Anyone sold their house FSBO?

[Zakk]

Zakk: You have to be kidding me. That one house, while its front was nice.... It looked to be in a cookie cutter neighborhood, and that media room sucked... Projection screen in a well lit, windowed room?

[DrewKaree]

* DrewKaree clutches his heart

Zakk, yer KILLIN' me smallz!

[Zakk]

Now now, there's no need for carnage...

[Zakk]

Speaking of real estate, Paige started an interesting thread here:

KLOV Forums Thread

I read through some of that, and it IS interesting.  However, I think it would be a very rough ride.  (This coming from someone who used to flip houses in the "Bad" parts of this city, and damn, this is CANADA!  Even the worst criminals usually apologize after they shank you!).

[nipsmg]

I won't say you shouldn't do it, but I will offer a cautionary tale:

The people across the street from me recently sold FSBO.  The new owners promptly rented the house out to some dirtbags with like 10 cars (really!), and when I say cars, I mean a mix of cars and big dirty pickups with body parts missing (again, really!).  The dirtbag renters have been parking the trucks on the lawns, front and back.  These lawns used to be absolutely gorgous gardens, the view from my front window used to look like a park- now it looks like a parking lot at Fat Bubba's Ribs 'n Bait.

The sellers are involved in the eviction process now.  The "renters" claim they paid their rent, why should they leave?  Meanwhile, the new "owners" haven't been paying the sellers- they claim financing difficulties with their bank.  The sellers have got no money for the 4 or so  months their house was "sold", and you know that place is trashed inside.  Once they get the "renters" out, they'll have to clean the whole place up again, before they can re-list. 

They say they're using an agent this time.

The agent would not have helped them in this instance with the tenants. 

The "owners" are obviously terrible landlords.  ANY Landlord should have a signed agreement (in accordance w/ state laws) with their tenants that lays out ground rules and lists reasons for possible eviction.  This way, even if they have paid their rent, they've got NO ARGUMENT when stating that they paid their rent on time and shoulnd't have to leave.  Just because you're a tenant does not mean that you are legally allowed to destroy the property you're occupying.  Hell, in most rentals you can't paint, put nails in the wall, etc unless you plan on paying for any damage you've done out of your security deposit when you leave.  Yeah you'll get the scumbags that squat and won't leave till evicted, but if you communicate frankly and fairly with your tenants, you'll find that they will be a bit more agreeable.

Also, the sellers seem to have "sold" the house using seller financing.  Without a good legal agreement doing this you can get screwed, very very easily.  After non-payment for 4 months, even a poorly written seller financing agreement would put the "owners" in default and the seller should have started forclosure and taken it back.

This is an extreme case, not to be mistaken for a normal FSBO transaction.

[Zakk]

Well, to say a Realtor wouldn't have guided a seller through those pitfalls is rediculous.

[GameOver]

Sounds more like those buyers looked specifically for a private seller to take advantage of their legal ignorance.

That's funny - 'legal ignorance' - sounds like a privilege! 


judge to former owner:  'What's your defense?'
former owner to judge: 'Your honor, I'm legally ignorant'
judge: 'Case dismissed'

heh heh

[Zakk]

I plead legal stupidity for not phrasing that phrase more proper phrase-like.  Ugh, call me Cletus!