If you are familiar with Yahoo Answers you may have seen some of my posts there. One question that is asked quite often is: How do you sell a house on your own without a REALTOR®?
Sometimes I’m not in the best frame of mind to be answering this type of question and will reply with something along the lines of: Have you lost your mind? If you are asking this question you obviously have no idea what you are doing. Mind you, I usually try to be helpful but sometimes…Funny though, I never see anyone complaining that their appendix need to be removed and since they plan on doing it themselves will someone tell them how to do it. But I’m not going to go there with this post.
Since I’m feeling generous tonight I thought I would post one of my helpful answers here:
Determine your price. Take into account that the sales in your area most likely have a commission built into the sales price and adjust yours accordingly. Be prepared to receive low offers. Have your title company or attorney lined up. Line up a couple of lenders to qualify buyers. Get the proper disclosures and have offers to purchase available. Make sure you have plats or surveys available. You might want to have an inspection done. Go ahead and take care of any issues the inspector finds. Make the inspection report available. Declutter. Get rid of all the personal stuff like all the kids photos. Rent a storage building if you have too. Take care of any work to the house that needs to be done. Make sure landscaping is in good shape and house has best curb appeal possible. Advertise it everywhere you can think of. Know the law on advertising, what you can and can’t say in your ads. Keep it in showing condition at all times. Do not make viewings difficult. You will need to be readily accessible and available to show.
Risks: You shoulder all of the liability. If you check lawsuits involving real estate, most are FSBO (can’t remember the actual stat). If you have a buyer and a seller who don’t know what they are doing, someone is going to get mad and feel they have been wronged.
Be very very careful when showing the house. It’s sad to say but the criminal element is targeting homes for sale. REALTORS® are being lured to homes to show to people they have never met and are being killed, raped and robbed. Criminals will see the house then come back later, break in and clean it out. A couple will come to the house. Then they split up. While you are showing to one of them the other cleans out jewelry boxes and medicine cabinets. So be sure you know who you are showing it too. If you get a bad feeling, trust it. REALTORS® can have the potential buyers meet at their office where the staff or others will see them. Some offices make it a policy to get a copy of the buyers drivers license prior to showing homes to them. If they have ulterior motives they will normally not agree to meeting in public. You don’t have that option.
Be prepared to list it with a REALTOR®. 3 out of 4 FSBO’s list their home after 3 months of trying to do it themselves.
Of course, this is very simplified but it answers the question. It’s not rocket science but it’s not as easy as the above makes it sound. It’s about marketing, education, experience and resources. If you are one of the three out of four who eventually list with a REALTOR®, make sure you hire someone who has all of these qualities in order to get the job done!
the market it’s all about price. I know people hate to hear that but it’s true.
