RE: Real Estate Podcast

Ben Harang, Realtor® (00:27)
Good afternoon, everybody. my name is Ben Harang with Keller Williams Realty Bayou Partners with me as my cohost, Clint Galliano. Good afternoon, Clint. How you doing today?

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (00:39)
I'm doing wonderful, Ben. How you doing?

Ben Harang, Realtor® (00:41)
Clint, I'm doing terrific on a warm, not so rainy day this afternoon. We've been getting some rain lately and it was supposed to rain today and I hadn't gotten anywhere I am yet today. So, life is good. Life is good. So, we've been talking about different topics for the podcast and I think we settled on one. So why don't you take the topic and get it rolling and we'll get some conversation going.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (00:56)
Yes, indeed.

All right, so the official topic is going to be Thinking of Selling Your Home Without an Agent? (commonly known as For Sale By Owner) Here's What You Need to Know.

What you think about that?

Ben Harang, Realtor® (01:19)
Well, also commonly referred to as FSBO, F S B O in the real estate language. and people, there's no law that says somebody has to use a real estate agent to list and sell their property that they'll people that do it statistically, something less than 10 % of the people actually are successful selling it. and most of the time they're, they're undervalued, but,

There's reasons they are real estate agents that help people buy and sell property. And we're to hit some of those topics and just give you something to think about. Because sometimes it's not always about just the money. And typically we are able to put more money in your pocket after any fees are paid. So.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (02:05)
Yeah, and

we're not trying to bash the people that sell the homes themselves. We're trying to give guidance and just give a clear picture of what you need and kind of the risks and the rewards.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (02:10)
That low.

Cause you know, you bought, you buying your first house is probably not a good idea to, are you selling your first house? It's probably not a good idea to be a for sale by owner. if you're selling your 10th house, you might, you might know the pitfalls and decide to take the chance. so we're going just kind of cover some, some topics and, we'll, we will let you make up your mind.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (02:40)
There you go. All right. So we're to walk through what's really involved if you want to sell your house on your own. So we'll start out with the rewards. And the biggest reward is you'll save on compensation to the agents if you're not using agents. So.

You save on compensation for at least one agent because it doesn't guarantee that you won't have a buyer show up with an agent

Ben Harang, Realtor® (03:09)
Right. And

just because you're not paying an agent doesn't mean you're going to save that money either. Sometimes you, the discount you they're asking you for is more than the cost of the agent. so it, the fact that you don't have a, an agent to pay doesn't mean you're to save that much money.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (03:26)
Yeah, so some of the things you may actually lose, you run into some issues where you undervalue your home, so you could be missing out on money there, or you're overpricing. We had a whole discussion about pricing. Actually, I think we had two whole discussions. We were so excited about it, ⁓ about pricing. Yeah, it makes a difference.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (03:41)
Mm-hmm.

Because it does make a difference. The right price does make a difference.

Yeah.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (03:52)
⁓

You know, so that could be an issue if you're doing it yourself and you're not used to pricing homes on a regular basis and how to calculate market pricing and everything. ⁓ Another issue you could run into is that you're going to have fewer qualified buyers because the only thing you're going to have access to are people that see it on like

Ben Harang, Realtor® (04:03)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (04:17)
Facebook Marketplace and Zillow, because those are your two basic options for listing homes for sale by owner without going to some type of flat fee brokerage. And if you've ever tried to sell anything on Marketplace, my God, that's a pain in the butt.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (04:20)
Hmm

Yeah.

Well,

and, and, and I'm going to tell you the, the, thing that jumps out at me, about trying to sell your house yourself is you have somebody trying to sell the house, whether you're still living there or you already moved out. and you get a call and a lot of agents do this with Clint & I don't do this, but you get a call. Hey, I want to see your house. Well, what you're looking for. I'm looking for a house. Well,

How much, how much would price range in? Well, I don't know. Do you have a pre-approval? Well, no, I want to find a house first. Then I'm get the pre-approval and that stuff we hear all the time, but don't be surprised if somebody rings your doorbell and says, I want to see your house. And you have a decision to make either let them in or tell them we can make an appointment to do it at another time. It's not convenient right now.

