FSBO - Horse Properties~ Has Anyone Had Success Selling Without a Realtor?

[clydester]

[QUOTE=bkkone;7076266]
Can anyone weight-in on their experiences? Did you advertise on the FSBO websites (which ones), craigslist, local papers or just put a sign out front?[/QUOTE]

This thread has a wealth of information! Thanks bkkone for sharing it with me as well as your experiences and supportiveness in FSBO for another Aiken area horse farm. After working with a few realtors, I have been doing FSBO for a horse farm because I realized that as a web designer, I had a jump on marketing skills and I had felt the realtors I worked with did not market my prop as much as I would have liked to other realtors. I decided to use a flat fee listing service to get it on the MLS and realtor.com and offer a 3% buyer’s agent commission. I am getting more showings this way and have really done my homework in terms of educating myself on contracts, securing resources for prospective buyers, and working to be as on top of comps and market activity to price appropriately irregardless of what I have into it etc… This process is labor intensive and not for the faint of heart in this buyers market but if you have the time to put in, the skills to market/advertise and the willingness to hold buyer’s hands or completely give them space or refer them out and encourage them to bring their realtors, I believe it can be an effective way to sell a horse farm. bkkone, hustle, keep the faith and I think you will have success! ???

[bkkone]

Thanks! It’s been an interesting journey and a learning curve (in a good way). I’m glad that COTH helped me figure out how best to showcase my place. Lots of stuff I won’t have thought of.

[Derby_Lyn_Farms]

We tried it but it seems like you get more serious people with a realtor. My dad hired a local realtor who brought us ridiculous offers. So I found a realtor that specialized in horse properties. She had it sold within a month.

[bkkone]

That’s a good point with the more serious folks having a buyer’s agent! I’m going to try for a bit longer as I have had some good bites.

You’re right…if you use a realtor you need a specialized one for horse properties.

[crosscreeksh]

We have tried selling our horse farm in Oklahoma with and without a realtor. I have a VERY thorough web page with full description and details of the property as well as about 60 prime pictures of the house, barns and land, including fantastic helicopter taken, aerials. Since this is primarily cattle country the realtors have all been pretty useless!! They bring cattle ranchers who are looking for grazing land…not custom stables and jump courses!! Or like the last one…“I Absolutely MUST show your property in a few hours”…we have 80 acres…turns out customer is looking for 10 acres AND wants a contingency contract!! I recently did a flat rate listing with a broker to get it on Realtor.com. No action in 5 weeks so I check out the site and our property is marked “Sold/Unavailable”…THAT was useless. I have it advertised on Lands of America (Oklahoma), Horse Clicks, Equine Now, and a local CL. Problem we’re seeing is buyer financing issues. We will pay a 1/2 commission to an agent, but for what I see…I, as the seller am a lot more inspired to advertise/promote our property than a listing agent. So we lowered the price and are doing FSBO!! Just my experience!!

[AmarachAcres]

This is how we sold our property in Oklahoma. First we rented it out by owner and the moment someone moved out we had a waiting list of our choice of people, then when we were ready to sell we had offers within two weeks.

This is a best case scenario but FSBO CAN work. They still had a realtor but we saved 6% by not having one of our own, and THEIRS plus the Closing company did all the work for us. We also negotiated quite well and walked away happy.

[QUOTE=crosscreeksh;7359256]
We have tried selling our horse farm in Oklahoma with and without a realtor. I have a VERY thorough web page with full description and details of the property as well as about 60 prime pictures of the house, barns and land, including fantastic helicopter taken, aerials. Since this is primarily cattle country the realtors have all been pretty useless!! They bring cattle ranchers who are looking for grazing land…not custom stables and jump courses!! Or like the last one…“I Absolutely MUST show your property in a few hours”…we have 80 acres…turns out customer is looking for 10 acres AND wants a contingency contract!! I recently did a flat rate listing with a broker to get it on Realtor.com. No action in 5 weeks so I check out the site and our property is marked “Sold/Unavailable”…THAT was useless. I have it advertised on Lands of America (Oklahoma), Horse Clicks, Equine Now, and a local CL. Problem we’re seeing is buyer financing issues. We will pay a 1/2 commission to an agent, but for what I see…I, as the seller am a lot more inspired to advertise/promote our property than a listing agent. So we lowered the price and are doing FSBO!! Just my experience!![/QUOTE]

