Sequim FSBOs and Port Angeles FSBOs are having a tough time selling their homes, just as real estate agents are listing but not doing much selling.   The market is slow, and on top of that we are in the slow winter months for home sales here.

While it is true that sales are few and far between right now, it is also true that the Sequim and Port Angeles areas have not suffered the crashing prices that so many other areas of the country have.   Las Vegas is down by 30% and even more in some areas.   My son recently moved to Vegas in a job transfer, and has made an offer on a 3 bedroom, 2 bath ranch home in a nice area.   The home was listed at $139,000, and his offer was accepted by the owners at $129,000 subject to a short sale (the bank approving the purchase since the net proceeds will be less than the current balance of the owner’s mortgage).   Okay, that’s an amazingly low price for a nice home like that in a nice area, but the Vegas real estate market crashed.   Developers and builders overbuilt, and the economy there has taken a huge hit, there have been job layoffs, and a lot of homes are in foreclosure.

No so with Sequim and Port Angeles.   Some might say, “Gee, I wish we could buy a house in Sequim for $129,000.”   If you could, that would mean that our market had crashed, that our local economy was in shambles, and that thousands of homes are in foreclosure.   But none of that is true, so you cannot buy a house here for $129,000.   Thank God!   Thousands of homeonwers here are thankful that their homes have not been devalued.

This is actually good news for Sequim and Port Angeles homeowners and investors who are thankful they haven’t suffered terribly like so many around the country.   While this may not be fantastic news for buyers, it should be encouraging, because it means we have a stable real estate market here, and that is very good news.   Our prices are still down and sales are down, but nothing like Vegas.

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• Selling FSBO Huge Disadvantage
• Free For Sale By Owner Consultation with Retired Real Estate Lawyer and Broker
• Sequim Homes for Sale – FSBO eBook Download

You can put lipstick on a slow real estate market, but it’s still a slow market.   You can lower the price on your home to sell it quickly, but it’s still a slow market.   Lowering the price may not be the powerful incentive it would be in a normal market.

You can stage your home with the nicest furniture and decorations, but it’s still a slow market.   You may have a beautiful home in a wonderful area, but it’s still a slow market.   You can have $40,000 in landscaping, but it’s still . . .

If buyers are not showing up, and they are not, you can use the brightest red lipstick on the market, but it’s still . . .

I have talked with many homeowners who have told me they want to sell their homes quick, within a month or two.   Hmm.   Maybe we can do that, if we connect with one unique buyer who falls in love with this home, but it’s still . . .

A slow market requires many things.   Certainly it requires expert marketing skills to connect with the small number of buyers who are qualified and serious about buying now.   But it also requires patience and realistic goals.   Here’s the rule of patience:   Be patient now, or frustration, anger, and time will make you patient.   As John Wayne might have said, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.   Which will it be?”

But being patient is not enough.   You also have to be smart in how you market your home, especially in a slow market.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Why The For-Sale-By-Owner (FSBO) is Hard to Sell
• FSBO asks Should I List My House Above FMV
• Selling FSBO Huge Disadvantage
• Free For Sale By Owner Consultation with Retired Real Estate Lawyer and Broker
• Sequim Homes for Sale – FSBO eBook Download

Are you a FSBO, aka for-sale-by-owner, aka for sale by owner?   Or are you planning to list your home for sale with an agent?   In either event, in order to sell your home for the highest possible price in a reasonable period of time, you must have a good advertising plan.   If you don’t, you could get stuck with your house on the market for a long, long time, or you could sell it for much less than you should get at FMV (fair market value), or both.

This is the 3rd installment in our series entitled,   “How to Advertise a Home for Sale. ”   Today we look at Using the Internet to Sell Your Home. The Internet is unquestionably the most powerful tool for buying and selling real estate today.   Traditional advertising has long since peaked and has been declining in effectiveness for at least a decade.   Today, newsprint and magazines and billboards are three of the least effective means of advertising real estate.   This does not mean these tactics should never be used.   It does mean that they should be used sparingly, and rationally based on the return for the dollar spent.

