Hauseit customer service phone support for FSBO sellers

[e_b_nyc]

Thank you for taking my call today. I know we spoke for quite a few minutes. As you recall I have a condo in Brooklyn and have been doing research on next steps to sell it myself without a broker, For Sale By Owner.

I think I am pretty prepared. I have a Google Voice number and a burner email just for the sale. However I still have more questions. I'm concerned about not getting the calls directly. I don't want anyone else but me answering questions about my property. I don't want anyone misrepresenting anything. Can I see a sample listing?

How do you choose what agent's name is on the listing? Can I choose? It's almost a $5 million listing, so I'm concerned about who is going list my property.

When is the best time of week to list it? I want to do showings by appointment only. My building only allows by appointment.

How fast are the inquiries sent?

How many photos are allowed? Can we see a sample show sheet? Glad to hear it's included if we ask for it. Can we have customizations to the show sheet?

Please call me, I would like to talk further at length about this so called Agent Assisted FSBO product before proceeding. Thank you.

[HauseitAdmin]

Thank you for your call! Happy to recap our conversation today and answer these questions.

We choose affiliates based on availability and best fit. We will assign a partner agent once you have submitted your listing details and completed your purchase. Please rest assured that all of our partner brokers are full service, traditional real estate brokerage firms that are highly reputable. All of them care deeply about their brands and many of them are quite large with impressively deep rosters of agents. Please rest assured that your property won't be listed by a "sketchy" or "mom and pop" discount broker.

It's best to list a property during the early part or middle of the week, though all of this is subjective. The main reason we say that is so you'll have time for people to see any open houses you post for that weekend.

You can show by appointment only. In fact, you can add open houses by appointment only through our submit listing update tool.

Our affiliates are quite reasonable and responsive individuals, so please rest assured that your inquiries will be promptly relayed.

We allow the maximum number of photos allowed by the MLS you list on. Typically under 30 is a good limit. You won't need more than 5 to 10 photos for your typical condo or co op apartment.

We cannot provide a sample show sheet. You can ask for an automatically generated show sheet from our affiliate once you are listed. Please note that there are no customizations provided. You are free to create your own show sheets.

[e_b_nyc]

Thank you for this and for taking my call earlier. Can you please call me back? I have more questions that I would like answered before proceeding with the flat fee MLS listing.

I want to absolutely make sure I understand everything before proceeding.

Sorry I know you guys have spoken with me already, but want assurances and a few more items confirmed before listing. Thanks.

[HauseitAdmin]

Good evening!

Thanks for your call earlier! You asked a large number of very good questions, which is surely a positive sign that you are well prepared for the process ahead and will have the highest chance of success. You can find everything you need to know about our flat fee, Agent Assisted FSBO product on our website. The next step would be for you to submit your listing details here: https://www.hauseit.com/list-now/

For any further questions, we kindly ask that you leverage the resources of our comprehensive blog or ask the community in our Forum.

Going forward, as an informal company policy, we can only spare 15 minutes max per inquirer to explain any nuances around the product. Please understand that we must do this in order to continue providing great service for all customers and to keep this service essentially free (vs 6% commission).

Thank you!

[aslan]

The Hauseit team has done a tremendous job putting everything about real estate and the buying, selling etc. process online. I'm sure there will be more information than you can read, at least in one sitting, in the links they have provided you.

It's nice that they have a support line, given that other quasi free services like Google and FaceBook do not. So I would definitely temper your expectations if you are doing a self service or FSBO listing. It's called self service or FSBO for a reason!

[zal]

Hello,

Thank you very much for your response. I have been out of town the last few weeks and just getting ready to make a final decision now about moving forward. I have a couple follow up questions. If it is at all possible to reply by the end of the day, before the weekend, I would greatly appreciate it.

1. I wanted to confirm that 2 complimentary agent managed open-houses are included in the Agent Assisted FSBO package? I see it mentioned twice on your site but not on the actual product page where you pay. Is it run by the agent that would be representing my unit or another non-affiliated agent?

2. I went to the page to Submit my Information and I see that it asks for Listing Price. I had wanted to talk to the agent who will be working with me about pricing strategy and was told by Joe when we spoke that I could. Is there a way to be in communication with the agent before filling out this form or if not, I presume I can change the listing price after speaking with them before it is published on the RLS and other sites?

3. I have found the communication with Hauseit to be a little difficult. When calling your phone number I speak to an off-site answering service who takes my message and am instructed that I will receive a call back… I have read many positive reviews where Chris (the Hauseit Spokesman) is mentioned as being very helpful along with the agent assigned. If I were to move forward, how will the communication be handled? Will I have direct contact with the agent assigned to my listing? Will I be in better communication with Hauseit? This is one thing that is worrying me about moving forward.

Thank you very much,
Zal

[HauseitAdmin]

Hi Zal, pleasure speaking with you the other day and thank you for your interest and for your detailed questions! We truly appreciate you taking the time to diligence our services and your feedback is always very much appreciated.

1. Yes, the first two open houses for the listing are complimentary, depending on availability. It’s typically an agent from the same partner brokerage.

