Talk:For sale by owner

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I don't understand how this article can quote research produced by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). It is this organization's duty to protect the interest of Real Estate Agents. Can someone give me their opinion on this? - William Stynes, Sales Manager - ByTheOwner.com

Well, they are reputable organization, the chief economist of which is often quoted nationally on real estate matters and one which has access to data on the majority of home sales across the nation, which are handled by brokers. Clearly, they know - via the MLS systems - how many homes are sold via brokers. They may also have access to total county-wide or state-wide transfer data, although some states do not allow public access to such data (one example where this is easy to correlate is Maryland), but maybe they have other methods or they publish their statistics based upon a sampling (as in opinion polling) where the data is readily available.
So, do you think that an organization of this nature is LYING when they produce such numbers - simply to "protect" - in some weird way - it's membership? Clearly, NAR is a reputable source; if a By-Owner organization can produce statistics, they can just as easily be quoted.
Thus, the question is: do you DISPUTE these figures? And can you provide different data from a reputable source to question that provided by NAR? Viva-Verdi 01:35, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

> Thanks for the response. I work with For Sale By Owner in Canada and I know that the CREA (Canadian Real Estate Association - which is the equivalent to the NAR in the USA), produces marketing materials with unsubstantiated comments such as "The fact is, most people who try to sell their own home end up using a REALTOR in the end anyway" (see the CREA website http://www.howrealtorshelp.ca/pdfs/sell/go_it_alone.pdf). I am not too familiar with the NAR, and I am not saying that they might be lying, however, brokers pay fees to be a member of the NAR. This creates a bias. For example, Democrats and Republicans are reputable organizations and they publish reports on different topics and it is possible that there could be a bias. My point is that 3rd party independent research on the subject of FSBO is needed, and I question any report on FSBO that is produced by an organization of real estate agents.

"if a By-Owner organization can produce statistics, they can just as easily be quoted". One problem with this is wikipedia's policy on quoting sources. I placed the "According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, which claims that 75% to 80% of homes in Canada were sold through brokers, it would appear that "Sale by Owner" accounts for some 20% or 25% of the remainder.[3]." in the definition of FSBO and quoted the source. I also added, "ByTheOwner.com, accounts for approximately 1% of home sales in Canada in 2006 with 3,600 private sales", but it was deleted. The stats are available online www.bytheowner.com/sell.php?topic=statistics, but the question remains, is it independent, unbiased information?

William

Contents

[edit] WHY all these FSBO sites on the External links section?

Need for some agreed-upon policies:

What do editors think about how we treat this huge increase in regional websites?

  • Have none, indicating that only national sites are allowed:?
  • Limit them to one per state (then we could have 50):?
  • Leave it as it is and allow as many as anyone wants to include:?

Take a look at Wiki policy of Wikipedia:External links#what should be linked to and let's discuss this. Vivaverdi 21:33, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I believe we should not have any links to sites offering FSBO services. This is because Wikipedia is not a web directory and it would not be fair to list any one particular site. So I removed the links. -- Barrylb 03:20, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Even though I posed the question above, I AGREE none of the links need to be there UNLESS they are so general as to further explain aspects of the FSBO process and not just promote a specific business or area.
Vivaverdi 04:04, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

This page seemed to me to be a web-advertisers dream. All the external links listed were commercial (and mostly US-only), and had no encyclopedic content that I could find. I took the liberty of removing them for that reason. Also there is nothing on Commons, so I took out that link as well. --RobertG ♬ talk 13:35, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I've removed some unencyclpedic stuff (Wikipedia is not a how-to manual) and tried to make this a little more international. DJ Clayworth 16:28, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

"30% of homeowners attempt to sell without an agent". This seems exceptionally unlikely based simply on examining the number of agency signs versus FSBO signs in my area. We need a cite on this. DJ Clayworth 16:36, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

30% sounds too much. Oregon has very big fsbo market. 30% can be correct numbers in that area. Unfortunately I have no idea how to get exact numbers. Btw, spammers like the article. Mauserd

[edit] All of these links to FSBO sites

Do we really want to see a list of websites linking to every possible combination of FSBO locations/practices/etc????????????????????????????????/

I'd like to see some discussion here before removing most of them as simply self-promoting (hey, that's their business) businesses but not contributng much to our understanding of the basic topic.

