Work Hard and Be Realistic to Sell Your House Yourself

Do you really need a real estate broker to sell your home or condo?

That’s one of the questions sellers almost always ask themselves before putting their residence on the market.

About 16% of U. S. home sellers go it alone. An additional 9% try selling on their own and eventually surrender their home to a listing agent. The rest mostly use a real estate professional from the start, according to numbers compiled in 1989 by the National Assn. of Realtors. It’s hard to tell just what the percentages are today in the San Fernando Valley. It does, however, seem to be a growing trend.

With nearly a record 14,100 San Fernando Valley single-family houses and condominiums currently marketed through the multiple listings--the conventional for-sale list used by real estate agents--the issue of how to get the most money for your home is more complicated than ever.

“You can sell your home independently in both good and bad markets,” said Granada Hills resident Crystal A. Russell, author of “Sell Your Home Yourself and Save Thousands.” To succeed as a FSBO--for sale by owner--”You must educate yourself. You have to make it a project,” she said. With brokerage fees eating up 6% to 8% of the sale price, selling a home on your own can make the difference between making a small profit or walking away in the red, said Russell, an attorney at the Glendale law firm Knapp, Petersen & Clarke.

“I’m not down on brokers. They do provide a real and valuable service. But, brokers haven’t done a good job of explaining what they do to earn their money,” Russell said. Is a $500,000 home twice as much work to sell as a $250,000 home? Few brokers can offer an adequate answer to that question, she said.

“I don’t know how an individual can market a home as well as a professional,” countered Lorrie Griffey, president of the San Fernando Valley Board of Realtors. “Most people have their life savings in their home. Would you try to invest your life savings in the stock market alone? Of course not,” Griffey said. “We’re in a very litigious society,” she added. “Sellers can’t possibly know all of the disclosure requirements and should use brokers to protect themselves.”

Are the broker’s sales fees negotiable? “Of course,” Griffey answered.

Working through a real estate company, Griffey said, she’s able to advertise for a fraction of what it costs an individual to advertise. Because many listing agents have to front the money for advertising a home, “the agent is highly motivated to sell,” Griffey said.

Maybe so, but with a glut of properties on the market, obviously many homes are going to be ignored.

“Real estate brokers know how to tell you lots of stories and talk you into getting a listing,” complained Shimshon David, who is going solo in his attempt to sell a house he owns in Tarzana. “The brokers didn’t get me a buyer.”

David had his three-bedroom, one-bath house listed with two different brokers for nine months--to no avail. Now, David is buying newspaper ads and has put a sign in front of his house on his own and he has lowered the price to $239,000. David has previously sold homes on his own, but that was when homes were selling more easily. He’s frustrated about his investment, which has turned into a money-loser, because he’s had little response and is ready to cut the price to $230,000. David bought the now-empty house more than three years ago for $250,000 and was renting it out for $1,100 a month while paying a mortgage of $1,700 a month.

As for any advice David has to offer other prospective home sellers, all he could say was “expect to work hard at selling your house.”

Wilmer E. Windham has had some equally disconcerting experiences in trying to sell his home in Encino. Windham’s gated English Tudor was originally listed by a broker for $899,000. There were no takers and he had a falling out with the broker. Windham then tried selling the house himself this spring by advertising it with a $769,000 price tag--still no takers.

As soon as Windham tried listing the home himself, he recalled, more than 200 brokers walked through the house. “What they were really interested in was the listing,” he said. And, while Windham offered to cooperate with any broker who brought him a bona fide buyer, none were forthcoming. When it comes to marketing houses that aren’t listed by a broker, he said, other brokers prefer to shy away. “It’s sort of an unwritten conspiracy.”

Windham has finally given in again. He just listed the house for $695,000 with Mike Glickman of the Jon Douglas Co. Windham, an attorney in private practice, picked Glickman because the brash young broker used to deliver pumpkins every Halloween to homeowners in the Valley. “It was a very clever gimmick that impressed me,” Windham said.

Is there a middle ground between doing it all yourself and hiring a full-service broker? Yes. Some sellers are opting for limited-service brokers who let the seller show the home and handle potential buyers directly. Help-U-Sell, based in Salt Lake City, is just such a franchise. There were, however, 600 Help-U-Sell franchises just a few years ago, including five in the Valley. Today, there are 400 franchises and all five Valley venues are gone, conceded the company’s president, Kent Thomas. There is still one franchise in Thousand Oaks.

“If you have the time and don’t need to sell immediately, you can save thousands,” said Thomas. For a fixed fee, which averages about $3,900 at closing, Help-U-Sell pays for advertising, helps market the property, finds financing for buyers and arranges escrow. The services are pretty bare bones, but Thomas claims a 70% success rate.

What Thomas says might work. Then again, with most of his local offices having closed, that doesn’t sound encouraging.

Whether you choose to sell solo or hire a broker, “make every effort to have the property show well--clear it up and make it sparkle,” advised author Russell. “Don’t overprice,” she added, and “don’t assume buyers will overlook minor defects.”

Russell’s book on selling your home is available in libraries or by calling her Glendale law office and paying $29.95. Major bookstores also offer several other helpful advice books on the topic.

“It’s a very tough market for both owners and brokers,” Russell concluded. Her best advice is “don’t have real high expectations.”