Thinking About Selling Your House By Owner – Here’s A Place to Start

Thinking about selling your home by owner?  Here's the place to startEliminate the real estate agent and save up to 6% on the price of your house. If you do use a real estate agent to assist in the marketing and selling of your house make sure you know the real estate agent fees well in advance of the sale. Locating prospective buyers, ensuring appropriate home maintenance for prospective buyers, and completing paperwork can be an intimidating task. 

If you think you are up for the challenge and want to save potentially thousands of dollars on the commission of one of your most prized possessions then keep reading. 

Here we will discuss the factors you need to consider before you end up making the single decision you will regret the rest of your life. Because if there is any chance that you make a single mistake, you could potentially be looking at a loss of thousands of dollars. You may not know about the loss of income until after you’ve made the sale and it’s too late.

1. Assessing the Current Value of Your House?

To make a successful sale of your property you need to know your homes current market value. The best way for a homeowner to find the value of their home when selling for sale by owner is to get an appraisal. An easy way to find someone qualified for this is to choose from an appraisal institute professional. The expert will provide the most accurate valuation precise to the last digit based on current market trends.

If you are using a real estate agent getting your home value would be one of the services included in their commission. When doing research on your own you can start by checking the local listings of similar properties online to get an idea of the value of neighboring properties. It will give you a good picture of the market value of your property.

Alternatively, you could visit For Sale By Owner websites to get a view of current property market trends. Your house may have some unique attributes which the neighbors don’t have. Only you know the exact price of these additions. Make sure you factor that in the valuation. The next step is to understand property laws and successfully marketing your property.

2. Understanding Property Laws & Negotiation Techniques

The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in the buying, selling, financing, or renting of a house. race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, and or national origin are just some of the factors that buyers or sellers cannot discriminate against. If you have decided to sell the property without hiring an agent, that doesn’t mean you can’t work with the buyer’s agent. 6% is the total you may have paid to both agents if you had hired an agent. The buyer’s agent would get 3% on the price of the sale. You could reassure the buyer’s agent that their 3% will be guaranteed if they could help close the deal sooner with their buyer.

It is advisable to be careful in such a scenario because there is the chance that the agent could try to manipulate you to get more than what is due to them. Make sure you know all of your state’s real estate and property laws, so you don’t end up getting making any amateur mistakes.

3. Acquiring Good Photography to Begin Advertising Property

The picture of a perfect house will be so much more helpful in promoting the sale of your property then you could ever imagine. The view of your property should not include any of your vehicles or unnecessary bystanders in the pictures. This will give the viewer a clearer perspective of the property in question. A clearer view of the property will make it easier for prospective buyers to decide if they want to purchase it.

The house needs to be kept in good condition at all times. If potential buyers come to visit the property, they will expect to see it the same as to what is portrayed in the pictures. When taking pictures, it is advisable to use a professional photographer rather than trying to take pictures of yourself with a cellphone. It is also suggested to take pictures from different angles to give the viewer a comprehensive glimpse of the property.

4. Integrating Real Estate Websites to Achieve Marketing Goals

Gone are the days when you could simply put a sign up in your backyard “For Sale” and expect to get serious buyers. You will be one from amongst the Crowd Writer of a million similar for sale by owner properties. There are a lot of websites that assist sellers in advertising their property to serious potential buyers. Both free and paid websites attempt to achieve this objective. The free websites make their money from affiliate advertising. Paid websites give you much greater control over the type of advertising you will conduct and the type of audience you will be able to reach.

To get the best value for money, browse through several websites with the intention of finding the one that will be most suitable for your specific type of property. Invest in the website which you consider to be the most productive based on your situation but not before speaking to their customer support, looking through their FAQs, or reading the reviews online. This will give you a clearer picture of what to expect after the purchase. The cost of the investment in the website will be much less than what you would otherwise be paying an agent.

5. Preparing the Property for Buyer’s Visitations

The front of the home and curb appeal is the first thing that potential buyers will see when they come to visit the property. If the exterior of the home is not well maintained the first question to pop in buyer’s minds is “How old is this place?” This could have a negative impact on negotiations and the final sale price. Consider investing in repairs and maintenance for below points:

Make the front door look new and recently modernized.

  • It is imperative that you do not have any excess belongings in the house. Clutter will always have a negative impact on anybody there to view the property, especially in the kitchen.
  • Clear the kitchen of unnecessary clutter on the countertops and clear off the refrigerator of pictures.
  • All the rooms need to be cleared of all the stuff which you will probably get rid of anyway.
  • Try to make the rooms look aesthetically pleasing to people who will see it for the first time.
  • It is advisable to ensure proper lighting in each room.
  • Use touch-up paint to fix any small blemishes on walls.
  • Try to depersonalize the house from large displays of personal items so the new homeowner/buyer can picture themselves living there.

Ensuring all key aspects will give each potential buyer a more personal impression of the property. many of the tips above will apply whether you hire an agent or try for sale by the owner.

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