[NJRider]

Just wanted to chime in, I also will be selling my facility in SW MO. Listing it in the spring, no hurry to sell. I have been warned that the buyers will pretty much have to be a cash or have additional sources of financing besides conventional since it will not appraise out like a normal residential property. 1/3 the value is in the house, 1/3 the land and 1/3 the outbuildings which include a very nice, new indoor arena.
crosscreeksh and others selling, are you running into this as well or are there other sources of financing for buyers of farms like this (non-commercial)?

[Belle_Beach]

Good ideas on this post…but would caution anyone that does FSBO to factor in the chance that the person seeing your sign, might not have your best interests at heart.

Having that sign out can mean thieves target you, rapists, murderers, as you are inviting people to drive up to your home and knock on door. While 99% of them might not have anything in mind BUT seeing your house in the hopes it will be what they are looking for?

There is always that 1% that is not your potential buyer…but is there to harm you.

Or your family.

A realtor, or agent can vet the potential buyer, you can request only people that have the funding ready to go be shown the property, instead of just people browsing around. Which is something harder for owner to do, if not impossible.

And a good agent is worth their weight in gold too.

You can negotiate to see if commission can be lower, and having that MLS can help greatly too.

Nowadays? There is no way I would want someone just seeing a FSBO sign, and making themselves to home.

Just something to consider, especially if you have children, do you really want strangers walking up to your door when your children are home alone, because you are at barn, or ran to store, or even in shower?

I sold real estate for several years…and this was something we talked about, as being a female agent can also get you killed.

[JanM]

I think the major factor is great marketing, and whether you have a realtor or not, you need a great marketing plan, with great pictures online (I prefer realtor.com because of the audience size), and maybe farm sale sites also. A great majority of buyers find places by looking online, and if you aren’t out there on the web, then you are sunk. When I’m looking at houses, I skip ones without pictures, or only one picture, and bad pictures are a turnoff. I don’t want to waste my time looking at a property in person, if it’s not what I would ever want. There’s too much inventory out there to waste time looking at properties you would never want to live in.

[PeteyPie]

I didn’t read the whole thread so I may be repeating…

I think the most difficult house to sell without a realtor is a starter home, because most buyers in that sector need/want the support of a realtor. Since you are not in that market, you will probably be dealing with people who have purchased real estate before and are more informed and comfortable with the process. If you have no luck, you can always list it after trying to sell it yourself.

Be prepared to see a good buyer represented by a realtor. Decide ahead of time how you will handle that. The normal fee for the buying agent is 3% (half of the full fee of 6%) which you may be asked to pay. I say be prepared, because if you have a solid buyer it might be worth it – in other words make it clear that all offers will be considered rather than saying “absolutely no agents!!!” If such a buyer appears, you might be able to negotiate the sales price to accomodate the situation, or at least make it doable.

Signs are so important. I discovered, after renting out several homes for myself and family members, that the sign on the house was the most effective form of advertising. If you are on a secluded road that may not be the case, so you won’t rely on only a sign, but do put up a sign. Many times a neighbor will spread the word to friends and family wanting to live near them.

Have the home inspection done before you sell, before you even advertise. That way, you will be forewarned about issues and can fix things ahead of time or negotiate items which you don’t want to fix; you and the buyers will not get any nasty, complicating, last-minute surprises to ruin the deal. I can’t remember what the fee structure is for having the inspector come back out to check on the repairs, but you can ask.