Vivaverdi 01:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I alphabetized the commercial ones and removed the duplicte byowner.com (blatant advertising). Added ForSaleByOwner.com (disclaimer - I work for them - but I figure most of us are in the industry, so nothing wrong there). I think as a general concept for articles that require linking to corporate sites, that there be some specific criteria related to size, reach, or historical significance.

--Adamnelson 20:33, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I own and run an international RE portal and recently we have put a lot of effort into building a directory with the most relevant FSBO websites in each country, available at http://www.imomarket.com/international/en/index.php?action=real_estate_portals.php&KM=4 The criteria for inclusion are strictly defined and submissions are carefuly controlled. We tried to build it up as a totaly neutral source but of course our primary goal is to attract traffic on www.imomarket.com through valuable content. This directory is unique on the Internet and I challenge anybody to prove the contrary and show me another directory with the same level of quality.

Now, my question is: what do you think about the opportunity of including it as a refference in the "external links" section of this article?

--imomarket 17:19, 05 March 2008 (GMT)

Regardless of its "quality", this site functions as a source of business for its participants. It contains plenty of links to businesses of all sorts.
As such, it does not belong on Wikipedia and should not be added. Viva-Verdi (talk) 18:45, 5 March 2008 (UTC)


When the title of the article is For SALE By Owner, we are obviously talking about business, not about charity. What would you expect to see in a directory of FSBO sites? Links to the Vatican Museum or to the Red Cross? imomarket 20:56, 05 March 2008 (GMT)

[edit] Bias

This page seems to have an apparent bias against FSBO. I've rewritten the first two paragraphs to remove biased tone, improve precision, and remove irrelevant information about commission distribution.

Jay 23:11, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

You've made some worthwhile contributions here (especially is fleshing out some detail on he nature of the FSBO process, but I have to disagree on the use of one article to justify a blanket statement of a standard 6% across the US compared to the range of 5 to 7% as establihed in Canada.

As a former agent for 20 years in the Washington, DC regional market, the range of 5% to 6% is very common. In some parts of the West, 7% is common. I know because I've received referral fees based on 3.5% to the selling broker.

I shall revert to the originally-stated range. Vivaverdi 03:22, 19 June 2006 (UTC)


From some of the reading I've done I am under the impression that although there is some variation in the US, 6% pervades. If you think that there is enough variation to warrant changing it back, I will defer to your experience. It would be nice to find some better sources for this information, too. Are you aware of any?

Unfortunately, commission rates are not typically available to the general public, but can only be seen by agents on MLS systems in terms of "an offer of compensation to cooperating brokers". i.e. we see the half? the percentage? offered to the broker bringing the buyer, and never know, until settlement, what the broker representing the seller is getting.
In my experience of the Washington, DC region (69,000 agents involved in that MLS), a total of 5% was very prevalant in the years 2000 to 2005. This typically split at 2.5% to 2.5%, but sometimes 3% (buyer's agent) to 2% (seller's agent).
Vivaverdi 13:37, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

PS: look at the third Wall Street Journal article on the list of links: he notes paying "up to 7%". Can't recall exactly where 7% is common, but it exists in some parts of the country.

In 1999 or 2000 there was an attempt by one large real estate company in the DC region to standarize its commissions at 7%, and it pre-printed its listing agreements that way. But few sellers would go for it, especially as the market began to heat up. Agents had to cross out the 7% and insert an agreed-upon amount, all of which emphasizes throughout that commissionsd are negotiable....

Vivaverdi 13:42, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Major Revision

OK, so I took some liberties with the article. I removed the history section, although it would be nice to add it back in when we have some good supported information. I also updated the statistics with what was in the latest press release from the NAR and omitted those that had been shaped to form a biased argument against FSBO.

Vivaverdi, you opened the discussion about whether or not to include external links to FSBO service providers. I would argue that although doing so would somewhat commercialize the article, these organizations are part of the FSBO phenomenon, and therefore pertinent to the article. Additionally, I believe readers researching FSBO would be interested in links to FSBO service providers.

