When it comes to selling your home, the majority of homeowners decide to sell using a real estate agent.
However, some homeowners do decide to try and sell their home for sale by owner. Here a few reasons why a homeowner may test their luck with a FSBO.
We have a tremendous amount of technology available to us to assist in the transaction
We have a lot of information and content available to help us through the process
Homeowners want to try and avoid paying the real estate commissions involved in the transaction
We are currently in a hot market, homeowner's believe their house will sell fast
While the savings from avoiding paying real estate commissions can be significant. Choosing to sell your property for sale by owner presents its own set of challenges.
Just like with everything in life, there is a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things. If you think you are just going to set a for sale by owner sign in your yard and you will produce a quick sale at the price you want, you will probably be disappointed.
Real estate agent's get paid a commission for a reason. Selling a house is not always easy. There are several different variables involved in a transaction and it can be difficult to get the exposure your home needs to sell at the price you deem fair.
Ok, lets dive into it. Here are the 4 tips all homeowners should know who are considering selling their house for sale by owner.
4 Tips To Sell For Sale By Owner
1) Pricing Your Home
One of the first tasks all real estate agents will take on when selling their property will be to determine the resale value of your home. Real estate agents have access to what is called the MLS or Multiple Listing Service. This is an up to date software - only available to real estate agents that portray's all properties that have sold, are on the market or have pending sales. This information helps them determine the value of your home by producing a comparable market analysis. This will tell them what similiar homes in the area are selling for which will give them a good idea of what they will be able to sell your home for.
Homeowner's will not have the privilege of having access to the MLS, but we do have the ability to access several third party websites that give us valuable information to allow us to put a price tag on our property. These third party sites are:
Zillow - www.zillow.com
Trulia - www.trulia.com
Realtor - www.realtor.com
Movoto - www.movoto.com
Out of these 4 sites, "Realtor" has the most up to date information in regards to past, current and pending sales. So when running your comparable market analysis, we suggest using "Realtor" as your first resource.
Quickly, lets go over what variables real estate agents use to compare properties to determine a resale price.
Current, Pending & Sold properties in the last 6 months
Similar style house (ranch, colonial, cape, raised ranch etc)
Square footage
Age
Proximity (within 1 mile of subject house - same zip code if possible)
Same school district
Bedrooms
Bathrooms
# of garages
Finished, partial, no basement
Extra Amenities (decks, porches, fireplaces, bonus rooms, driveways, pools etc)
Overall condition of the property
Use this as a quick guideline to determine what you will be able to price your home at.
Tip - Since you will not be able to walk through your comparable properties, use pictures to determine overall condition, quality of finishes and layout.
2) Marketing Your For Sale By Owner
Now that we have a good understanding of what the resale value of our property is, it is now time to market the property and get the exposure we need to sell it. This is typically one of the key differences between a real estate agents ability to sell a home and a homeowner.
In order to sell your home quickly and for your asking price, effective marketing is essential.
Let's go over some tips and strategies to market your property and start bringing in potential buyers.
Clean the house & make small repairs
Take good quality pictures (or hire a professional photographer)
Take a video walk through of the property
Go to www.fizber.com - A free resource to upload your property to all of the third party real estate sites (Zillow, Trulia, Realtor, etc.)
Optional- Create a landing page using www.landerapp.com or wix.com. This landing page will portray the properties information and give potential buyers a place to sign up for a walk through
Social Media - Create a description, use your photos & video to publish your property on facebook
Craigslist - Create a craigslist account & publish free ads daily
Signs - Put a for sale by owner sign in your front yard
Direct Mail - Create a flyer on your property and send this flyer to everyone in your neighborhood, letting them know you are selling your home (You can even offer a referral fee to anyone who brings a buyer to you, that you close on)
Open House - 1-2 weeks after your home is in sale ready condition, schedule an open house and begin promoting it
Get creative with your marketing. Make sure you tell all of your direct contacts that your home is for sale.
Tip - You can get your home placed on the MLS for a flat fee. There a several FSBO flat fee services available to us now. Just do a quick google search and you will find one.
3) Build Your Team & Prepare The Paperwork
Just because you are not selling your home with a real estate agent does not mean that you have to go at this process alone.
Many potential homeowner's get nervous about the paperwork required to sell their house when in actuality it is not to complex at all.
Below you will find the paperwork needed to process and initiate the process of selling your home.
(Disclosure: If you are selling a property outside of Onondaga County in Syracuse NY, we recommend that you consult an attorney to review the paperwork)
Lead Paint Disclosure (if your home was built before 1978)
We suggest that you hire a real estate attorney and a real estate title & insurance attorney. Typically, you will be able to find a real estate attorney that does both. These are the individuals who you will be giving all of your signed paperwork too when you decide to sell your property. Once they receive all of the paperwork, they will be begin the process of updating the abstract and survey and making sure everything is in compliance with the banks.
4) Prepping The House & Making Necessary Repairs
Every real estate market is different but from our experience you do not need an immaculate brand new home to sell your property. However, more homeowners are looking to move into properties that the majority of the work is already done for them. If you want to sell your property for top dollar, you will have to make sure that you property's condition is comparable to the other properties that sold for top dollar. Depending on your properties condition, this can consist of expensive repairs or inexpensive repairs. Some repairs that you should consider making before listing your home are:
Interior Painting (painting your home neutral colors)
New furnace (if near end of its life)
New Roof (if near end of its life)
Clean out
New carpet (clean & shampoo the carpets)
Tidy up the kitchens & bathrooms
Repaint the front door
New garage door
These are some of the repairs that you will see the best ROI on your money spent. Any repair that you make, you want to ensure that you will be making money on the specific repair when you go to sell your house. So make sure each repair you make will be increasing your sale price, adding more money to the sale price then it cost you to repair.
Wrapping Up | 4 Tips For Sale By Owner Sellers Should Know
For sale by owners do not have the success that real estate agents have because the process can be complicated and it takes a lot of work. However, with that being said we have more tools and information available to us then we have ever had before to allow us to complete a successful sale on our own. Follow these tips and tricks and you will be on the right track to getting your home sold for sale by owner in Syracuse NY.
Have you been trying to sell your home for forever and have been unsuccessful? Don't want to make all those repairs to sell your home? If so, we may have a selling option that is right for you. CLICK HERE to learn more about our selling process and if it will be beneficial to you and your family.
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