Here is a very entertaining story about how the owner of ForSaleByOwner.com used a Realtor to sell his own house. If selling your home at a market price yourself was that easy, he would have done it himself and used his own web site. This is a very good indicator of return you will get selling your home as FSBO vs. using a real estate agent.
Colby Sambrotto, who founded a website for DIY-real estate, just sold his Chelsea apartment for $2.15million.
The founder of a website helping people to sell their own homes has found a buyer for his own apartment – with the help of a traditional real estate broker.
ForSaleByOwner.com creator Colby Sambrotto even paid the standard 6% commission after selling his two-bedroom New York condo for $2.15 million.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Sambrotto spent six months trying to sell the apartment in trendy Chelsea through online listings and classified adverts.
But the DIY home selling guru eventually decided to turn the sale over to a professional.
Not only did broker Jesse Buckler set the price $150,000 higher than the original asking price, he went on to lure the elusive buyer Mr. Sambrotto’s self-help methods had failed to attract.
The Journal said the 2,000-square-foot apartment at The Lion’s Head building near Sixth Avenue is now under contract.
The apartment in question: Colby Sambrotto, founder of ‘For Sale by Owner’ sold his Lion’s Head Building home via a real estate broker
Mr. Buckler claimed the owner wasn’t asking enough for the apartment and was consequently attracting the right buyers. Broker Jesse Buckler encouraged Mr. Sambrotto to increase the asking price of the apartment as a sales strategy.
‘At first he wouldn’t let me increase the price,’ said Mr. Buckler. ‘I told him I know what I am doing—the market is picking up.’
Mr. Sambrotto bought the apartment for $2 million in 2007, a year after he sold his ForSaleByOwner.com website at the height of the real estate boom.
He told the Journal that he still believed in owner sales and discounted commissions, but added: ‘The apartment market in Manhattan was tightly controlled by agents.’
‘So many buyers don’t even bother to do a search online.’
Undeterred, he is now planning to launch a new sale by owner website, called USRealty.com.
Fans of the DIY method point to past successes, even in broker-controlled Manhattan.
Edgar Bronfman Jr., chief executive of the Warner Music Group, sold an East 64th Street town house four years ago for $50 million without paying any commission.
By David Gardner