Best Ways to Sell Your Home Without an Agent in NYC

Save 2% When Buying a Home In NYC: https://www.hauseit.com/hauseit-buyer-closing-credit-nyc/
Save 6% in Broker Commissions When Selling: https://www.hauseit.com/agent-assisted-fsbo/

Homeowners in NYC have it rough. In addition to being harder in NYC than anywhere else in the country to sell your home without an agent, NYC homeowners pay some of the highest seller closing costs in the country due to the combination of high sale prices and high real estate commissions in NYC.

While a 6% broker commission may not sound too bad to average US homeowners where the average US home value is ~$250,000, the typical broker fee of 6% in NYC equates to roughly $60,000 in fees on a $1 million home sale.

Estimate your closing costs using Hauseit’s Interactive Closing Cost Calculator for Sellers.

Considering that average seller closing costs in NYC are between 8% to 10% of the sale price, it’s not surprising that many sellers faced with these daunting costs explore the idea of selling FSBO. That being said, the first thing you should avoid doing as a seller in NYC is to rush off and hastily post your home “for sale by owner” or FSBO on Zillow with photos taken on your cell phone.

Traditional FSBO sellers in NYC have some of the lowest success rates in the country. One reason is that over 75% of buyers in NYC are represented by agents. These agents only work with listings that are posted in the RLS Broker Database by fellow agents which are offering a buyer’s agent commission.

Even if you are willing to compensate a buyer’s agent as a FSBO seller, the majority of buyer brokers won’t see your listing if you’re not listed in RLS. Those that happen to find your listing online will not be motivated to contact you, as FSBO sellers are generally considered to be unreliable, unrealistic, difficult to work with and shady when it comes to actually paying a buyer agent commission.

Another reason why FSBO sellers in NYC overwhelmingly fail is because they are routinely harassed and fed misinformation by vulture real estate agents whose mission is to convert FSBO leads into full commission paying sellers. This relentless solicitation can break the confidence of even the most resilient FSBO seller.

Most prospective FSBO sellers don’t realize that they can eliminate these common pitfalls with selling FSBO while still saving up to 6% in broker fees simply by using an Agent Assisted FSBO (Flat Fee MLS) Listing Service.

Don’t Tell the World That You Are Selling FSBO

This may seem counterintuitive at first, but posting an email and phone number online is a common trap which first time FSBO home sellers often fall for. NYC brokers and agents can’t wait to see their daily list of new FSBO home sellers who they can cold call to pitch their services.

Believe it or not, there are marketing companies that scour FSBO listings on The New York Times, Zillow and StreetEasy for the contact information of new FSBO sellers.

Marketing companies then sell these lists, complete with seller contact information, to brokers who are short on listings and desperate for new business.

But the broker solicitation and harassment doesn’t simply stop at just emails and incessant phone calls. Many real estate agents desperate for your attention will go so far as to pretend to have a buyer and ask to visit your home with their ‘buyer’ only to show up without a client to pitch you in person on listing with them and paying a full commission.

You’ll first need a crash course in real estate and at least a basic awareness of what common traps and pitfalls to avoid.

For these reasons, it is best advised to not broadcast to all of the NYC real estate community that you are attempting to sell your home without an agent unless your ultimate goal is really just to get attention.

Another mistake NYC homeowners typically make is to reach out to every single real estate agent friend when they’re thinking about selling. What usually ends up happening is they’ll feel guilty about not handing their business to one of their agent friends, and most if not all of these perfectly healthy relationships become strained.

This is even more likely to happen when a homeowner ends up deciding to sell FSBO without hiring any listing agent at all!

Engage Real Estate Agents Representing Home Buyers

Not all real estate brokers are bad for FSBO home owners attempting to sell their home without a traditional listing agent in NYC. According to the National Association of Realtors “88% of buyers purchased their home through a real estate agent or broker—a share that has steadily increased from 69 percent in 2001. Buyers who definitely would use same agent again: 73%.”

What this means is that your home will only receive the attention of a small subset of buyers if you refuse to work with buyer agents.

Hauseit LLC, Licensed Real Estate Broker
Tel: (888) 494-8258 | https://www.hauseit.com
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