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F.A.Qs
Here is a collection of frequently asked questions that we receive. If you have any other questions, not listed here, feel free to call or send an e-mail
Buyers
What if I already have an agent, can I still choose to work with you?
Unfortunately if you have sign a buyer broker agreement with another agent or firm you are bound to that contract. If you have NOT signed a contract you are free to choose who ever you want to work with as your buyers agent, and can even have multiple agents working for you.
One great thing about our firm is that we do NOT make you sign a contract with us, and we feel our services stand above the rest so that you will want to choose to work with us as opposed to any other agency.
If you choose not to work with us after we have started to help you, that is fine, but we have never had an unhappy client in our entire history of existance.
What if I am using an agent already and want to contact these FSBO's
It is very wise to align yourself in this market with a buyers broker, as they will look after your interests and should walk you through the whole home buying process.
Most FSBO's offer a commission to buyer brokers, so it is in your best interest to use one, as it is the sellers who pays the commissions for you.
You may contact the seller directly and explain you are working with a buyers broker or have your agent contact them for you.
What if the FSBO seller does not want me to use an agent?
If a sellers does not want you to use a broker, or pay a buyers broker commission, BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL! Often times For Sale By Owners have the intention of doing the right thing, but may not be aware of the recent legalities that are required to sell a home and they may make mistakes. 99.9% of the time it is the buyer who has the burden of dealing with the ramifications of a transaction not being done correctly. If this is the case, it often is extremely difficult tracking down a past seller and getting them to cure the defaults.
It is always best to use a buyers broker, especially when it is completely FREE to you as the buyer, and it is always recommended by us to use one.
What is a FSBO?
FSBO is the nickname given to people who choose to sell thier home "For Sale By Owner" and do not wish the assistance of real estate brokerage firm.
What services do you offer as a buyer brokerage firm?
- We are a full service brokerage firm that offers complete services for a buyer. Not only will we do a full in depth analysis of the home you are interested in, but we will neogtiate on your behalf and make sure the enitre transaction is done correctly and with your best interests in mind.
- We offer to build you a personal website that searches for homes that meet your criteria, so you can preview homes from the comfort of your own computer, and you dont have to search all of the internet for your next home. You also do not need to worry about an agent showing you properties they want you to see, as the website shows you everything that is on the MLS.
- Not only that but our concierge services pay for your moving supplies, including boxes and packing material, and a moving truck for a day.
- We also our a 1 year guarantee that if you are not happy with the home that you buy with us we will sell it for absolutely FREE!
- The best part of it all, is that our services are completely FREE to you as a buyer!
Why should I use this website?
This website has homes listed as For Sale By Owner or "FSBO''s" that are found possibly no where else.
Even if you are using an agent they may not be aware of certain FSBO''s because many are not listed on the MLS.
Lastly, it is completely FREE to you as the buyer to search these homes.
Sellers
Are there any hidden fees to place my home on your website?
Absolutely not! You will NEVER pay us one penny for placing your home on this website.
We will not try to sell you any other services at all! This website is for our own buyers and thier use, and a means to for us to help out new potential buyer clients.
The listing for this website is FREE for 60 days, at which time you will receive a notice that you can renew for another 60 days for FREE and so on.
Do we share your information with anyone else?
Absolutley NOT! We will never share or sell any of your information to any services, companies, or any other real estate firm. All information gathered here is under control of the company who owns this website and will never voluntarily share any piece of information.
Any information that you may display for potential buyers is public information however and cannot control the dissemination of that information over the interenet.
If a buyer finds my home through your website and buys it, do I owe you a commision?
No! Not if the buyer already has an agent, or chooses not to use one. If a buyer finds your home and wishes to be represented by our firm, and you are offering a buyers commission then, we will represent the buyer and ask for the commission compensation.
There are no fees to place your home on our site even if the buyer finds your from our site.
Agents are now starting to use our site to look for homes for thier buyers, and if they find one on here and contact the seller directly then again we do not get paid anything.
What if I want to list my home with you?
We are very selective as to whom we chose to work with. Because the market has drastically changed in buyers favor, we find that sellers are not aware of thier home value in light of recent market conditions, and are not aware of the extensive maretking that needs to be done in order to get top dollar for your home with the drastic increase of homes on the market.
Because we spend thousands of dollars on marketing costs, we like to make sure that your home is priced correctly and that you as a client are right for us and that we are the perfect real estate brokerage firm for you.
We are willing to meet with you any time and give you our in depth analysis for the value of your home, and go over our enitre marketing plan and concierge services. All of this is completely FREE to you with NO OBLIGATION!
We always recommend if you are considering selling your home yourself to at least set a time limit until you are willing to hear what a professional has to say. When and if that time comes we absolutely will give you a free consulation, and go over everything we have to offer.
This website generates anywhere from 15-25 buyer leads a day that are added to our database, in turn lead to thousands of buyers we expose homes to on a daily basis. Yours could be next!
What is the "Co-Marketing" that your company offers?
Co-Marketing is an idea we decided to implement, as a service to FSBO's to help them get thier home sold.
Essentially we draw up a contract stating that we will do all of our own extensive marketing which usally costs us about $4500-$5000, while at the same time allowing you to do your own marketing as well.
If we present you an "accepted offer" then you will pay our commission fees, along with a buyers agent fee, all of which is negotiated before hand.
If you find your own buyer who presents you with an accepted offer, you DON'T PAY US A PENNY! Yes, that means we are out our money for the marketing costs!
