For Sale by Owner Registry

Below are a few questions we are ask frequently. If the answer to your question is not here, please e-mail your question to publisher@fsbolocator.com. We'll post your answer as soon as possible on this page.

What is the difference between you and some of the other FSBO companies?
Actually, there are no other true FSBO companies in our area. There are many companies disguised as FSBO but they are either real estate agents in disguise trying to fool sellers and get your listing, attorneys after your title insurance business or mortgage loan companies trying to sell mortgages. These types of companies do not have the sale of your house without a commission as their objective. They want to trick you into believing they can help you sell, when in fact, they really want something else. In fact, they really hope your property will never sell because the longer it is for sale, the more leads they can get from your potential buyers! Don't put a middleman between you and your buyer. Our only mission is the fast sale of your house...no middleman to interfere.

What makes For Sale by Owner & Builder Magazine different from internet only FSBO Services?
Before you pay to advertise with an internet only FSBO service ask questions and get answers. Our sellers are always happy to talk with prospective sellers. You may have to pose as a buyer on other sites (that have call centers, real estate agents or even loan officers) to reach a seller, but what you will find from this exercise is well worth the effort.

Here are just some of the many reasons successful private home sellers have chosen our services over the competition.

	We are a local family owned business, started in 1993. Our sole mission is to provide the best exposure and marketing support to help you sell successfully "by owner." Other so-called FSBO services are really tied into mortgage companies, title companies and discount real estate agencies who have other agendas. That is, they want to sell you a listing, insurance, mortgages, or whatever. Our sole mission is to help you sell your property with no commission.
	We are the only service that distributes a full color magazine throughout Eastern Nebraska & Western Iowa. Others may say they have a magazine, but when you ask them what cities and where they deliver to in your area, don't be surprised if they can't locate any on their list. Don't be fooled into paying double the money for half the service or heavy upfront fees. Our magazines are in over 300+ locations across 10 counties. Remember, 95% of buyers purchase locally. While the internet is great and many of our sellers report their buyer having seen their home on our website, our magazine reaches thousands and thousands of prospective buyers every month and our sellers report that almost 65% of buyer contacts come directly from the magazine.
	Buyers call YOU, not a call center, not an agent. Phone numbers are always posted in your ad and buyers can also email you directly. Companies who don't publish your phone number and redirect buyers to their business are more interested in THEIR phones ringing, not yours. Some websites only allow email and sell the addresses to other companies for profit. You end up getting more junk.
	For Sale by Owner & Builder Magazine essentially "wrote the book" on for sale by owner in this area. Nobody has sold more or helped more people sell their property in this area. Since 1993, we've helped over 12,000 area families successfully sell FSBO. Our sellers learn from the experts. Our famous "How To Sell Your Own Home" seminar is conducted every four weeks, and boasts thousands of attendees since 2000. Our seminar is also used by regional FSBO services like ours throughout the country.
	Our photo ads are current, not fillers to make a website look successful. Companies, especially national FSBO websites, that offer free listings, or one-time payments are LOADED with outdated and expired properties. They don't take them off because it makes them look bigger. Buyers soon figure out they're wasting their time and move on to other websites, like ours, www.fsbolocator.com that take care of their inventory. We also include Yahoo Classifieds, Google Base real estate, byowner.com and many other major sites!
	We post your Open House events and even give a Mapquest link for directions. Many websites don't allow location or time sensitive information, again because it's seldom removed making the ad look stale. They also don't want anyone to have direct contact with you. When you make us your first call, we will give you free use of your AD ID number to use in any other advertising you choose to do.
	Need signs, information holders, open house supplies? We've got them all - many are included in our package plans. Unlike any other company in the area, we have a FSBO retail store stocked full of everything and anything you need to buy or sell your own property! The largest selection of signs, directional arrows, forms, disclosures, how-to books & videos, pagers, banners, radios, shoe covers, flags, info boxes, info tubes, for rent signs and much more!
	Have questions? Wonder how to work with agents to your advantage? We've got the answers. Because we're local, we know the local market. We know that things may come up during the process and sometimes just a few marketing pointers can make a difference. Our motto is, "No commission & plenty of assistance!", so don't be afraid to call and ask questions along the way.
	We provide the areas best Virtual Slide Show tour with color photos and descriptions. Many call this the absolute best home tour available, no fished lens distorting photos, no waiting for pictures to load, simply the best presentation of your property to active buyers. This is far superior to what other sites offer.
	Buyers NEVER have to register to use our website. Sites that force visitors to register are capturing calls and e-mail addresses then making annoying contacts with the buyers. This does not benefit you as the seller.

