Sending a FSBO letter can be an excellent addition to your existing real estate marketing and sales campaigns.
When a for-sale-by-owner, or FSBO, letter is partnered with prospecting calls or visits, you can improve your results.
With a sales letter to FSBOs, you can turn any cold calling campaign into “cool calling”. A letter will create some familiarity with you, your brand, and your real estate agency services.
It’s an opportunity to create some familiarity before and during cold calling for-sale-by-owners and sales outreach methods.
In this article, I will share with you specific tips on how to create your own for-sale-by-owner letters and show you examples from my own real estate practice.
Here’s what we’re going to cover
- Who Am I?
- The Mind Of A For Sale By Owner
- A Wrong Agent Mindset
- The FSBO Letter Formula
- Tips For Getting The Best Results
Who Am I?
Before I became a real estate agent, I spent some time as a direct-marketer and copywriter. I studied, practiced and wrote sales copy — from sales letters, to emails, to content — for various businesses in various industries.
That’s a fancy way of saying I used the written word to generate sales and conversions.
So, when I first became a real estate agent, I took those copywriting skills and applied them to FSBOs, expired listings, and circle prospecting.
In my first year as a real estate agent, I was able to produce roughly $20,000 in GCI at a cost of $4,500.
A pretty decent return on my investment as a first year real estate agent.
I’m not saying all of this to brag. Rather, I have experience in direct-mail. I know how to build, write, and send prospecting letters to potential home sellers, like FSBOs.
What I’m sharing comes from experience and is driven by the results I achieved with sales letters.
The Mind Of A For Sale By Owner
Throughout this entire article and when implementing a FSBO marketing strategy, I want you to keep one principle in mind.
That principle is to enter the conversation that is already going on in their head.
It’s a really important principle, so I’m going to reiterate it.
Enter the conversation that is already going on in their head.
What does this mean?
It means you need to talk about what a FSBO is already thinking about.
For example, some of the things for sale by owners are telling themselves:
- “I can sell this house myself. I don’t need an agent.”
- “Agents hardly do anything to get a home sold other than list it in the MLS.”
- “It’s easy to be a real estate agent. It takes little skill.”
Now, I’m not saying agree with a for sale by owner. But understand where they are coming from.
Sales isn’t so much about persuasion as it is about helping a home seller identify a problem and offer them a solution for that problem.
The Wrong Agent Mindset
Unfortunately, most agents adopt the wrong mindset when prospecting to FSBOs.
Instead of understanding a for sale by owner, many real estate agents become combative and argumentative.
They create sales letters or use FSBO sales scripts that say indirectly (sometimes directly) to a home seller that they can’t sell a home without an agent and they’re the best real estate agent in the entire world.
This creates a defensive position in the for sale by owner prospect.
Instead of trying to build a relationship, you’ve now created hostility and a bridge between yourself and FSBO.
Early on, FSBO owners believe they can sell their home alone. They don’t need a real estate agent.
For early staged FSBOs, you should focus on offering a solution that helps them sell their home without a real estate agent.
As an example, you can:
- Send the comparables to help them appropriately price their home
- Provide your list of vendors to help with a smoother transaction process
- Give them an opportunity to get professional photos or aerial photography
It seems counterintuitive to try to help someone sell their home without using you. But, this approach will help build rapport, trust, and confidence.
You really don’t have any other options.
When, and if, a FSBO decides to list their home with a real estate agent, it’s only this approach that results in the best outcome.
The FSBO Letter Formula
Whether your FSBO prospecting campaign contains one letter or five prospecting letters, they should all follow the FSBO letter formula.
The FSBO letter formula is composed of three parts:
- Get their attention
- Bring out the desire
- Offer your solution
That’s it. You need to make sure every letter — and conversations, really — has these three elements in them.
Let’s go over each of these in a bit more detail.
Grab The FSBO’s Attention
Attention is scarce and limited. You need to be able to grab a for-sale-by-owners’ attention quickly.
You can do that with a bold and powerful headline at the top of the letter.
Here are some example headlines that I have used in my own FSBO letters.
- Let’s Prove All of Those Real Estate Agents Wrong. Discover How to Save Both Money and a Headache When You Sell Your Home Yourself.