Well, if you don't let them in, you might've lost the sale. If you let them in, you don't know if they really want to buy the house or they just want to get inside your house and do whatever they're to do. So we, we have, we have some notifications. Clint, Clint was not, not, not involved in law enforcement, but he sure got involved in a, in an issue that we had a couple of years ago at Keller Williams when, some guy is just a scam artist came in.

acting like he wanted to buy a, what, a million dollar house, Clint & , ⁓ you know, it, it, the, that could have gone south quickly. And the safety issue in my mind is the biggest reason why you don't want to do this. why you don't want to do a, why you don't want to be a for sale by owner. cause once somebody gets in your house and the door is closed and we go through training on how not to let that happen. you know, we, we always let the.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (06:00)
Yeah.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (06:22)
The buyers in that we don't know, they go in first and I'm always between them and the door. and you know, they probably not looking to do anything to me, but you never know what, you never know what's going to happen, whether it's robbery or worse than that. So anyway, that's my, that's my spiel on, on safety. you do decide to go for sale by owner route, just be cautious and aware of your surroundings and who you let in your house.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (06:49)
Yeah. So there you go. So one of the other things that is also something to watch out for is legal or paperwork mistakes. There are set rules for the transfer of property.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (06:50)
get off my soap box

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (07:08)
things like property disclosures, if you're the residential buy-sell agreement, there are deadlines and dates and timelines stipulated in that agreement that if they're not held to, they can render the purchase agreement null and void. They can cause you as the seller some grief. So...

Ben Harang, Realtor® (07:22)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (07:34)
understanding and knowing the paperwork and you you can complete a sale without using any of that but that could also lead to problems. We run into problems every day of people that have bought a home.

just went to the notary and either paid a note or just did an active sale with the notary. And then when we go to facilitate them selling the property to someone else, they start doing a title search and there may be 14 unopened secessions on the chain of title. And it winds up being that there's no way that they can sell that piece of property.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (07:53)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (08:18)
because they can't prove a clear chain of title without opening those 14 unopened secessions and closing them out. And that's a whole other pain in the butt.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (08:30)
Yeah.

And it might, it, that might be more expensive than the value of the, the property. So at that point you have property that's worthless that you can't sell. you can sell it, but it's going to cost you more to clear the title than the property is worth. so just get some, get, get professionals to do their job. you know, told a story about one we had, I had a while back where they had a

A lease and a subdivision was not recorded on a cash sale.

And it, caused, it caused grief in 45 days. And thankfully we were able to clear it up, but it, it for a minute there, I didn't think we'd be able to close on the property. So, and speaking of paperwork, Clint, we talked about this before we started on the podcast, but the property disclosure form required in Louisiana, we cannot be involved in a sale where the seller does not complete that form when it's required.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (09:25)
and

the seller has to complete it. We can't do it.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (09:28)
Right. We don't, we don't fill it out with our, our pen in hand. The seller has to do it. We can talk about it and they can, they can complete it and we can work through it with them, but we don't fill it out. But if a sale by owner is not required to have that piece of paper completed and it's a, what, 11, 12, 13 pages now, Clint.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (09:50)
13 total, not all of them have to have writing on it. Some of it's informational.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (09:55)
Yeah. And then you have to decide if you're exempt or not. That's one problem. But the real issue is state law says if that form is not provided to a buyer, the buyer can void that transaction at any point in the transaction up to the closing without any consequences at all. So when Clint and I were talking earlier, let's just say you have a deal on a house for $325,000 and everything went smooth. You get to the closing table.

Everybody's happy and you have a buyer that is might be not the most up and up individual, but knows the law and he makes arrangements to pay you $300,000 at the closing rather than three and a quarter. And tells you, can sell it for 300 or you can, I'm gonna get up and walk out. You say, wait, you signed a purchase agreement. can't do that. There's you, you're breaching the contract.

