RBC Royal Bank Mortgage Website Has Tips for FSBO
The Royal Bank of Canada’s Mortgage website has tips for selling your own home. They do point out all the money that can be saved selling privately and they also mention “pitfalls” to selling your own home.
ByTheOwner.com thinks it’s great that Canada’s Largest Bank has discussed selling privately on their website. However, we do have some suggestions on how they can improve this section of their site…
1) They mention that you “probably want to engage the expertise of a notary or real estate lawyer”. ByTheOwner would suggest that this is a “definite” as opposed to a “probably”. Calling a lawyer is the first step in our guide.
2) The Royal Bank’s second point is “Designing a real estate marketing plan” which links to a section about “Using a real estate agent”. While we agree that a Marketing Plan is very important, we know that you don’t need an agent to do this! More help on creating a Marketing Plan can be found on page 14 of our guide.
3) One of the “pitfalls” that they mention is “Limited Marketing Exposure”. We agree that we do not yet have the exposure of mls, however, 40% of home on mls do not sell! Our success rate ranges from 50-60% depending on the area, so we have a similar success rate to homes on mls! So obviously mls is not a big factor in selling your home.
4) The other pitfall they mention is and “Attracting Serious Buyers”. This is where we feel that the Royal Bank needs to improve or at least back their statements up with facts! They mention “Typically, people who visit FSBO properties are either “just looking” or bargain hunters”. What source did they get this from? ByTheOwner.com has not had this comment often in our testimonials or feedback. People can “look” at mls or bytheowner.com so we are not sure how this applies to for sale by owner homes. Having the photos and info easily available for buyers eliminates most of the “lookers”, but anyone who has a house for sale or an open house with or without an agent will get “lookers”.
All in all, the Royal Bank’s Website on selling your home is quite good, with lots of good tips and advice. Perhaps a few small changes and perhaps mentioning ByTheOwner.com when selling your home privately and their website would be even better!
