As most of you know, and from the title of my blog, I am an advocate of the “for sale by owner” model. I have had much success with the company Buy Owner who operates the web site buyowner.com. Recently I have been inundated with emails telling me that “my favorite FSBO is out of business.” Most of these emails are from real estate agents who forget I can Google their name and find out who they are. So it was time to get some answers.
The Daily Business Review posted an article indicating that Buy Owner’s assets had been turned over to Michael Moecker and Associates for liquidation. But, it also said that they were an Assignee for the Benefit of Creditors, also known as ABC. This is an alternative to bankruptcy. Now granted that Michael Moecker and Associates is known for liquidations, it seems they don’t plan on liquidating Buy Owner. How do I know this? Because the company is still running. You don’t run a company to liquidate it, you just liquidate it.
It seems that Buy Owner is still alive, although like most real estate companies in this market, they are struggling. But this is the time to thrive. Investors and flippers want to make as much money as they can, that makes FSBO the best possible was to sell a property.
Oh, and to all those people sending nasty emails to me, here’s more news. ForSaleByOwner.com IS part of the Tribune bankruptcy. Apparently it is going to be split off to some smaller entity. ByOwner.com is on auction. That’s right. The owner is auctioning off his assets but shows no financial statement indicating how much income the assets generate. To me, that seems a bit shaky.
I have to give Michael Mocker and Associates credit for seeing an opportunity here with Buy Owner. While the other two major FSBO’s are either in bankruptcy or bailing out in fear, they have decided to put time, effort, and money into keeping the last standing FSBO around. If I were in a position to do so, I would swoop in and scoop up all three companies and corner the entire FSBO market. But that’s just me.
Do you want to upgrade an area of your house but are not sure which area to choose? Want to know what potential buyers are most looking for in a new house? According to this Buy Owner Blog post, the Lansing State Journal stated that home buyers find improvements in the kitchen and bathroom to be most important.
With this information, you can upgrade areas of your house that you know most home buyers are looking for! The blog throws out some ideas of aspects to improve, such as upgrading appliances, adding a kitchenette, upgrading a bathroom with a double, his/her vanity and separating the toilet from the rest of the bathroom. The blog even links to past articles that offer advice on upgrading cabinets, countertops, sinks, lighting and décor in these rooms. It’s basically a how-to article for every aspect of your bathroom and kitchen!
Once you make these upgrades, if you’re advertising with Buy Owner, you can upgrade your ad to include these new aspects of your home. Home buyers will see that your home was recently remodeled or upgraded in the rooms that matter most to them, they’ll check it out and the rest is history. Blogs that supply all necessary information are the most helpful tools in the world, at least from a fellow blogger’s perspective!
My favorite blog to keep up with, the Buy Owner Blog, added a new category of blogs. If you are selling your home and moving to a new city, or you are searching for a city to relocate to, this category is for you. If you are looking for a place to vacation, this category is also for you.
It’s called Featured City and is located under the Buying Tips tab. Each blog focuses on a different city that Buy Owner works in or around. The blog provides helpful information on the city, from population and weather conditions, to local attractions and the distance to surrounding cities. If you’re interested in the city once you learn more about it, the blog lists houses, condos, apartments or the like that are for sale in that city. Click on the link and read more about each available residence. It’s as simple as ever!
Cities that the Buy Owner Blog has covered thus far include Aurora, IL, Lakeland, FL, Marietta, GA., Hialeah, FL and more. Check back often, as a new featured city seems to be added every week or so.
It’s no secret that I am a Buy Owner fan. It is the company that helped me through my FSBO transactions and it is the company I recommend to friends and blog readers.
I keep up with their blog, and during the month of January, that was especially helpful. I e-mailed several posts to my friends who are ready to sell, but I forgot to mention it here. Essentially, the entire month was a 31-day series on why to sell with Buy Owner.
Definitely check it out. Even if you’re not sure you want to sell FSBO, if you’re about to sell your house or you’ve had no luck selling it thus far, there is no harm in reading the 31 reasons why selling with Buy Owner is a smart choice. Because I sold a house using Buy Owner, I can acknowledge that what they say is true. You don’t pay anyone commissions, so it’s more money for you. People can find all the information on your house without leaving the comfort of their house, on the Internet. There are also new features of Buy Owner, like seeing what houses other people are viewing right at this moment, and the extra advertising on social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook.
Reading these 31 reasons to sell with Buy Owner will explain better than I ever could on why selling FSBO is the way to go. It also explains how Buy Owner stands out from other FSBO companies, so that when I continue to mention this company in the future, you will understand why.
Thinking of buying a new home? Worried about getting the best rate on your mortgage?
Take a look at the GuaranteedRate.com and Zillow.com!
Here’s how they work:
GUARANTEED RATE.COM*
1. Choose loan: purchase or refinance.
2. Pick the state in which you live.
3. Enter an estimated loan amount.
ZILLOW.COM*
1. Choose loan: refinance or home equity
2. Type in the purchase price of the house.
3. Enter your zip code.
In order to find the best rate, you begin the process the same way on each site entering the type of loan, your location and the estimated amount needed. However, while Zillow provides a list of lenders (leaving you to do all of the work), Guaranteed Rate does the work for you by giving you their result in addition to offering its competitors’ information up front to ensure that you’re getting the best rate possible.
