BuySelf Realty Inc

We wanted to use a flat-fee real estate service to sell our Woodbury town home and narrowed it down (based on Home Avenue and Buy Self. HA has a much better website (Buy Self told us they will soon have an improved website) but when calling into Buy Self, they had better answers to our many questions, so we went with them. Buy Self works best for people who are comfortable never meeting the staff in person, or not needing an agent to come out to their house. However, William and Albert (the owner) are always an email or phone call away to answer any questions you may have, and they also send out very detailed emails reminding you what you need to do every step of the way. We asked Buy Self to do an MLS market analysis for us, and although they don't suggest a price, they provide the report to you to look it over, see how the nearby properties compare to yours, and set a price. We then paid the $500 and used BuySelf to post our townhome on MLS. I have photography experience and a good camera, so I took the photos of the home that were shown with our listing. I recommend that if you don't have a good camera with a wide angle lens (which is important for taking shots of smaller rooms) that you may want to hire a photographer to take photos of your home. The key is, you don't want the photos to be dark (I even further lightened our photos in Photoshop). Buy Self posted a nice For Sale sign in the yard and shipped us a lock box for the keys. They also allowed us to sign up to get email requests and for us to do online confirmations when agents requested a showing. I highly recommend signing up for that email service, since it automates everything. In the two weeks it took for us to sell the home in winter of 2018, we had 15 showings (including second showings). Buyers and their agents didn't seem to care that we weren't using a full service agency. We were still paying 2.7% commission to the buyer's realtor, as full service agency's typically do, so it didn't seem we were blacklisted in any way. It did take a good amount of work, between filling out the hours of paperwork, writing a description for the MLS so prospective buyers will want to see it, taking photos, and dealing with realtor inquiries. And be ready for some inquiries from some "crackpot" realtors and those trying to get a better price for their client. We had one who called and told us her clients were ready to write an offer and it would be "full price or better" even though they or she never visited the property. Needless to say, that offer never came through. We had another realtor tour the property with her client and then call and say how her client would be interested if we lowered our price, and that she was a highly experienced agent and believed we had our property over priced and that it wouldn't sell at that price. We stuck to our guns and to our price, knowing she was trying to get a good deal for her client. Another agent called and said "It's been on the market for a week, and it hasn't sold yet, so it must be overpriced!" Of course, most of the realtors were fine to deal with, and within 2 weeks of going on the market we had an offer for full price, which we accepted. We've closed on it and figure we saved about $5,500 on what a full service agency would have charged to list our house, and ours was only a $200k home ... would have saved more if you had a higher priced home that sold. Just figure you are saving about 3% of your home sale price, minus the $500 to use Buy Self's service. This was our first time selling a home, so when we did get the purchase offer, we called Albert (the highly experienced agent who is owner of BuySelf) and asked him about the various technical terms that we didn't understand on the purchase offer. He explained everything and how offers are usually done, and then we accepted the offer after some minor revisions to the terms (in which case you can get the paperwork from Buy Self to make those counter offers, and they'll explain how you fill them out). We were originally wondering if we needed to hire a real estate attorney to review the purchase offer or to go over the closing details, but felt we didn't need one after Albert explained everything to us on the purchase offer, and then we realized you can hire your own closing company to represent your best interests at the closing. You DO NOT need to use they buyer's closing company, and you can probably save on closing costs if you get your own independent closing company (see related review for Title Choice, which we highly recommend). It's called "split closing," and basically it's done at the buyer's closing company, but your title company also attends and does your portion of the closing. In our case, the buyer did the closing through Edina Title and we did our closing through Title Choice, which had great service and much better prices. Even if they were the same price, we feel better knowing that the title company we hire will better look out for our interests than the buyer's title company. Overall we had a great experience using Buy Self and would recommend them for those who want to do a lot of work to sell their house while saving a big chunk of cash. I believe Buy Self is headquartered in Bloomington, MN, but they also offer their services in a handful of markets throughout the United States. They have a small staff -- William and Albert, as far as I know -- but give very personalized and good service. And if you read Albert's bio on their website, you'll see he is highly respected and experienced in the industry, and has great advice to match. There were a couple things that BuySelf could have done better. For instance it took over a week to get our lawn sign put in (Buy Self subcontracts with another company for this), and although most emails to them were answered within a few hours, there were a few that took over a day to hear back on. However, if it was something important, we knew we could call (even on weekends) to get a quick answer. Those are nit-picky things, but we'll definitely use them again next time we have a house to sell.

I was warned to be careful in selecting a Flat Fee service. However, BUYSELF is a nationwide service w/ highest ratings. They were very well organized, facilitated the process every step of the way, gave polite, helpful advice and provided me with all the necessary forms. Here are some of my recommendations: If possible, do NOT to require confirmations when setting up showings for your home and use electronic lock boxes instead of codes. You also need great pictures. So, I hired a photographer [CC Photo Arts] who took excellent pictures of my home for around $100. Also be sure to list home on Craigslist for free. BUYSELF does not give legal advice so if something goes wrong at closing, they are not liable. However, if you want the extra safety, you can simply hire a R.E. attorney for around $1,000. Unlike R.E. agents, attorneys have years of professional legal training. In summary, I am very grateful for BUYSELF REALTY?S help and highly recommend this Nationwide flat fee real estate agency.