10 Tips on Selling Your House FSBO

10 Tips on Selling Your House FSBO

I received a call from a homeowner as well a home buyer who decided to sell his Clermont house FSBO and use a REALTOR® to buy his next home.
He was generous to offer me $500.00 for consultation which I declined and use me as his agent with the purchase of his next home.
Just like this home seller, most buyers use an agent when buying a home. Take note of this!

If you are a homeowner looking to sell your house For Sale by Owner(FSBO) for whatever reasons, I would like to offer you 10 Tips on Selling Your House FSBO.

1-Prepare your house. Start with all the repairs/updates needed inside and outside including the yard to create a good curb appeal. Pull out all the weeds, plant some plants, paint the front door if needed, pressure wash your driveway, remove debris. I would highly recommend hiring a professional Home Stager but if this isn’t an option, de-clutter home house, put away all your personal stuff, arrange your furniture to maximize space.

2-Price your house to sell. Whether you consult with local real estate agents or hire an appraiser, be sure to price your house right. Do NOT rely on what you see on the internet.

3-Market your house for sale. I can’t stress enough how important the pictures are. Unless you take awesome, professional photos, hire a professional photographer. The cost can be $350.00-$500.00 which I pay for on all my listings. Today’s buyers start their search online and if you have bad photos, they will move on.

4-Announce the listing of your house. This is online as well as print media. There are many companies you can order postcards from, get the x-large size to stand out and order some postcards announcing the listing.
Now, you can let your neighbors know your house is for sale so they can tell their friends and family.
There are many Facebook Buy/Sell groups, be sure to post in these groups.

5-Get a lock-box and a yard sign. I’m not talking about a FSBO sign you can buy at a local store where you handwrite the address. Get a professional one to stand out. You can go vistaprint.com and browse.

6-Do Open Houses. Since your listing isn’t in MLS, you have to do everything you can to bring in the traffic, open houses may work but be sure to collect information from each visitor including their name, email and phone number. Typically, open houses are on the weekends between 1-4pm.
If you have a regular job, I'm pretty sure you won't be able to show your house during the week during normal business hours but by putting limits on showings, you're already eliminating many potential buyers unless your house is one-of-a-kind with no comparables and buyers would wait a whole week. So think about showing restrictions and how to remove them.

7-Reach out to out of state buyers. Most of the buyers I personally work with are relocating from another state, this is a huge market for FL. How do you do that? Facebook is a great place to start. There are other websites you can post your listing, some are free, some charge a fee. There are also companies that offer MLS entries for an upfront fee but these are limited companies, be sure to read the fine print. Post the listing on your page and ask friends/family to share. I do targeted Facebook ads as well as direct mail aside from my network group in NY/NJ areas. I keep in touch with them by visiting the areas at least twice every three months.

9-Qualify the buyers. Not sure how you will arrange to show your house but make sure the buyers who are walking into your house are qualified. If they’re financing, ask for a pre-qualification letter, proof of funds for cash buyers.

8-Hire a real estate attorney. Unless you have been trained and know the legal binding real estate contract, when it’s time to get down to business, do not even attempt to do this on your own. Hire an attorney to draw up the legal binding contracts for you.

9-Negotiate. This is a tough one. It can be the price, repairs, closing date.

10-Prepare for closing. Once you come to terms with the buyer, it’s time for a home inspection and the appraisal. By this time, there should be an escrow deposit being held either by a title company or an attorney. The inspection period is typically within 10 days of acceptance, this is the time buyer decides whether they wish to continue with the transaction based on the inspection.

If you wish to know more about the process, I am here to answer your questions. Lastly, I would like to share some data with you;

According to NAR(National Association of Realtors), 88% of the buyers purchased their home using a Realtor.

Eighty-eight percent of buyers recently purchased their home through a real estate agent or broker.

Only eight percent of recent home sales were FSBO sales again this year. For the second year, this is the lowest share recorded since this report started in 1981. You can read the full article by going to this link from NAR.

Remember, when you sell your home FSBO, you the homeowner/seller is liable and responsible for errors. It is important to understand the consequences if anything goes wrong and trust me, real estate transactions are no picnic in the park.

Should you decide to sell your house FSBO, wishing you all the best.

10 Tips on Selling Your House FSBO

 

 

Beth Atalay, Broker/Owner Cam Realty and Property Management 407-929-1852 Wheretoliveinorlando.com BethAtalay@Gmail.com Your Orlando Agent - Where to Live in Orlando