What's the deal with the agent's MLS and discount brokers?
Good question. There is certainly no shortage of discount real estate brokers offering to put your FSBO property on the MLS for what appears to be small amounts, like $95 or $149 or whatever. But be very leery of these offers, as your true cost will be much higher than you can ever imagine. When its all done and over, you can figure on it actually costing you 4% to 7% or more of your final negotiated price (not original asking price). Seems most of these companies "forget" to tell you some vital information. For example, when you go on the MLS, you must pay 2 commissions...one to a listing broker and one to a selling broker. If they offer this to you as a FSBO, you must pay for all your advertising outside of the MLS which can get very expensive. The MLS is not available to the public, but you will be on realtor.com, as all MLS listed homes are put on it, and it is a public site. But do not count on your property being advertised on any other local broker sites. Most brokers only put listings on their sites that offer the highest commissions and do not display certain types of listings where the seller has the right to sell them self. Also, do not count getting full asking price from a "buyer's agent" as they work for the buyer, not you the seller. Their duty is to get the lowest price from you the seller, for their client, the buyer. You can also expect the buyer's agent to request expensive repairs and maintenance after the buyer does their home inspection, many times this is thousands of dollars. Plus, you can expect the buyer's agent to ask you to pay for an expensive home warranty for the buyer. Most important, is that today's home buyers are very smart, and they know if any home is listed, it has an inflated price to cover agent fees. Study both the advantage, and the disadvantage of this listing. We suggest you sell FSBO, our customer's 14 year track record of success speaks for itself.

How often is the magazine printed?
The magazine is printed every four weeks and we distribute weekly to make sure your ad is on the stands 24/7. We also post your ad to our 10 web sites (including Google Base and Yahoo Real Estate Classifieds) as soon as possible to make sure buyers can view your home immediately.

I'm ready to sell now, do I have to wait for the deadline to submit my ad?
No! We can process your ad for publication on our 10 web sites and have your signs/flyers ready within 24 hours of receiving your information and photos in most cases. This gives you extra exposure immediately and isn't charged against your 24 week ad run. Your Until Sold package begins with the distribution of your ad in the first magazine.

Do I have to be a member of FSBO, or a marketing package customer, to shop in your stores?
No! We have no memberships and welcome everyone into our retail stores. We carry the area's largest selection of professional FSBO yard signs ($60 to $100), directional arrows ($7 to $25), Lock Boxes, Flags, Balloons, Flyer Boxes & Tubes, St Joseph statues, shoe covers, Home Warranties, seminars and much more!

How effective is your service compared to other free or less expensive web site only companies.
This is really a case of "you get what you pay for." We've been publishing our magazine for over 14 years and in full color for 5 years. It's a costly expense and we spend about $150,000 a year to print and distribute it. We distribute 24,000 copies of the magazine to more than 350 locations every month. You would think that if we could just do a web site and let that expense fall to our bottom-line, we'd do so. We're not about to do that for the following reasons: 1) Our home sellers reported, during the first 6 months of 2006, that 64 percent of their sales directly resulted from their buyers seeing their ad in the magazine; 2) Only 18 percent were as a result of a web site ads; 3) Less than 20 percent as a result of a sign in their yard. You do the math. Web only companies, banks, or attorneys with web sites, who tell you that all you need is a sign, a newspaper ad and their web site to sell your home, aren't being honest with you. They know that the magazine is the most effective advertising you can do. Their motivation for steering you away from it is pretty transparent. Most, if not all of these companies, aren't about helping you sell your home; they're about using your home as "bait" to get buyers to use their title, legal or mortgage loan businesses. If you think about it, all you have to do is "follow the money." Our home seller assistance services are designed for one reason only - to assisted you in every way possible in getting your home sold in the shortest period of time for full market value - WITHOUT PAYING ANY COMMISSION.

