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Avoiding liability is pretty much the same challenge whether you use an agent or not. As a seller you owe the buyer some disclosures about the condition of the property and, for a house built before 1978, a lead paint information statement. You are expected to reveal any serious defect that the buyers could not see for themselves.Beyond that, you must take care not to violate any fair housing laws, which prohibit discrimination based on race, color, religion, handicap, presence of children in the family, age (over 18), marital status and a few other things. You’ll be all right if you remember to treat all potential buyers in the same manner, and to base your decisions on their financial status only. Beyond liability, two main dangers face FSBOs ("For Sale By Owner"s). One is pricing the house wrong: too high and no one comes to see it, too low and it sells promptly but you've short-changed yourselves. There’s also the risk of getting the house tied up in a contract with a buyer who turns out to be unable or unwilling to go through with the deal. You need to investigate the financial situation of potential buyers before you commit yourselves. Without a broker, you'd want your own accountant or lawyer to help with that.
Listing with a broker who belongs to a Multiple Listing System would bring your property to the attention of thousands of local agents, and that wide exposure on the market is likely to yield the highest sale price. Beyond that, many FSBOs are often surprised by how much time, effort and expense is involved in marketing. You can eliminate the broker, but you can't eliminate the broker's work. Someone has to do it.
That said, between ten and twenty percent of homeowners do sell without using brokers. Those who succeed are usually people who have time to invest in the project and some financial sophistication. |
