We get agents complaining about For Sale By Owner (FSBO) leads all the time, and it will usually strike our owners speechless (no small feat, considering how much these guys can talk!) that agents don’t see the HUGE potential in FSBO leads. Prospecting and following up with FSBOs can lead to some of your best sales yet! Not only can you convert FSBOs to listings for yourself but if for any reason THAT doesn’t work, you can also see about becoming the FSBO’s buyer agent to help them find a new home. It doesn’t cost them a dime to get a buyer’s agent, so why wouldn’t they want to work with you?

Prospecting for FSBOs

It’s actually pretty simple. First off, keep an eye out for FSBO signs when you’re scouting out neighborhoods. Be sure to record the address of every one you see. If you’re not that busy and you have some materials on hand, you may even want to knock on the door, introduce yourself and tell them you noticed their home is For Sale By Owner and you’d be more than happy to e-mail them some tips and advice to make the process go as smooth as possible. This way, you have an excuse to get their email address in addition to their names and property address.

You can also prospect for FSBOs the old fashioned way – get a couple different newspapers from your area and start circling ads! The newspaper is still the main source of listing advertisement for FSBOs. If you don’t have time, this is a simple project you could even pay your kids to do! Set them down with a pen and some newspapers and put them to work searching out and circling FSBOs in your area. It’s an easy way to lessen your workload somewhat and help your kid earn $5 (or however much you want to pay them).

The newest way to search for FSBOs is also the fastest, thanks to the Internet. Now you can go right online to your favorite newspaper’s website and search the classifieds for “FSBO” and “For Sale By Owner.” Print out the list that is returned and you’ve got a great list of FSBO leads to start contacting. You can use sites like Whitepages.com to run their address (or pull the property’s tax records ) and try and get a name and phone number. It won’t work all the time, but if the address is listed in the Whitepages, you should be able to get a few names and numbers of the FSBOs that way.