- Get my private list of recommended cleaners, movers and other businesses who help make moving simple. Don’t reinvent the wheel and interview dozens of businesses yourself — use my list.
- Taking Advantage of this Real Estate Offer is a No Brainer. Save Money and the Headache
- Small Bites. No Bites. Are You Going to Be Able to Sell Your Home Within Your Timeframe?
- Warning: Avoid These Mistakes That Cost One FSBO Seller Over $15,000
You can test different formatting of your headlines. For example, choosing which words to bold or where to use red font.
The first letter I send to FSBO prospects is:
“Let’s Prove All of Those Real Estate Agents Wrong. Discover How to Save Both Money and a Headache When You Sell Your Home Yourself.”
Notice how I am practicing what I preach…
…Entering the conversation that is going on inside their heads.
Early FSBOs want nothing more than to sell their home without a realtor.
I leaned into that.
Plus, I called out all of the other real estate agents.
I can guarantee that the for sale by owner has received several phone calls, letters, and postcards telling them they won’t be able to sell their house without an agent.
My headline speaks to that and says, “Let’s prove them wrong.”
I’m focusing on helping them sell their home alone.
As I move through my FSBO campaign and letters, my headlines become a little more focused on selling real estate services and the negatives of going the FSBO route.
Hook Them With Emotional Stories
Okay, once you’ve grabbed their attention, it’s time to pull them in by connecting to their emotions.
Their hopes. Fears. Dreams. Desires.
You need to paint a picture of their dream: to sell a home for top dollar in a reasonable timeframe while avoiding real estate agent commissions.
You can use words like, “Imagine if…”
For example:
“Now that your home is listed, imagine if you got an offer for full asking price within the next 7 days. What would that mean to you?”
I will progress this sales letter to paint a more vivid picture by adding examples or detailed imagery.
Here’s an example of how I connected in my sales letters with FSBOs early on. I would play to a desire of competition and defensiveness towards real estate agents.
Congrats on getting your home listed on the market. See, who needs to hire a “professional” real estate agent to sell a home?
I put “professional” in quotations because most of them have no clue what they’re doing. They’ll badger you to death on how it’s not a good idea to sell your home by yourself. They’ll yell at you until they’re blue in the face saying you NEED an agent.
But come on, you and I both know that’s one BIG FAT lie.
I think the worst lie is the one that’s put out there. I’m sure you’ve come across this one when deciding whether or not to sell your home FSBO.
“FSBO homes sell for $40,000 less than the average agent assisted home. That’s why you need an agent.”
But you and I know that this is a fudged statistic. NAR’s goal is to make you think that an agent can help you sell your home for more. But that’s far from the truth…
While a FSBO home sells for less, it’s not because you’re better off with an agent. It has more to do with the average value of the FSBO home. FSBO is a common practice among less expensive homes rather than large luxury homes. That’s just the way it is.
There have been countless studies that show there is pretty much a 0% difference in the price a real estate agent and an FSBO seller is able to get. So yeah, why should you pay a large 3% commission when a majority of agents make you do all of the work anyways?
All you have to do is list your home on the MLS database, put up a yard sign, and tell your friends, family and neighbors that you’re selling. At this point, you would’ve done more than 95% of agents.
I want you to notice a few things in this emotional hook.
I am reinforcing their idea that they can sell their home alone AND that being a real estate agent is easy.
Again, I’m not saying I agree with their statement. Quite the contrary.
However, this is what they are thinking.
This letter puts me on their side. Not against them.
It indirectly says that “I’m with them. I’m on their side.”
I’ve immediately separated myself from every other real estate agent that is taking an argumentative and combative approach.
Your average FSBO is going to believe that the real estate business is pretty easy. They feel confident in their ability to price their home, take pictures, get on the market, handle showings, and negotiate offers.
Offer The Right Solution
Early on, the biggest mistake you can make is to offer your listing their home.
It’s not what they want. And it’s not what they need.
Instead, offer services they do need.
New FSBOs might need services like:
- Professional photography
- Aerial and drone photography
- Proper pricing and data to support their list price
- Tips for staging and creating curb appeal
The list can be long. The goal is to “help them sell their home without you”.
FSBOs don’t want a listing agent. They want to sell their homes.
