Clients are encouraged to relay to us any For Sale by Owner (FSBO) notices they may have seen on lawn signs or in publications such as The Recorder of Greenfield (www.recorder.com) or The Daily Hampshire Gazette of Northampton (www.gazettenet.com), which we monitor regularly.
See also the websites http://ma4salebyowner.com, www.isoldmyhouse.com, Zillow (www.zillow.com), and CraigsList, which often have a number of For Sale by Owner (FSBO) listings for Hampshire and Franklin counties. Here also please notify us of your interest in any FSBO property and we will contact the owner and price out the property for you and shepherd the deal to closing if it seems the right house for you.
See the FAQs for more on how exclusive buyer agents, unlike traditional realtors, help their clients purchase FSBO properties, usually with the owner paying the commission.
Note that it is risky for a buyer to approach a FSBO without a consultant who knows the market. A buyer can end up overpaying for the property or buying into a situation where there are environmental health issues or other difficult resale issues that were not disclosed to the buyers before the sale. We spend a good part of our time with buyer clients playing the devil's advocate, pointing out problems with properties, cautioning them on this overheated market, etc.
We've saved buyers from situations where their children's health may have been at risk, where they would have taken on more work in a house than they could actually afford, and where the house was so overpriced (even in this market) that they would be taking on a debt burden that could only hurt them financially when they sold the property.