Did you know there are real estate coaches who sell scripts to real estate agents that teach what to say to a FSBO to convert them from FSBO to a full-commission listing of their own?
Kevin Ward of YESMasters and Bob Loeffler at Fearless Agent are popular.
If you’re trying to sell your own home, regardless of whether you’ve been able to list that home in the MLS or not, more than likely, you’ve received a call from a real estate agent who will eventually get around to asking you these questions:
- Can I preview your property?
- How are you marketing your property?
- Can I ask when you sell this house, where are you moving?
The classic, but unfortunate, approach for a real estate agent to take is to create the illusion they have a buyer interested in your home as a guise to preview the property, only to give you a listing presentation once they get there.
That’s called a bait and switch, its legality is questionable, and is predatory real estate behavior at best.
It’s nice to see that Kevin Ward has the integrity to not guide his students down the road of bait-and-switch practices. Unfortunately, that’s not the case with everyone.
Invariably, once the agent has made their way inside your home, they’ll purport that if you just re-list with them they’ll be able to sell your property faster and for substantially more money.
If you go behind the scenes on one of these calls (click the YouTube video below to listen to one of these very calls) that real estate agents make to FSBOs, does it look like everything is above board?
The reality is that if you decide to sell FSBO, you need to be prepared to deal with predatory Realtors who aren’t interested in bringing a buyer of their own to buy your property, but rather, convincing you that you should re-list your home with them for a full commission.
FSBO Burner Phone Numbers & Disposable Email Addresses for FSBOs
One practical way to combat predatory Realtors, while at the same time qualifying buyers and their agents, is to use a set of temporary contact credentials (phone number and email address). Sometimes referred to as a “burner” contact information, you can build real efficiency, professionalism, and marketing power into your home selling process by using free Google Voice and Gmail tools. These tools will be used only for a temporary period, yet will protect your privacy, allow you to avoid exposing your personal contact information on the Internet, and, allow you to perform marketing, filtering, and qualifying activity all in one.