Said, no, I never got the property disclosure from you. And the state law says I can walk away at any point in time. So right now your choice, sell the house for $300,000 or I'm out the door. Now I've heard it happen where people backed out because they did not get the closing the property disclosure. I haven't seen that happen where it got that bad, but it certainly could.

That's just something to be aware of.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (11:18)
Indeed.

So you definitely want to make sure you're on top of your paperwork.

Another thing, if you're not doing this on a day-to-day basis, you've got less negotiation leverage because you don't know a multitude of options for negotiation and where the edges of the envelope are. ⁓ So those are things you watch out for. And on top of that, buyers are still going to come in and negotiate.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (11:37)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (11:47)
down your price, even though you priced it without taking commissions into account. Buyers are going to still come in and negotiate down on the price because everybody wants a deal.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (12:00)
I, there's, I've seen FSBOs grossly overpriced and people go see the house. Cause buyers see more houses than we do sometimes. And they have a better feel for the, the market value of the properties that they're looking at with their agents. And somebody says, make me an offer. Well, if you $150,000 overpriced because you have the best house in the neighborhood and you like your house more than anybody else.

You're not going to even get an offer on the house. You need to be.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (12:29)
What's that phrase you

said, Ben? You're buying your house.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (12:32)
You're going to buy your house. You're going to pay more for your house than anybody else. So wash your clothes and put them back in the closet and you're going to stay there a while. You know, you just need to be realistic on the pricing. And if it's overpriced and you're not getting any, activity, you need to adjust the price. And at some point you might decide you don't want to sell the house for that price. Then make your bed and sleep in it.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (12:54)
Yeah, so next we're gonna move on to marketing. So first things first, good photos. Yeah, iPhone photos, don't cut it, all right? ⁓ Hire professional real estate photographer and make sure it's a real estate photographer. I've got a friend of mine that's a great photographer. He videos weddings, he videos recitals.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (13:05)
No.

Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (13:21)
He does portrait shooting and stuff like that, but he's not set up for real estate photography. You want a photographer that is set up to take the proper photos and is familiar with taking the proper photos.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (13:30)
And it-

And the timeline to get the photos out, you know, we, need to make sure we get them out in the timely fashion. can't, you can't wait 10 days for the photos. and, and iPhone, you can see them online. You see them from a mile away. don't care which iPhone you have. You're going to have the latest and greatest. It's still an iPhone photo or it's still a cell phone photo. And it, we, try to give the property a fair representation.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (13:42)
that too.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (14:06)
Of what it really is. I don't want to, I don't want the photo to oversell it or undersell it. If we oversell it, people are going to be disappointed when they walk in the door. If we undersell it, they'll never walk in the door. So we need that sweet spot where you see the photos online and when you walk in the front door, it's the house you thought you were going to see.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (14:26)
Yeah. So, next statement, and I actually said it a little while ago, as for sale by owner seller, or a FSBO seller, like Ben likes to say, you can't access the MLS. So that's actually cutting out a big portion of the market that's actively looking for homes to buy.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (14:48)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (14:49)
So

without using a flat fee listing service, which neither Ben nor I provide flat fee listing services, just to make that clear, but without that you have no access unless you're paying a flat fee listing service to get on the MLS.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (15:05)
So in, Clint & I get paid only if we perform. If you go to a flat fee listing service, you're going to pay them to put it in the MLS. And that's all that happens. That's right. That's right. You're paying upfront. you know, so we're performance based. You don't pay anything unless we perform. so I, I just, I don't have a, I'm not interested in the flat fee.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (15:14)
whether you sell or not.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (15:29)
just to get it in the MLS because it just sits there anyway.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (15:30)
Yeah.