When I first started sending FSBO letters, I offered photography services. I partnered with a professional real estate photography service and simply let FSBOs know about the company.
I included a coupon and some marketing material from the photography company.
There were a few FSBOs who took advantage of the offer and one of those homeowners ended up listing with me. For the others that didn’t, a few of them were more than happy to leave Zillow reviews.
If you feel like you can’t offer these services and solutions, then you shouldn’t be targeting FSBOs until they are much deeper into the process.
You would have to wait until a FSBO is ready to acknowledge and accept that they need a real estate agent. At that point, you can offer them your listing services.
Tips To Make FSBO Letters Work
There you have it. Follow the simple three part formula for crafting better FSBO letters.
Start by grabbing their attention, connecting to their emotions, and offering a solution to a problem they feel they currently have.
Don’t try to convince or persuade them that they have a problem.
A few important tips to getting the best results from your for sale by owner letters and campaign.
Create Multi-Step FSBO Campaign
Here’s the deal. One letter isn’t going to cut it.
To stand out and win FSBO listings, you need to create a multi-touch and multi-step campaign.
That means multiple sales letters, phone calls, texts, and more. Don’t rely only on sales letters. Or rely just on prospecting calls.
It’s going to take about three to five touches before you’re even in the consideration for getting the listing and another three to five to actually get the listing.
That’s a total of six to ten touches. Be prepared for a high-contact.
Get Your Letters Read
Even the best letter is useless if it doesn’t get read. There are a lot of strategies you can use to get your letters read. I used a personal approach and lumpy mail.
My prospecting letters are almost always in a standard or colored envelope, handwritten, and hand stamped.
I want my letters to look like it came from a friend.
Do everything you can to make sure your sales letter doesn’t look like a sales piece.
It takes time to handwrite and hand stamp every letter, but the list of FSBOs is generally pretty small that it can be completed within a half hour or so every day.
Second, for some letters, I would stuff the envelopes with objects.
This made postage cost more, but I improved my odds of getting my letters opened.
For example, for the headline, “Taking Advantage of this Real Estate Offer is a No Brainer. Save Money and the Headache”, I would include a small squishy brain inside the envelope.
It was comical, relevant, and made people curious as to why I was sending them a brain.
There is a balance between keeping costs low but spending a little more to ensure that your letters get read.
Write Letters For The Reader
You will find a lot of FSBO letters and prospecting letters are one-page long. They’re short.
I tend to take a different approach. A lot of my sales letters are multiple pages and can be up to five-pages long.
That’s because I focus on writing for the reader. Not the non-reader.
A lot of advice will tell you that people won’t read your letter so you should be short and succinct.
But, I believe you miss out on a percentage of the market that likes to know more. That want to do their research.
You can create a long sales letter that goes into detail and then format it so that it can be skimmed. This way you can appeal to both the long- and short-reader.
Don’t worry about the non-reader. One-page, ten-page, five-page. It doesn’t matter to a non-reader — a FSBO that isn’t interested.
No matter the length, your letter isn’t going to be read.
If it takes more than one page to sell, then accept it. Your FSBO letter is fine.
There you have it. I’ve provided some basic examples. Keep the process simple and offer solutions a FSBO prospect wants.
Don’t try to push listing their home. Offer help.
Advanced Technique: Your Profile
Over the years, setting up your digital profile has become extremely important.
When you send a letter to a FSBO lead, there are several possible responses that can happen. The most common is that the FSBO lead does nothing.
The second is they contact you from your letter. This is a small percentage. And, all depends on the quality of your letters.
Third, they take your letter, hold on to it, and look you up.
Perhaps they liked everything you said. You spoke to their pain points, hopes, and dreams. The only thing they’re trying to answer is can you help them sell their home.
Here’s what you have to ask yourself… What will those FSBO leads find when they Google you? Do they find a generic, bland profile?
Or, do they find an authentic profile that connects with FSBO leads emotionally. It gives them a strong reason to reach out to you and respond to your sales letter.
The truth is all your marketing efforts might be held back by your real estate agent bio.
In our Agent Profile Blueprint we teach agents how to create an authentic profile that connects emotionally with potential buyers and sellers so you can increase your GCI and earn more even if you don’t consider yourself a writer, marketer, or brand builder.