[gottagrey]

one of the other posters brought up a good point. they were interested in FBSO house but were working w/ a realtor. The seller didn’t want to involve ANY realtor - as a seller you might be willing to work w/ a buyer’s agent and in that situation you can negotiate the amount of her commission 3% ±. Also depending on where you live and how much knowledge you have about the area rules, taxes, regulations etc. A realtor could help you w/ some ordinances/regs that you may not be aware of. For instance, near my house we have an Ag preserve which is very tightly regulated so someone selling a property in that area would have to have a lot of knowledge about the Ag Preserve and we also have some crazy Ag tax structure. As a seller I don’t know that i would want the responsibility of having to translate any of that kind of information. Same thing w/ wells, perks, building etc.

[PeteyPie]

[QUOTE=NJRider;7363997]
Just wanted to chime in, I also will be selling my facility in SW MO. Listing it in the spring, no hurry to sell. I have been warned that the buyers will pretty much have to be a cash or have additional sources of financing besides conventional since it will not appraise out like a normal residential property. 1/3 the value is in the house, 1/3 the land and 1/3 the outbuildings which include a very nice, new indoor arena.
crosscreeksh and others selling, are you running into this as well or are there other sources of financing for buyers of farms like this (non-commercial)?[/QUOTE]

Again, I didn’t read the total thread, but this is a good situation to prepare for: having financing information available to prospective buyers. A realtor would do that, so you should do it too. Find out about all the different financing options for which your property qualifies such as farm loans, conventional loans, VA, FHA, all those acronyms. Sometimes realtors will have a mortgage person at an open house. This will probably not be possible for you, but you could at least have the broker’s/banker’s card with printouts on several loan products available and on different payment options available (breakdowns showing monthly payments showing different down payments, interest rates, programs with mortgage insurance, without, etc. In other words, spoon feed it like the pros do. As someone else said, put a brief spiel if there are tax advantages on the sale description or somewhere.

[clanter]

30 years ago when we bought our place we had ten offers before we moved in, usually we have two to three unsolicited offers a years… but our place is somewhat different as we are multiple acreage inside the city…there is a $2 billion dollar mall less than a mile away… but where we are it is nearly like being in the country as our nearest neighbor is actually across the street.

So my comment is really it is where you are if you need a realtor’s assistance

[crosscreeksh]

[QUOTE=NJRider;7363997]
Just wanted to chime in, I also will be selling my facility in SW MO. Listing it in the spring, no hurry to sell. I have been warned that the buyers will pretty much have to be a cash or have additional sources of financing besides conventional since it will not appraise out like a normal residential property. 1/3 the value is in the house, 1/3 the land and 1/3 the outbuildings which include a very nice, new indoor arena.
crosscreeksh and others selling, are you running into this as well or are there other sources of financing for buyers of farms like this (non-commercial)?[/QUOTE]

I agree that financing a horse farm is very difficult!! We cannot/will not rent/lease…I’ve been involved with that scenario and will never do it again!! We take excellent care of our property and renters are not so motivated. Years ago we rented/to buy - our horse facility in NY as per realtor’s suggestion. The people TOTALLY trashed the place (30 stall barn/indoor track and arena + nice big house on 55 acres) in just a couple of months and skipped town owing ALL the rent…never paid a penny and we had to go 800 miles back to our farm and spend a ton of money and time repairing damages and removing junk…and reduced the price $50k!! I’d sooner wait for a paying customer!!

[FreshAir]

We have had our place on the market for a while. My beef is that the real estate agent doesn’t prequalify the prospective buyers enough to equal all the work that goes into getting ready for a showing. We had one man who kept coming back, and come to find out, he had no real dollars to pay anywhere near the asking price. Next time we go through the pain of preparing it to show (moving dogs out, etc), this looker better have gone through the pain of pre-qualifying.