2. Yes, it’s possible to change this at any time. All changes, edits or updates to your listing can and should be made on our website: Listing Update Request. The Agent Assisted FSBO service is an owner managed listing, however, you can order our a la carte broker consulting package if you would like some over the phone advice. Please feel free to check out our guide on how to set your listing price: https://www.hauseit.com/how-do-i-set...listing-price/

3. All questions about the Agent Assisted FSBO service can be answered in our product page (https://www.hauseit.com/fsbo-nyc/ - check out the FAQ!) or by visiting our customer support forum. Unfortunately, because this is a flat fee listing, our partner broker’s duties don’t go beyond marketing your property and looping you in with inquiries. It’s up to you to take it from there after receiving an inquiry. If you’re interested in a service with full support, we recommend checking out our very affordable 1% for Full Service listing option!

More info on the level of service you should expect with a flat fee MLS listing in the link below.

[zal]

Thank you again for your detailed response. I am unfortunately still confused about one thing…. As I mentioned, I spoke to Joe at Hauseit on the phone a few weeks back and at that time, I had explained that I am very familiar with the real estate market and as I live in a large condo building, have a very good sense of market value for my unit. However, as I am very motivated to sell, I asked him if I want to talk to my agent simply about strategy of listing price (listing it a bit under to get a bidding war vs listing it at the standard slightly above market value) for like 15 minutes, and he explained that I would be able to do this based on my agent’s own “hourly” rate directly through them. As I need to do this prior to finalizing and submitting my listing, I just want to clarify when I will learn the name and contact info of my agent and if I can do this before submitting, or will do it after and then adjust the list price accordingly? Obviously, I don’t want it to be LISTED at the wrong price and show a price adjustment, so please let me know how this works.

On that note, we already had professional photos taken. I saw on your website that it mentioned that the agent holding an open house “may” print show sheets. How/when do I learn who is responsible (me or the agent) for writing the property description/printing show sheets, etc.?

Similarly, I already know that I would like to hold the first open house on Sunday, 9/16. How/when will I be able to know that an agent is available? I don’t want to pay for the service and then find out that I can’t have my first complimentary open house.

I just don’t fully understand the order and process of being assigned to an agent and these steps above.

Thanks!
Zal

[zal]

Sorry for the second email, but in re-looking at the link you sent me about list price, I saw the following sentence: Hauseit offers all its FSBO sellers a complementary pricing analysis of your listing price by a licensed real estate salesperson when you purchase our flat-fee MLS package.

How/when will this complementary pricing analysis take place? As mentioned, just don’t understand the order of everything.

[HauseitAdmin]

Hi Zal,

Thank you for informing us of this legacy language! Unfortunately we no longer are able to offer complimentary CMAs for the essentially free (vs 6% commission) Agent Assisted FSBO listing service.

However, we’re happy to have the partner broker you are paired with give you a complimentary 10 minute introductory call after you’ve purchased the Agent Assisted FSBO product. You can submit your listing details with the price as TBD.

All customers are provided with an automatically generated, standard show sheet that they are free to print out and leave at their apartments for open houses. If you would like a custom show sheet, you are certainly free to create and use your own.

Listing descriptions are written by you and submitted with the rest of your listing information.

Open houses are based on availability, and we typically need 3 days notice. You can submit your open house dates when you submit your listing details or through our listing update form.

Please remember to check out our many resources and materials online:
Agent Assisted FSBO FAQ: https://www.hauseit.com/fsbo-nyc/
Agent Assisted FSBO seller training videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...l4VUa1gb7ABU4F

Thank you!

[Mai]

Can we please discuss the buyer agent commission information over the phone? I would appreciate some insight from you.

[HauseitAdmin]

Can we please discuss the buyer agent commission information over the phone? I would appreciate some insight from you.

Hello! I’m not sure if we got disconnected or if you had hung up, but just wanted to make sure the information we were trying to relay got through.

As discussed, the flat fee service is a listing only service. The partner brokerage lists your property and their front desk/secretaries make sure you get inquiries. But then it’s up to you to take it from there and do the scheduling, showing, negotiating etc.

As you can imagine, the small flat fee does not cover phone or email support. If you would like the Principal Broker to chat with you, there is a broker consulting package available for purchase: https://www.hauseit.com/product/prof...er-consulting/

Here’s a great article on the level of service to expect with this type of owner managed listing:
https://www.hauseit.com/level-of-ser...e-mls-listing/

Thank you, and please let us know if this all makes sense. If you still feel like this is unclear or you need more service, we do have that full service listing option we discussed. Alternatively, we are happy to provide a full refund if you’d like to cancel within the first week of your listing period. Please let us know, thanks!

P.S. You may want to do some research and try to figure out how many listings are competing with yours in terms of: price point, layout, neighborhood, etc. If you find dozens and dozens of results, chances are that you'll need to offer a competitive buyer agent commission to have a realistic chance of working with represented buyers. Similarly, if the 'average days on market' for comparable listings is relatively high it means it's more of a buyer's market for your type of listing. In this case, drawing maximum attention from represented buyers is quite important for your overall sale prospects. If your research yields only a handful of listings, an argument can be made that you may be able to offer a below market rate buyer agent commission. Friendly reminder that we cannot advise you on a specific commission amount, and it's entirely your decision.