The market of homeowners choosing to abandon a listing agent in favor of a transaction through for sale by owner websites is growing. More than ever, more homeowners are achieving success while spending less on commission. But to achieve this same level of success, you’ll need to follow a strategic process which we detail in this how to sell a house by owner guide.
Step 1: Determine a Fair Market Value Price for Your Home
The most critical step in this how to sell a house by owner guide is pricing your property.
Before you can put your home on the market, it’s imperative that you ascertain what a fair market value is using real-time comps. For your comps to help you determine what your home can fetch on the market, you should only examine homes in a similar condition to your own, within a one to two-mile radius, and that have comparable features.
Once you have this information, choose to price to sell so you can get more buyer interest rather than pricing high in an attempt to get higher bids.
Remember, buyers can offer more for your home, which is something they’ll do if you price to sell. If you don’t price to sell, they’ll choose to avoid your property in favor of one that meets their criteria and is priced reasonably.
Step 2: Prepare Your Home to Sell
Now, turn your attention to your home. If you have the budget, focus on repairs, catching up on much-needed maintenance, and completing a few aesthetic modifications like painting.
But, before you do this, determine if your home might perform better — and you’ll walk away with more profit — if you sell it as-is. If you decide to sell your home as-is, you may want to consider approaching cash buyers that wholesale real estate or attempt to approach wholesale real estate investors yourself.
Step 3: Get Professional Photographs
Although you’re selling your home without a listing agent, you’re competing with homes that are being sold by real estate agents with the budget and resources of their brokerage.
Therefore, professional photographs are a must.
Most professional photographers will charge $200 for 24 HD, edited images. Twenty-four images should be enough for your home to stand out on an MLS and attract the right buyer.
Step 4: List on Your Local MLS
The reason more homeowners are having success even though they aren’t using a listing agent has less to do with some innate prowess and more to do with the Flat Fee MLS listing service giving them the ability to attract buyer agents.Â
Besides giving you access to buyer agents, a flat fee MLS can also assist with other aspects of the transaction, eliminating the turbulence associated with an FSBO sale.
Traditional ones like FSBO.com give you the bare minimum in assistance, while more modern options like Houzeo assist every step of the way.
This is one step you won’t want to overlook if you want to be successful when learning how to sell a house by owner. Besides, if you find the right flat fee MLS now, the next time you sell a home, you can rinse and repeat.
Step 5: Choose a Competitive Buyer Agent Commission
If you’re using a service like Houzeo, you can determine how much you want to offer the buyer agent that finds a buyer for your home. On Houzeo, you can choose anything from 0.25 percent to 4 percent, unlike other flat fee MLS services that would require you to offer a minimum of 2 percent or only allow you to offer a fixed commission of between 2 and 4 percent.
Step 6: Prepare for Open Homes
Once your home is on the market, prepare your schedule to host open homes. Here your flat fee MLS will also come in handy as you can give digital showings, manage your calendar to enable buyers to only view your home at a time that suits you, and even get the buyer agent to give a tour of your home, so you don’t have to do too much work.
Step 7: Negotiate With Buyers
Much like a typical sale — with help from a real estate agent — with an FSBO sale, you’ll have to strategize when negotiating, determine what buyer you’re looking for, and the kind of offer you’re willing to accept.
Some sellers wait too long to accept an offer, holding out hope that they’ll get a better offer. What ends up happening in these cases is that interested buyers move on, and you lose out on a good sale. Rather, know your limits for a good offer, and accept an offer when it’s reasonable and the buyer meets your criteria.
Negotiating has also become more straightforward with flat fee MLSs like Houzeo. On Houzeo, the negotiating happens on the web or mobile app. You can request interested buyers send through their offers and even entice buyers to want to bid higher by requesting the final and best offer through the app. You can check out Houzeo reviews to know more about them.
It’s also because of flat fee MLSs like Houzeo that you don’t have to spend time learning how to sell a house by owner and can instead take the necessary steps to prepare your home for sale.