[crosscreeksh]

[QUOTE=FreshAir;7366649]
We have had our place on the market for a while. My beef is that the real estate agent doesn’t prequalify the prospective buyers enough to equal all the work that goes into getting ready for a showing. We had one man who kept coming back, and come to find out, he had no real dollars to pay anywhere near the asking price. Next time we go through the pain of preparing it to show (moving dogs out, etc), this looker better have gone through the pain of pre-qualifying.[/QUOTE]

Absolutely the realtor’s responsibility!!! We had a realtor take a contract on our $1.3m training center in NC from an army private at a local military base on his “say-so” that family was going to finance. Farm was off the market for 4 months and the soldier dropped off the face of the earth while we stood around doing nothing!! I also refuse to show the property to a realtor on a few hours notice, who calls with “clients just looking to see what is available in the area”!! If they aren’t specifically looking for a “Horse Farm”…don’t bother me. We have a “Horse Farm” with a home…not a cattle pasture/ranch. Cattlemen don’t care about the $80k, custom stable and other horse accommodations and facilities!!

[JanM]

After having been around the block a few times (I give my age as ‘older than dirt’ these days), I have a list of things I will never do. Rent to own/option to buy is not happening; letting anyone move in before closing, even with them paying for the privilege (if they don’t close, then you have to evict them, and some states it’s a long hard road while they trash your house); and I’m not capable of renting a house out and being a landlord. I also won’t hire an agent that isn’t full time, has a proven sales record, and tells me how they are marketing the house. And if they don’t put a bunch of great pictures on realtor.com, then they aren’t working for me. And as others have said, you can pay to have your listing on realtor.com, and don’t have to hire an agent.

[JanM]

Gottagrey has a great point. If you do a FSBO, then work with buyer’s realtors, because in this market it’s better to pay 3% to them, than stay on the market and not sell. Don’t reject lowball offers automatically, unless they refuse to negotiate, and won’t raise their offer. Many people seem to think the lowball offer is a first step, and if it’s rejected, but you counter, they might start negotiating a more reasonable offer.

[Calamber]

[QUOTE=JanM;7096034]
I think now that we’re paying for the marketing of the property, and not the personal showings we used to. Looking quite a while ago, it was my realtor, and I (or is it me?), driving around. The people who actually lived in the houses were told we were coming, but empty houses were with a lock box. I think the technology that records who showed the property last, and when the key was used, covers the selling broker if anything happens.

A funny (sort of) story about my house hunt a few years ago. My realtor and I went to look at an empty house with a lockbox, and the key was missing. Because of the technology involved, he called the listing broker’s office, and they called the realtor who had just shown the house. The other realtor came back while we hid around the corner (so I didn’t seem too eager), and returned the key. We went in, looked around, and then discovered the back sliding door was totally unlocked, and not even closed fully-so we could have just come in without waiting for the key to come back.

My last house sale was a great price, and I was in a hurry to sell, so the realtor called her office about the listing, and there were two showings the next work day, and an offer by evening. My realtor did both showings herself, and it was because she knew it would be a quick sale, but some local realtors go to the property only to do the listing, arrange for the sign, and finalize the listing. I don’t know how the more expensive listing agents do things, because I’m simply not in that price bracket, or ever will be. If I were selling a really expensive property, then I would expect the agent to do showings by appointment, and some agents pick up a dual agency buyer, and then their agency gets the full commission.[/QUOTE]

By the way, you cannot, cannot, cannot, enter a house for sale that has a lockbox without going through the lockbox. Otherwise, it would be considered trespassing and agent could lose his/her license. I would not do it even if it did not, I enter with a key and that is it. No need to end up arrested.").

[bkkone]

It’s an interesting journey with the horse properties! I contacted 3 realtors and wanted them to come out and talk about being my selling agent. One came and plopped some horse mags on the table along with a contract. When I asked about marketing and did they know how effective the mags were, the answer was no idea but more people look at the website. I asked how it was decided which properties went in the ad and was told it was a rotation. That’s it. No other plan.

The other 2 realtors refused to even drive out to meet with me unless I told them before hand they had the listing. I’ve never experienced this before. One even told me a story of botching a sale and in the next breath what a fab agent she was.

I’m going to up my own marketing game. Thanks so much for all input…love it.