would not do any of the things on the list (like put a vent screen back up on a cupola - i mean, very minor stuff). So we called the sellers, and it turned out that they had never received nor heard of our “to do list.” This was after, when we made the initial offfer, we were immediately told to resubmit our “best and highest” offer - we were told that there were a bunch of offers. We refused and, guess what, we got the contract… (!!!). When I expressed a bit of outrage that it appeared we were being guided to bid against ourselves, she said, “oh no, that’s not it, please don’t think that! this is the way it always goes in this area!” I mean, nice - they could have added another 10K or so to the final sales price - by conning us into, what appears to me, bid against ourselves. Just WTAF.
So, after all of this BS, I NEVER want to deal with a realtor again. I feel our current one has done absolutely zero to earn her buyer’s fee. And when/if I sell my own farm, I really, REALLY do not want to deal with another realtor unless absolutely necessary (as in, the place does not sell while I’m here so I am forced to use one after I leave).
I never knew what a dishonest profession the realtor business is - until this current experience (this is the third property I have purchased). In doing some internet searches, I have learned that what I’ve dealt with is the norm. As someone above said, trust no one - except MAYBE your attorney.