I think what you have done is fine. Those stats were there when I found the site. The reorg. of links looks better too. I just wanted to give the flavor of sites out there in different countries, etc. rather than provide a long "how to" list of options.....
Vivaverdi 13:44, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Vivaverdi, I don't mean to be a stickler, but "In Tulsa, Oaklahoma" isn't part of the article titile that I cited, so I removed it.

jlyon 02:31, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, but not sure that the Birger article refers to anything other than Tulsa, OK practice. I've added a range of 5 to 7% in the US in addition to the 6% statement.
Vivaverdi 15:42, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Looks good
jlyon 01:12, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Let me jump in here. I tightened up the first two paragraphs, but changed nothing substantively. I did, however, introduce the notion of FSBO properties being commission-free in the first paragraph. This is the overarching theme of FSBO.

As for NAR statistics, I've watched this page from time to time and have seen it undergo quite a lot of tugs from both sides of the real estate divide. I'm on the FSBO side Iconoblast, but I do believe in encyclopedic objectivism. That said, in an ideal world, any references to or citations from the NAR should be balanced by something from the FSBO world.

Unfortunately, there isn't much. A group of FSBO business/site owners have talked about creating a FSBO association and aggregating our sales and listing data to build up statistics we can use for marketing purposes. That will be slow to come.

I just want to caution us on the use of the NAR as a touchstone for all things real estate. Here's something interesting that I doubt the NAR would like to see here, and it came from their own data: The NAR reported that in 2005, 9% of all homes sold were sold by the previous owner (FSBO). They say elsewhere that 84% of all FSBO sellers end up working with a real estate agent. These numbers suggest that 56.25% of all homes sold start out as FSBOs.

Iconoblast Jul 27 2006 (How do I insert a time/date stamp?)

Firstly, just put the four "tildes", the symbol on your keyboard - far left side, top row, under "Esc" - one after the other and then save. That will produce your user name with date/time stamp.
Secondly, drawing the conclusion that 56.25% of all homes start as FSBOs cannot be correct, if only from signs on the street, broker advertsing v. FSBO advertising, etc. It would imply that 50%+ of all signs outside homes are FSBOs.... (I haven't looked at the NAR site).
Vivaverdi 16:33, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
P.S. Your revisions look good.
Vivaverdi 16:35, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I just did a little math: 9% divided by .16 (100% - 84% = 16% or .16) to get a total of all homes starting out as FSBO. Again, these are based on the NAR statistics the 9% of all homes sold are sold by the previous owner and that 84% of all FSBO sellers end up using a real estate agent.
Oh, and thanks for the tilde tip.
Iconoblast 17:36, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The guy who owns the website www.ownerssellingnetwork.com has spammed this page

I dont know how to remove it officially, but I guess I can simply delete it? His name is MJ wilson, and I read a blog where someone told him to put his spam on wikipedia to generate buzz about his business. 72.209.70.25 16:22, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thank goodness these links have been removed....

...but PLEASE make a comment on this TALK PAGE re: chages.

I certainly support what has been done. Vivaverdi 03:32, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


After reading these posts, i strongly support removing commercial sites. I own a site and had it added to this section and it got removed. So I went on to ready the policies. Let's not waste editors time by adding sites that do not comply with the policies. March 18, 2007

Who wrote this?? Please use the 4 tildes to indicate who you are. Viva-Verdi 03:15, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of link to on-line account of FSBO going wrong

We already have 1 editor opposed to including this anonymous account of a failed FSBO transaction. I support User:Leuko's position that this is not appropriate and in opposition to Wiki policy.

Therefore, I am reverting and copying this to talk:Alanjacobson1's page.

Viva-Verdi 16:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sales tax on commissions

In Canada, your typical 6% commission comes with federal GST and provincial sales tax (some provinces), slapped on top. This should be mentioned in the article Pendragon39 (talk) 18:23, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of section copied more or less directly from an on-line newspaper article

This has been removed because it ignores Wikipedia policy stated quite clearly:

"Do not copy text from other websites without a GFDL-compatible license. It will be deleted."

Viva-Verdi (talk) 23:41, 29 January 2008 (UTC)