Do you recommend advertising my home in the local newspaper?
We recommend you advertise your home any place you can within reason. Newspaper ads can get very expensive, very quickly. With the average time on market being between 60 and 90 days; small ads, run just on Sundays for 2 months, can cost you as much as $400. And, these small ads are, according to a National Association of Realtor survey done in 2003, very ineffective. According to their survey, only 2 percent of residential real estate sales resulted from newspaper ads. If you do choose to advertise in the newspaper, we recommend you do so for time critical information only. An example would be a Sunday open house. The following example has been used very effectively by our advertisers and helps your home standout from the other classified ads:

OPEN SUNDAY 2 - 4
1234 Your Street
Over 1700 FSF, 3 BD, 2 BA
$145,000 402-555-1234
www.fsbolocator.com/1234

An ad like this one will accomplish three things: 1) Makes your ad standout from the clutter of the other classified ads; 2) Creates curiosity about your home by not giving all the information; 3) Gives your buyer the opportunity to take action and view photos of your home and get a better description from your ad on the web site. The pictures on the web site are more effective and less costly then a long classified ad. If your ad on our site includes one of our new Virtual On-line Slide Shows, listing the web address with the ID number we give you is especially important. The buyers can go directly to your page on our site and take a tour of your home 24 hours a day. The slide show can make the difference between making your home a "Must See" or just another mystery house.

When I’m taking pictures, are there any special requirements?
We accept photos in the following formats: color prints on photo paper, digital .jpg or .tif. Do not embed the photo(s) in any other software or program, i.e. MS Word, PowerPoint, PDF, etc. Try to back up far enough to get the whole house in the shot with some space left on either side. Do not crop photos prior to sending them or bringing them to us. If you are using a digital camera, use the camera’s highest resolution or quality setting. We’ll take care of the cropping and resolution requirements for publication in the magazine and on the internet. If you have special cropping requirements, you will need to bring the photos into our store and work with one of our staff to format them.

Outside photos should be taken with the sun directly on the front or back of the home. This means you may have to do your photos at two different times of the day. If your home is surrounded by mature trees and in deep shadow during the day, you may want to shoot the photos on a bright overcast day to avoid deep shadows and contrasts; or, just after sunrise or sunset.

Interior photos, like those for our on-line slide show, should be taken after dark. Turn all the lights on and you may not even need a flash. You do this to avoid backlighting problems from bright windows that will make your photos too dark.

Am I required to use your signs when I’m advertising with you?
Yes! Our signs and trademarked logo are the most recognized real estate signs in our area. The logo on the sign ties all of your advertising in the magazine and on the internet together, making it much more effective. Other signs (cheap hardware store or signs provided by other services), detract from your “curb-appeal” and do nothing to expand your advertising. For example, our sign in someone’s yard across town may get a buyer looking for a home in your area to pick up a copy of the magazine or go to our web site and discover your home.

How do I handle all the complicated paperwork in my real estate sale?
The paperwork can be daunting. We recommend you hire an attorney listed in the magazine or on this site. They are specialists in managing the entire transaction and will take care of ALL the complicated paperwork, disclosures and contracts. They can even negotiate the sale and prepare the agreement to purchase contract. DO NOT use a contract provided by a title company. These are almost always out of date or not in compliance with state law. To use one as a checklist for everything that is required in your deal is also a huge mistake. None of them contain everything that you need to successfully complete your sale and may leave you vulnerable to law suits. It’s always best to consult one of the flat-fee attorneys we recommend to protect your rights and property.

I’m just getting ready to sell my home. When should I start advertising?
Given that the time on market has been between 60 and 90 days, we recommend that you begin advertising your home for sale before you start looking for another home. Our rule of thumb is 90 - 120 days prior to your desired closing date for your present home. If you are leaving the area or are building a new home, start advertising six months prior to the date you expect to leave or your new home will be finished. In a number of instances, when the seller found a buyer soon after beginning their ad, they have been able to negotiate a door-to-door move with their buyers with a simple rent back clause in their contracts. If you start too late, you’re only putting pressure on yourself and may end up paying a commission because you’ve run out of time.

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