to stay on the market for an extremely long period of
time without selling.When you think about it, FSBOs don’t have access to
the tools to accurately price and market their property
themselves. And most sellers choose to sell FSBO because
they want to save on the brokerage fee. At the same time,
they build that into the price of the home. But not all
FSBOs are overpriced.
Dealing with Overpriced FSBOs
It seems that FSBOs not only want to save on the com-
mission but they also end up overpricing the property.
When negotiating the listing price with the sellers, it seems
many will try to keep an already high price to absorb the
commission they must pay. This brings us to a common
dilemma: If they don’t believe the problem, they won’t be-
lieve the solution. It is your job to educate and inform the
sellers, but it is the seller’s job to pick an agent whom they
trust to give them the best advice on pricing the property.
Sometimes the FSBOs still stick to their price even after
you’ve hammered and drilled the facts and statistics of
how they benefit by pricing it at the market value. When
this happens you have two choices:
- You can take the listing but get the sellers to agree
that they will reduce the price at a predetermined
date—say, after one month—if the buyer turnout
is lackluster. If the sellers don’t reduce the price
now nor agree to the predetermined price reduc-
The Real Estate Agent’s Guide to FSBOs