For a long time now, the Internet has been used by real estate agents to post their listings in their local multiple listing service (MLS), and while that was originally only accessible by members of the MLS by subscription, it has become searchable by the public through what is called an IDX accessible database through the real estate agents’ websites.   It doesn’t include all of the data available to agents, but at least it is a nice way for the public to plug in their parameters and be able to see what active listings are available. The Internet also has become a powerful tool to advertise listings on agent websites and blogs, as well as numerous subscription and online classifieds.   Most agents (about 98% of them in my speculation) still are not in tune with this technology and are not using it to benefit their clients.

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• Why The For-Sale-By-Owner (FSBO) is Hard to Sell
• FSBO asks Should I List My House Above FMV
• Selling FSBO Huge Disadvantage
• Free For Sale By Owner Consultation with Retired Real Estate Lawyer and Broker
• Sequim Homes for Sale – FSBO eBook Download

Selling your own home in Sequim or in Port Angeles requires marketing knowledge, and the best marketers have been through the school of hard knocks, so they’ve learned some valuable lessons in selling a home.  It takes courage to sell your home, especially in these challenging times, and there is risk that you will fail.  Marketing is risky, because there are things that work well, things that don’t work at all, and some things that work a little.  A FSBO might be willing to take on the risk to save a commission.  This series is intended to provide guidance to help you avoid the major traps for the unwary.  Don’t be like the cat in this photograph, which is taking incredible risk when it doesn’t have to.  Risk should only be taken when it is balanced with the reward, and one should never take unnecessary risk.

In this article, Part 2 of our series on How to Advertise a Home for Sale, we talk about:

Traditional Advertising – What Works and What Doesn’t Work.

Traditional newspaper advertising as a means to sell real estate has been dramatically losing its effectiveness over the past decade.  This is common knowledge among top producing salesman in busy metropolitan areas, and many successful Realtors have testified that they have substantially reduced or even stopped using the newspapers to sell their listings. What’s interesting to me is that newspaper advertising is not only one of the least effective ways to sell real estate today, it is also one of the most expensive venues to advertise in.

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Possibly Related Posts:

• Why The For-Sale-By-Owner (FSBO) is Hard to Sell
• FSBO asks Should I List My House Above FMV
• Selling FSBO Huge Disadvantage
• Free For Sale By Owner Consultation with Retired Real Estate Lawyer and Broker
• Sequim Homes for Sale – FSBO eBook Download

How do you advertise a Sequim or Port Angeles Home for sale in this slow market?   That is the question.   Get the answer wrong, and two bad things can happen to you:

1.   You could sit on a house for sale for a year and still not sell it.   That is a major non-event that disrupts lives and plans.

2.   Even worse, you could actually sell your home and lose a lot of money.   Money is hard enough to earn without burning it up for lack of knowledge.

So how do you develop a powerful and effective marketing plan that will actually sell your home in this market?   This assignment is far too big to tackle in one article, so this is the first in a short series that will answer the question with solid principles that work.

Most home owners who decide to sell their home will either list it with a real estate agent or become a FSBO (pronounced “fizbo”).   The term almost sounds derogatory, but no offense is intended by the term FSBO.   It is the common nickname given to a for-sale-by-owner and has been for at least three decades.   The point is simply that either your Realtor has to be an expert in marketing to sell your home, or if you are a FSBO, you must be the expert in marketing.

In my 30 years in real estate, first as a Realtor and Associate Broker in Alaska in the mid ’70′s, then as a real estate attorney for 20 years, and now again as a Broker, I’ve seen   many Realtor’s try to sell real estate who did not understand marketing.   Remember the saying, “He knows just enough to be dangerous.”   That cliche definitely applies to those who would market real estate today.   I think most home owners understand that just because a person gets their real estate license, that does not mean they have mastered   real estate.

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Possibly Related Posts:

• Why The For-Sale-By-Owner (FSBO) is Hard to Sell
• FSBO asks Should I List My House Above FMV
• Selling FSBO Huge Disadvantage
• Free For Sale By Owner Consultation with Retired Real Estate Lawyer and Broker
• Sequim Homes for Sale – FSBO eBook Download

Buying or selling Sequim real estate or Port Angeles real estate? How you negotiate can mean $10,000 more or less in your pocket when the dust settles. Imagine two card players. One has spent a lifetime learning how to play cards, has become an expert on mathematics and statistical calculations, on human behavior and psychology, and has studied and practiced for decades. The other is a school teacher, a good and honest person, who has taught 3rd grade for 22 years, but has never played cards, and has had no interest in the technical skills required to be a good card player.

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