FSBO Home Selling Tips

How To Sell Your Own Home

If you are planning to sell your home you may have been debating whether or not to try selling it yourself. There are thousands of people every year who choose to sell their own homes. Some people do it because they have real estate experience and can handle the job, and others do it because it is much cheaper. If you sell your own home, then you do not have to pay a Real Estate Broker/Agent to do it for you.

Of course, you'll find that selling your home requires more work than just putting up a sign. You need to know fair market value, the importance of curb appeal, advertising methods, and much more in order to succeed. However, with the right information you could easily sell your home in no time. If you are considering selling your home on your own, the following information can help you.

Make the ultimate decision. Before you create a free listing on Fizber, you need to make sure that you are prepared to sell your own home. Are you going to be readily accessible to all the prospective buyers? Are you sure you're listing it at a fair price? Do you honestly think you can handle all the work involved? Do you have a pre-assessment in order to keep people from looking at your home if they are not in a position to buy? If you are not fully prepared, you run the risk of wasting a huge amount of time on deadbeats and failing to sell your home. So before you take any steps, you should do some research to be as educated as possible about what the process involves.

Learn about market value. It is important to price your home in a competitive bracket. If your home is similar to other homes (3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, etc.) but its price is much higher than theirs, you will have a harder time selling because people will feel like they are being ripped off. Likewise, if you price your home too low you may lose a lot of money — buyers might recognize your mistake before you do. A good way to determine fair market value is to look at similar styles of homes in your area and price your home 5% above or below that range. Pricing it just a little higher will allow people to negotiate without you losing any money.

Set your home up just right. When you are ready to sell your house you need it to look just right. This means that it has to be cleaner than it has ever been. You may improve your chances of success by removing from your house everything you know you will throw away upon moving. This will immediately clear up some space. Next, you should put any unnecessary items in storage. From there, make the house spic and span. Clean everything from top to bottom because everyone will be looking at everything in the home. This obviously means you should clean the outside as well — first impressions are crucial. Keep the lawn mowed and the landscaping current.

Advertise. There are numerous ways to advertise your home. The most obvious method is to put create a listing online. Don't forget to put a sign in the yard — you can purchase ones that look like real estate signs now. You should add a small box near the sign where people can drive up and take flyers about your home. By including pictures, information and a phone number, you will entice people to call based on what they have seen in the flyer. You can also put your listing in real estate papers and local area newsletters. Also pass out flyers at work or give to your family and friends who in turn can pass them to others.

Be available. If you are going to sell your own home, you need to be incredibly accessible to people. If you are not available, then people will not bother making an offer on your home. No one will continue to call you only to repeatedly receive answering machines or feel that their calls are ignored. If you decide to sell your home on your own, you need to give people multiple ways to contact you. Some good ideas would be a house phone, cell phone, email address, work phone and fax number.

The importance of a pre-assessment. There is a good chance that many people are going to call you about your home. While you should hope for interested callers, showing your home to a multitude of people is going to be a time-consuming process. This is why you want to make sure you show your home only to people who can seriously consider the purchase. Consequently, you must determine who is serious and who just wants a tour. Consider asking potential buyers a few questions before allowing them to see the home. Most people won't mind if they are serious about purchasing. Some good questions are:

How long have you been looking for a house?
When are you planning to buy?
Have you been pre-approved by a mortgage company, and if so, by whom?
How much were you approved?
If you have not been approved, why?
How many houses have you toured?
Do you have any specific needs/wants in order to buy a home?

Legal issues. Selling a home means paperwork. Normally this is paperwork that a real estate agent completes. You will want to make sure, at the very least, that you are doing everything properly and that you have all the paperwork necessary to accompany a legal sales procedure.