So like I said earlier, Facebook and Zillow are your main tools. Again, they're not enough. Is this available messages on Facebook? ⁓ Or I'm interested, are really kind of aggravating. You might get some leads from Zillow, but here's the thing about Zillow. Somebody sees a house they like on Zillow.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (15:45)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (15:57)
they're gonna click on contact an agent button on your listing and it's gonna go to a real estate agent anyways. So if you're trying to stay away from real estate agents, Zillow's not gonna be your friend in that respect.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (16:05)
Right.

and Clint talked about the paperwork. the purchase agreement is 11 pages. Now when I started, when I was 12 years old, it was two, two pages. It's now 11 pages. And every time something happens, they add another section to the purchase agreement. So those additional nine pages cover bad things that happened to somebody along the way. they try to cover every eventuality and.

It gets to the point to where we see new agents coming in. They look at this 11 page purchase agreement and they don't even know what to put in the fill in the blank form. It gets so convoluted at some point or sometimes it, it kind of scrambles, scrambles your brain about inspection timelines and appraisal timelines and as is and you know,

It just, if you don't do it every day, just be careful.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (16:59)
So just some comparison for marketing purposes between as a for sale by owner seller compared to listing with an agent. When you list with an agent, an agent will do open houses for you. They've got a network within their brokerage with other brokerages through the MLS and personal connections that they'll be sharing.

your home with to try and bring in buyers. They'll send email campaigns to other agents and to their also to their own sphere of influence. So those are clients that they're working with, clients that they've worked with in the past, people they know that might be interested in buying it or know someone who might be interested in buying it to give maximum exposure to your property.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (17:35)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (17:50)
So those are all things that you as a for sale buy owner seller would need to do yourself so Go ahead

Ben Harang, Realtor® (17:56)
in.

Well, the way the system works is there plus or minus 400 of us that belong to the Bayou Buddha realtors. And with new technology, opened it up basically for most of the state. So any agent can sell it. There are buyers, which they already have actively looking for it. So your house may or may not be the one, but if it's close, it'll get shown. And eventually.

somebody, one of those buyers that an agent has is going to, like your house and want to buy it. If you do it, you have one house to sell. You need to resell it to everybody that goes look at it. You need to explain it to every agent that comes see you. need to, you need to re-explain it to every buyer that comes to you. And you only have one. If, if I have a buyer and we have 10 houses to look at, they're to buy one of those houses. You have one to sell them and you wasting your time.

trying to sell them your house when it doesn't fit them. you kind of, you kind of that needle in a haystack, the right buyer might find your house. It does happen. But he generally doesn't because a lot of people start off with the house. I'm going to put a sign in the front yard three week for a week or three and see what happens. They invariably call us back and say, I don't know how you do this. Come put a sign in, come put your name, your number in my front yard. Cause I don't want to talk to these people anymore.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (19:17)
Yes, indeed. All right. Moving on paperwork and legal side, we've talked about disclosures. We've talked about the purchase agreement. We've kind of talked about what happens when things go sideways, title defects. One we didn't touch on is financing issues. So generally, whether we bring a buyer or whether

Ben Harang, Realtor® (19:24)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (19:41)
another agent brings a buyer, we're working to ensure that that buyer is fully qualified. And it's not just Joe Bleaux off the street, we understand what that how to qualify that buyer financially to make sure that we can get to closing if there are issues, then we've got different, I guess you could kind of call them playbooks.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (19:50)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (20:06)
to try and figure out how to get that buyer to closing. A little tiny short story, I've got a listing right now where the current quotes for insurance because the lender requires full replacement coverage insurance on the property runs from $11,000 something dollars a year just for homeowners.

not counting flood, to a little bit over 15,000, depending on which quote he would decide to go with. So that's almost a thousand, over a thousand dollars, almost a thousand to over a thousand dollars a year, on top of his house, or a month, on top of his house note, that he would have to pay just for homeowners insurance. So that's, that's going to be a no-go, you know. So.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (20:40)
Mm-hmm.

a month.

Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (20:58)
What we're looking at is other lenders that aren't going to require that he get full coverage insurance that allows him to get lower cost insurance so that it's more affordable for him to pull that off. So those are things that we do in those situations. The other thing is whether you're using a real estate agent or not, get a real estate attorney involved.

whether it's making sure that the buyer closes through a real estate attorney or if you as the seller have a real estate attorney, review the purchase agreement and make sure you understand what you're agreeing to.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (21:39)
Absolutely. the, we didn't talk about the appraisals. did a segment. We did an episode, I think on appraisals, but you know, if the appraisal comes in $10,000 short, what do you do about it as a for sale by owner? Do you roll over? Do you push back? Do you lose the sale? you know, that's one thing. And, and look, we, get people pre-qualified every day.

We talked to the lender, we talked to the other agent, we, find out as much as we can about them and things still go south. so I can't imagine how somebody that has never done it can pre-qualify somebody and really expect to get to the closing. You know, one of the horror stories is, is you think your house is sold, you move out. You go move in with a friend or you rent a hotel room or you rent a house.

And two days before the closing, the closing falls apart because the buyer didn't tell the lender about something or the buyer can't sell the house they needed to sell to get the, to get the loan that they didn't tell you they needed to sell to get the loan. Those are the things we vet out.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (22:42)
or the buyer pulls $10,000

out from under his mattress and deposits and in his bank account for the closing costs. And the lender says, hey buddy, you just killed your purchase agreement.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (22:54)
Or went out and financed, a house full of furniture. Had that happened or quit their job the day of the closing, quit the job the day of the closing. And we couldn't close cause he didn't have a job. you know, it happens. It happens to us. we don't, we, things happen, but we, we try not to let it happen and it still happens. I can't imagine somebody not knowing the pitfalls and can navigate it to get to an actual.

Successful closing.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (23:19)
So we touched on safety. So when you're selling your home without an agent, you're your own showing agent. So you need to schedule the showings. You need to screen the potential buyers and you need to do follow-ups on the buyers after they come in and see the house. Safety concerns are letting strangers in, especially if it's vacant.

or if it's in a remote area, which we've, I think I've said a couple of podcasts ago, a couple of episodes ago, pretty much everywhere around here is remote. The other part is that you don't have a neutral third party to get feedback from the buyers. So it makes it a little bit harder for you to adjust your strategy if it's not working because you're not.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (23:53)
Yeah.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (24:10)
you're not able to understand why things aren't moving, why you're not getting a purchase agreement. So those are some of the things to do with showings that you may want to be aware of.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (24:18)
Mm-hmm.

And one more thing, I don't know if it fits in this subcategory, but I'm gonna tell you a position you do not want to be in. You do not want to have a buyer represented by a seasoned real estate agent that you are negotiating with. You will lose every time before you start. That's just the way it is. You lose.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (24:47)
That's a good segue, Ben.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (24:51)
I've done it. Um, and I feel bad for the people on the other side cause they don't want to, they don't want to spend the money. get it. But I know before we start, they lose. And I've had people tell me after the fact said, you know, until, until we, did this, I didn't know. I didn't think y'all were worth the money. Well, now I'm homeless. I'm selling my house cause I want to and the house. I don't have an agent on that I'm buying. I can't get the woman out so I can buy it and close. So I have to move in with my sister.

I need to sell my house because I want this house whenever we can buy it.

you better off not being put in that position.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (25:26)
So this next segment is negotiations and inspections. our first bullet point here in our list of topics that are things to talk about is when you're selling your home by yourself, you're negotiating directly with buyers or their agents without backup. So you've got nobody to bounce it off of or strategize with.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (25:45)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (25:51)
Some common mistakes is getting emotional during negotiations, not knowing when to push back or when not to push back, and failing to prepare for repair requests. Because if the buyer is working with an agent, they're likely going to have a home inspection, and there's a good chance that they're going to ask for some type of repairs to be made.

and it may be something that's critical, it may not be something that's critical. But they have the right to walk away if they don't like your response to that.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (26:21)
And our, my, tell people part of our job is to adjust our clients expectations and to take the emotion out of the transaction. you're, you're in love with your house. You want to sell it, but you, you just don't want to sell it to somebody that doesn't like the paint color you chose. cause that comes from your mama's house. I don't care if they don't like the paint color in your house.

