Before you Sell as For Sale By Owner/FSBO

If you are considering offering your home for sale by owner, there are a few things to consider.  How are you going to advertise?  What types of information will you provide a prospective purchaser?  How is that purchaser to contact you, or what times can you arrange to have buyers preview your home?  What price do you place on your home?  Do you have all the documentation together to put a deal in writing?  We’ll address these questions here for you.

The first question, where to advertise, should be top of mind.  Only 3% of buyers actually started looking for their new home in the newspaper, but 90% of home buyers began by looking on the internet.  That’s powerful.  How and where do you put your home out there?  Most of the well used sites and search engines focus around the real estate agents, but sites like Craigs List are available for Home owners to use.  Please remember when designing these ads that home buyers said photos were the most valuable tool they used online.  You can also set up individual websites for your home, and advertise that website on your yard sign for folks to gather additional information. 

That brings us to some more statistics, about 59% of home buyers actually find the home they are looking for from the sign in the yard, makes huge sense to have a sign out front.  Another 46% of buyers found their new home from an open house, so plan on using your Sunday afternoons wisely and host an open.

The second question, what types of information do you provide?  Anything you would want if you were considering purchasing your home.  The standard items might be, a copy of your tax bill, a copy of your utility bill, the size of your yard, the square footage of your home, any recent repairs or updates,  a copy of the covenants (if you have any), information on the neighborhood schools, the builder of your home and house plans if you have them.

Some things are extremely useful to a buyer that we don’t always think about, like the following.  Quality neighborhoods were the number one reason for purchasing in a particular area of town, take a few minutes to jot down why you love living where you do.  Convenience factor is the second biggest reason for a purchase, so know the mileage to important places in your community like schools, grocery stores, places of worship, libraries, downtown areas, recreation areas, etc.  78% of home buyers considered commuting costs essential in making their neighborhood decisions.

The third question, how does the buyer contact you , and when will your home be available for previewing.  This can be a difficult area to handle if you have a full time job and cannot receive calls at work.  You should be available as often as possible and return any messages promptly for best results.  Your home should also remain as clean as possible and you should be willing to show it at the convenience of the buyer to heighten your odds of making a great impression.

The fourth question is probably one of the most important to keep in mind.  Pricing you home correctly will keep it from lingering on the market and becoming stale.  Pay close attention to comparables that have recently SOLD in your area, note the sold and not just on the market.   Be competitive with your pricing, and then list the reasons you decided to place that value on your home.   It should never be based upon what you paid for your home originally, or what you have invested since then.  It should always be about the market, and the amenities you are offering.

The last question is documentation.  This is the hardest part of a for sale by owner.  When listing, there are disclosure documents that protect you from a future lawsuit by disclosing items about the home you might not have thought of otherwise.  A good contract drawn up and agreed upon by both parties should be presented to a title company of your choice to handle the remainder of the transaction.  They can prepare the deed, work with the lender for the loan documentation, collect all the funds and distribute them to the appropriate places (like your lender, the county for tax prorations, the attorney to draw up the deed, etc.).  The use of a title company to close your transaction will help to ensure that settlement goes as smoothly as possible.

Before you decide to list your home on your own, here as some additional statistics you should consider:

1.        In 2001 roughly 15% of home buyers purchased their home from the previous owner, in 2009, than number dropped to 5% nationally, and only 1% in the western states.  So your chances of finding a buyer, have dropped by 99%

2.       The internet is huge.  As previously stated, 90% of buyers begin their search there, and of those that do, a full 80% used an agent to purchase with.

3.       28% of FSBO’s sold for less than 90% of asking price indicating that either the home was not priced appropriately to begin with, or the buyer negotiated strongly without a third party to help intervene.

4.       11% of all sellers sold their home themselves in 2009, of them, 45% knew the buyer who bought their home.  If you don’t know someone interested in purchasing your home, the odds of finding a buyer who does not want to use and agent diminishes dramatically.

5.       51% of all home buyers were first time home buyers in 2009 in the western states, most of these were not familiar with the process and much more comfortable using a buyers agent to purchase.

If you have questions, or would like some additional help for selling your home on your own, please don’t hesitate to drop me an email, I would be happy to answer questions for you.  If you would like to consider the possibility of using an agent, I would be delighted to share my marketing strategies and help you with your move.