*Neither service requires your Social Security Number.
Social networking isn’t just for job seekers and business marketers anymore! Use these available tools to your full advantage when selling your home. As a home seller, the rules for you are much like the rules being offered to job seekers. You are both trying to obtain a goal as the underdog, because there is an overload of you and less of what you are trying to obtain. You have to work extra hard to find those homebuyers and to spark their interest in you and your home!
How do you stand out from the overcrowded market of home sellers? You could aim for the easy route, which is to use Buy Owner. By advertising with them, you let them do all the work for you. They take professional photographs of your house that show off its best features, they write professional content to correspond with the photographs, they publish the advertisement on their website, they use social networking websites to increase the number of people that view your advertisement, they advertise in your yard with a number for passersby to call and obtain all of the information; they do so much more than one person could do on his or her own! How do I know this? I used them. It was the best decision I ever made.
How can you market yourself? You could do your own part by actively using social networking websites. Create an account on Twitter or Facebook, which I use as well, and let the world know that you are selling a house, the highlights of the house, the location of the house, etc. With or without a computer, you could also create advertisements to place around town on public bulletin boards. You could also place ads or open house schedules in the local newspapers. And the word of mouth never fails. Spread the word to your family members, friends, coworkers, neighbors, everyone! You never know who they might know, who might be looking for a house.
Using these contemporary tools is an ideal way to stand out from the crowd of home sellers and to sell your home as quickly as possible!
Ever feel like you didn’t get what you paid for? Like if you paid $50 for a plain white T-shirt with a store logo on it, and then you wondered if that logo was really worth it? Or if you visited a high-end restaurant and paid $100-plus for a dinner that didn’t even quiet your stomach rumbles? Contrarily, ever feel like you tried to save money by paying less for something that wasn’t worth it? Like if you bought a bike from a garage sale, but the brakes were dangerously squeaky and slippery, and you wondered if the cheap buy was worth the lack of safety?
Buy Owner’s services don’t feel like that. You get exactly what you paid for.
To suit all financial abilities, Buy Owner offers different advertisement sizes. The most affordable ads are short and sweet, such as one or two paragraphs of text, highlighted with photos. For a little more money, you could score four paragraphs of descriptive text and additional photos. The most expensive ad package, called Elite, provides your house with a personal website and individual descriptions of each room, supported with an array of photos.
Depending on how much you can afford and how much your home has to offer, you can choose the ad size that works best for you. The ad size you choose, along with how much you’re selling your home for, will decide how much you pay. Therefore, you get exactly what you pay for.
Visit BuyOwner.com to find out more.
When it comes to buying and selling FSBO, there are no limits to types of homes offered. If you do a quick search on any site to see what’s available for sale by owner, you won’t only find single-family homes and apartments. Many of the options present an investment opportunity, with the possibility of building houses or an apartment complex on vacant land, or living on a property that also contains a separate house, a guest house, a manufactured house or a vacant lot.
Doing a quick search on the site I find most credible, Buy Owner, I found all sorts of investment opportunities for anyone interested in real estate revenue. With Buy Owner, it’s so simple, because if you choose to do an advanced search, you have the option of choosing business property, vacant land, commercial property and others.
One option I found included a duplex that is available to own and currently contains renters. That’s immediate income for whoever purchases it! I also found a two-flat that had one renter and a bar in the bottom, which would obviously provide immediate income. Lots of vacant land was available, with permits already allowing construction. I found a few lots that included an extra lot next door, and one property included three gorgeous homes that could all be rented!
The best part of it is that even if you don’t realize there’s an investment opportunity available with a purchase, the writing description will usually point that out for you. Why not at least consider the possibility of making an income with your real estate purchase?
According to a recent post from the Buy Owner Blog, data shows that the housing market is beginning to stabilize and that an improvement is foreseen for the future. No data can tell us when the improvement will begin, or where, but this article from Forbes.com does inform us where the best and worst markets currently exist.
Los Angeles is one city that is seeing an improvement after being hit hard. Home sellers are beginning to receive multiple bids. Other cities that are noticing an improvement include Denver, Boston, Phoenix and San Diego.
Though those cities show progress, others still show a decline in home sales, including Seattle, Washington D.C., Cleveland, Detroit and Las Vegas. If you’re looking to buy, these are the areas to check out for great deals!
For more information on how the results were formed, and what to expect in the future, read the rest of the article here.
Caught this recent post at the Buy Owner Blog, about how to sell in today’s buyers’ market, and I thought their advice was interesting: essentially, they recommend that you lower your price by $5000.
What do you think about this?
My first reaction is to say, honestly, I know how hard it is as a seller to want to lower your asking price. However, as someone who has been on the buying side (and haven’t we all?), I also know there are a lot of homes available right now, for very low prices, and if you don’t price competitively, you’ll be left behind.
To read the rest of the article, click here.