You'll never know. They don't like the paint color in your house because you're not going to talk to them. so keep the emotion out of it. It's a business transaction. You want to sell your house and the people want to buy it. Let's just get it done. but that is a big part of what we do. We, we, laugh that we, we become counselors. You know, we talk people off the ledge all the time that get emotional. And I said, look, you can take it out on me all you want. Just let it all out right here, right now. But.

Before you make a decision, we will get back to the rational side. know, if the house has been on the market for six months and we $250 apart on the deal, it doesn't make sense to put it back on the market. You know, that's just an example of what people have done. They got emotional and got upset and made a poor financial decision because they let their emotions get away with them or get away from them.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (27:36)
Yeah. So all in all, the

Ben Harang, Realtor® (27:37)
You're trying to keep me on track

and I'm not doing it. I'm not doing a good job.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (27:41)
Hey,

that's why this works. That's why I'm looking at the guide at our notes here. So sometimes when,

I'm trying to think of the right word here where I could approve of somebody selling a house for themselves. ⁓ If you're an experienced investor or a past agent, like Ben mentioned before we started recording, you know, if you've sold 10 houses or was that earlier in this episode? Could have been either one. I don't remember. So, you know, if you you sold 10 houses,

Ben Harang, Realtor® (27:58)
Mm-hmm.

It could have been either one, I don't remember.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (28:17)
then you probably can represent yourself. So maybe, maybe, not 100%, but you have a chance at it. If you're selling to a relative, there's probably less chance of an issue coming up. But overall, you still want to have a legal or professional help. So a real estate attorney,

Ben Harang, Realtor® (28:21)
Maybe. Maybe.

⁓ huh.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (28:43)
Somebody that understands the process to be in your corner, you know, and definitely would be somebody that you, you know, you've hired to help you out. ⁓ You know, like I say, to review your contracts, advise you on processes, things like that. Even if it's not listing it with a real estate agent, having a

Ben Harang, Realtor® (28:55)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (29:09)
have somebody that can give you the advice to get you through the transaction.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (29:14)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (29:16)
So.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (29:16)
Yeah, and if you haven't, if you haven't, if you're

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (29:16)
Stay Cheesedos.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (29:20)
Put your, put your cell number out there where people call you 24 seven about the house down the street or the house you have for sale and the, phone calls you get. That's what happens when you put your cell number in, in, on a sign in your front yard. You don't know who's calling you. You don't know when they call in you. You don't know why they call in you. You don't know if they call in you to, cause they want to cut the grass or they want to wash the house. So you need to deal with all of those things.

And people have the misconception, I think they're gonna put a sign in the front yard, somebody's gonna call them, they're gonna take one phone call. People are gonna say, yeah, I wanna buy your house, we're gonna close next Tuesday. It's not that simple.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (30:00)
And and I will say.

I don't do this and I don't think Ben does it either, but you know, we're also not gonna say, hey, I might have a buyer that wants to buy your house. That's a fishing expedition. Now.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (30:11)
not even close.

Right, right. If an agent

ever calls you and says, I have a buyer that wants to buy your house. I need to come preview it for them. That's just a marketing strategy to get in the house with you so they can talk to you. then I don't know how you have a relationship to built on trust. And if somebody gets in front of you for different, a reason other than what they tell you, I don't know how you can build on trust. So.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (30:41)
And I mean, what I do, I do have buyers that want to look at for sale by owner properties. I'll call up and schedule an appointment to bring the buyer by and I'll get approval from you as a for sale by owner seller and say, Hey, is it okay if we come by on this date at this time? And if that's okay, then I'll show up with the buyer.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (30:44)
Mm-hmm.

