With inventory of both improved and unimproved land for sale being so high these days, there is lots of company among sellers. I’m sure you have seen many writings lately giving advice to sellers on how they can stand out from the crowd. One infrequently mentioned tip involves owner financing. For Towns and Union Counties in Georgia and Clay County in western North Carolina, the ratio of owner finance to cash refinance active listings is very diverse. I can’t say that this really surprises me as sellers typically want to get their money and move on.

For those sellers in the position to offer owner financing, such as some developers, consider the recent (January 22, 2008) data below for Towns, Union, and Clay Counties.

Active Acreage and Vacant Lot Listings - Owner Finance
Towns County 27
Union County 65
Clay County 70
Active Acreage and Vacant Lot Listings - Cash Refinance
Towns County 973
Union County 1713
Clay County 1312
Active Residential Listings - Owner Finance
Towns County 2
Union County 12
Clay County 3
Active Residential Listings - Cash Refinance
Towns County 369
Union County 624
Clay County 304

As far as the owner financing terms, everything is negotiable including the down payment and loan term so don’t be too quick to dismiss this option. In this market, sellers need to dig deep in order to move their property.

It’s not easy being a for sale by owner (FSBO) seller and to be honest, it is much easier to hand the whole job over to a real estate agent.  However, for many sellers that is just not an option.  Maybe their equity is, or has already disappeared.  And for others, the potential cost savings are too great to pass up at least trying the FSBO way.

Well, if you own a lot or tract of land, a home, and even commercial property or other real estate in Young Harris, Hiawassee, Hayesville, Blairsville or another north Georgia or western North Carolina location, you’re in luck.   Mountain Land & Homes FSBO, LLC (www.mlh-fsbo.com) located in Young Harris, Georgia offers free services only to FSBO sellers.  Only FSBO sellers may have a free web page listing on our web site.  In addition to the free web page listing, we also upload your listing to Google Base, Zillow.com, and others to help you get your property seen.  By the way, our web site (www.mlh-fsbo.com) receives excellent page ranking from many of the popular search engines, such as Google and Yahoo. 

Given the fact that many buyers, some say as many as 80%, start their search on-line, we believe this service will really help FSBO sellers.  And if FSBO sellers need some additional help, we offer optional services, such as taking property pictures and providing yard and directional signs.  We even offer advertising on the local multiple listing service (MLS) and Realtor.com.

Visit www.mlh-fsbo.com and select “List My Property” and then ”Create an Account” to list your FSBO property today for Free!   

I know what you’re thinking.  The last thing buyers need is help.  But you have to hear me out on this.  For north Georgia and western North Carolina, like many other parts of the country, inventory of land and homes for sale is very high.  And did you know that many folks looking to buy property, some say as many as 80%, typically start by looking on the internet?

 So what does this have to do with giving buyers more help than huge price reductions or an endless supply of properties to choose from?  You see, the huge inventory and shopping for property on the internet has also lead to an endless amount of web sites to shop for real estate.  It’s basically a mess of many web sites that are mostly divided between the for sale by owner sites and the realtor sites. 

What on-line buyers really want is one place to find properties for sale regardless if they are offered for sale by owner or through a realtor.  

 Does it really have to be an Easter egg hunt when trying to find out what property is for sale? I don’t think so which is why our site, www.mlh-fsbo.com offers buyers the option of searching both realtor and for sale by owner (FSBO) properties in one location. There are a few other sites as well across the country. One service really worth mentioning is Google Base.  I’m sure many of you are well aware of Google Base, which serves as the keeper of data. If you’re not yet familiar of Google Base, it’s Google’s database of everything, including real estate listings uploaded by Realtor and FSBO related sites. Although it’s still being tested, it may not be too far from being the main search tool for real estate. However, because its listings are provided voluntarily as opposed to crawling the web, it may be too soon to celebrate. 

Regardless, the efforts of www.mlh-fsbo.com, Google Base, and other web sites are helping to making searching for real estate easier.  As far as where all of this is going, I’ll let you make your own opinion on that but as far as I’m concerned, I like this trend and think it will continue.