Essentially our marketing tends to get offers that are anywhere from 2-5% higher, due to the maximum exposire, so essentially if we do bring you an offer it will pay for our commissions!
On top of that, you can fire us at any time!
All our commissions are negotiable and are not set it stone. It all has to do with the home, the client, and what our determination of what needs to be done.
If you have any questions, about this program, please email us!
What kinds of other marketing can I do to get my home sold?
These are some of the marketing strategies we use to help our clients get thier home sold for top dollar and quickly.
- Advertise on Google, Yahoo, MSN.
- Advertise on every website you can. We currently use around 40-50 sites.
- Create a virtual movie tour for all these websites.
- Create a personal website for the home. (i.e. www.123myaddress.com)
- Create professional done flyers and mailers for the demographics of people who would buy your home. Target marketing.
- Hire a professional stager, we pay for this with every one of our clients.
- Hold open houses, and advertise them everywhere.
- Publish in local newspaper and magazines.
- Attend local Realtor Association meetings to pitch your property. (If you are offering a buyers commission)
- Get a 1-800# with information about your home for buyers and to capture thier information.
- Do a complete analysis of market conditions, trends and comparables to make sure you are priced right.
- Send out flash animated emails to any potential buyers you may know.
- Offer buyer incentives. (i.e. Pay for moving expenses for buyers like we do.)
- Place a sign in your yard displaying contact info, and flyers.
- Hire a lawyer to handle all legal disclosures and advertise this fact. (Buyers are often scared FSBO''s have something to hide.)
- Create questionares for buyers who see your home so you know what they think about it even if they don''t buy it. (i.e. Ask them about pricing, etc.)
- Leave flyers everywhere; community center, grocery stores, etc.
- Create business cards for your home; with pictures and info!
These are just some of the marketing techniques we employ and get great results!
Why do we let you post your home on our website for FREE?
We are an experienced and aggressive marketing real estate brokerage, and this is one of our many outlets to obtain possible buyers to work with. We market this site extensively to buyers as a place to find homes in San Diego not found anywhere else possibly, without any designation of our own real estate company. If a buyer chooses to buy your home, then great! If not we try to offer them find another home similar to yours, and offer them our benefits of a free personal website, no contract or obligation services, paid moving expenses, or our 1 year home satisfaction guarantee where if the buyer is not happy with the home they buy, then we will sell it for FREE.
In order to have a resource for these buyers we market to, we need FSBO''s who are willing to place their home on the website. We allow you to do that with all of your own contact information, pictures, open house info, maps, and virtual tours if you so choose.
The market has changed substantially in San Diego, in the buyers favor. With inventory almost 5 times that of 2 years ago, rising interest rates, and price cuts in inventory everywhere, we are VERY selective as to who we even want to work with and list their home. We spend almost $3,500-$5,000 in marketing alone when we list a home, with virtual tours, internet advertising, newspapers, 1-800 numbers, staging consultants, and our other unique advertising methods. Because of this we find it is best to only work with clients who WANT maximum exposure of their home with correct pricing based on; inventory, consumer demand analysis, and area research of appreciation rates.
If you want to list your home "For Sale by Owner" we wish you the best, and expect nothing in return. If you are interested in our services you can always ask and we will be happy to provide with a market analysis to help determine your home value.
Why should I place my home on your website when I have Craigs List, or other free websites?
Craigs List's disadvantage is that once you post your home on it, it is then moved to the bottom of the list as new postings get added, and unless you update it everyday can potentially get lost in all of the shuffle. Free online lists are also now saturated with agents and brokers posting thier listings, so again you are competeting with thousands of other advertisments done by professionals.
Our website catagorizes your home by city, price, rooms, and is for "FSBO's" only. You are never moved to the bottom of the list and always have a random ranking within a city or area. Not only that but you can place lots of pictures, virtual tours, and open house information all in one place.
And unlike all the other national "For Sale By Owner" websites that may or may not be free, this is localized to San Diego and shows up on search engine results such as Google, MSN and Yahoo across the country.
Will an agent contact me, after placing my home on this website?
We DO NOT contact you to solicit a listing. We will send you information about the website via email, and may send an email here and there asking how everything is and if you had been able to sell your home, but we will never ask you to list your home with us!
We do hope that if you ever decide to use a brokerage firm that you at least contact us to get a FREE CONSULTATION about our marketing and the value of your home. It costs you nothing to listen to us, even if you have an agent in mind, and it can potentially save you thousands of dollars.
UPDATE! We are finding that some (very few) agents are using our website to contact FSBO''''s and solicit them to get a listing. THIS IS NOT ANY AGENT AFFILIATED WITH OUR WEBSITE! We will not contact you to try to get you to list with us.
Because we allow you to place your own contact information including phone number, we can not control this and can only suggest to place only your email information for buyers to contact you. If an agent does contact you and says they found you from our website you can pass thier information on to us, and we will ask them to stop, but we cannot guarantee anything.
Will you let me know how many people have viewed my property?
NO. While we are able to track all of the website traffic and visitors, and how many times a home is viewed we do not share it with any one else, or "FSBO''s."
We like to save this service for our own clients and listings. We do extensive internet marketing for all of our own listings and provide complete reports as to how many people have seen thier home over the internet, looked at pictures, seen thier virtual movie tours, etc. We can even provide complete reports of even the demographics of the visitors who have seen thier home, but we do not do this for "FSBO''s"
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