And now.

Right. Right. We do, we do that. Uh, and I'm, I'm gonna give you some advice. I'm gonna give for sale by owner properties that are for sale. If you decide to do it yourself, an agent calls you and ask you to show the house. First thing they ask is, I'm not paying an agent. Well, they they'll say, I don't want to pay an agent or they'll say whatever they want to say. Don't do that. So tell them, of course you can come see my house. Cause what's going to happen is if they decide they want to buy your house, they'll make an offer.

And you analyze the offer. You decide if it's acceptable to you or not. Now, if you don't know what you're looking at, you may, they may give you an acceptable offer that you think is not acceptable or give you an offer that you think is acceptable. And you get to the closing and you miss the fact that they want you to pay $10,000 in closing costs. Cause you didn't have anybody else look at it. Um, so just, just, just be careful.

If you decide to do it yourself, I don't want anybody to get hurt and get in a financial bind. Just, just be very careful. So, and if you want to try it, try it. And if you, if you have enough of it after a week or so call Clint or I, and, we can, we can get it done for you.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (32:18)
Yep, we can step in right in. You don't have to start over.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (32:25)
Right. what we've seen a lot of times, so I'm sorry for stepping on you Clint, that reminded me. Somebody tries to sell their house for a week, a month, six months, they can't sell it. And we get involved in, in the house is now what I refer to as stale on the market. Cause people have seen the sign, they might've seen it on Zillow, they might have seen it somewhere else online. So we get in.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (32:25)
and

That's all right.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (32:51)
The sign goes down. People say, well, I guess they sold it. And then they see our sign go up. Say, well, I don't guess they sold it. And all of a sudden all the other agents are aware that this property is available. They're buyers. And it's like, there's a feeding frenzy because the house was available. Then it wasn't. Now it's available. And in two or three days, we have a contract on an accepted purchase agreement on the house. And people are like, how did you do that? Well, that's what we do. The system is designed.

to bring buyers to the properties. So it's always interesting to see when that happens. The people that tried to sell it said, I've been trying to sell that house for six months and I got four calls and three of them couldn't buy a hamburger at McDonald's and you sold it in three days. Well, that's just what we do.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (33:39)
Yeah, that's a...

That's how it's supposed to work. That's how it does work.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (33:42)
huh.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (33:43)
And ultimately, we wish you the best. If you think it's something you want to take on by all means, go for it. If you need, you need advice, you need help, give us a call. Or you want to list with one of us, give us a call. We've got our contact info in the show notes.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (33:51)
Have fun. Good luck.

huh. Yeah.

Alright.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (34:06)
All right, so.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (34:06)
All right.

You think we scared people off of for sale bone Clint? You think they think they heard us or you think we think they can still do it?

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (34:11)
⁓

to be honest, it doesn't really matter to me. I just wanted to give them some factual information.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (34:18)
It doesn't.

Right. And people will continue to do it and I don't blame them. Uh, you know, it just, can see, I see the pitfalls and it just, I feel bad for people when they, they get caught in it and they, they call and there's, there's not a whole lot anybody can do to help them out at that point. And depending on what they signed. So, and this is a disclaimer. We're not, we're not attorneys. We're not lenders. We're not insurance agents. We're, we're real estate agents. And.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (34:40)
Yeah.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (34:50)
like the disclosure says, we real estate agents, but we're not your real estate agent unless we have something signed in writing.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (34:57)
Yep. So with that being said, we'd like for you to like, subscribe, comment and share. We're out on all of the audio podcast platforms and we're also on YouTube and Spotify for video podcasts. You can find us at rerealestatepodcast.com. You can also ask us questions on rerealestatepodcast.com.

So share it with your friends, share it with your friends that want to know about buying or selling in South Louisiana. And we'll see you on the next episode. Thanks, Ben.

Ben Harang, Realtor® (35:34)
All right, Clint, y'all have a good day. Thanks.