Recently, there has been a trend to selling your own house instead of handing the sales process over to an experienced real estate agent. You’ve probably also heard about the great benefits with such a decision. At the same time, you’re also aware of the cons of selling your own house. In order to provide a concise, 5 minute guide to all these advantages and disadvantages I’ve decided to write this article.

Firstly, the advantages of selling your own house:

1. No commission needs to be paid. Since you have no real estate agent managing the sale you don’t need to pay anyone and you keep that money which could end up being thousands of dollars.

2. You are your own boss. You make the decisions regarding marketing, signage etc. This way, you are responsible for everything which means you are not dependent on anyone. Total independence.

3. You are always available for showings as well as responding to enquiries unlike a real estate agent which has fixed hours.

Now, the disadvantages of selling your own house:

1. You assume all the marketing and advertising costs which can turn out to be expensive. In addition, you may not have the experience or the skill in this area like a real estate agent.

2. Without professional advice from an agent, you may underprice or overprice your home which could mean you either missing out on thousands of dollars or not being able to successfully sell your home.

3. You may not be aware how the legal and financial issues work in the sale of a home. Once again, you may need professional advice for this part.

My only hope is that the information presented above greatly assists you in making a decision as to whether selling your own house is beneficial for you.

So you’ve seen the potential benefits and have decided to sell your house by owner, however, you don’t know how to exactly do it. The good news is that you will no longer have to worry about that because this article goes through an easy 5 step process to sell house by owner.

1. Preparation – Before even letting the market know that your home is on sale, you must make your house as neat and tidy as possible. This involves cutting the grass, painting the walls as well as any other renovations so that your home appears well maintained. This is essential to attract potential buyers.

2. The Price Is Right – You must be careful to not underprice or overprice your home. Underpricing will mean that you could lose out on further money, while overpricing will mean that you find it very difficult to get a buyer. When you sell house by owner, a good idea would be to see how much similar homes in your local area have sold for.

3. Good Marketing – This involves reaching the greatest quantity of buyers and letting them know that your home is up for sale. The Internet can reach the biggest audience however you may just want to target the local market through newspaper ads and flyers.

4. Open For Inspection – A great idea is to open your house up to visitors to give them a guided tour of the best parts of your home. Your neighbours may be especially keen as they may let their family members know that your home is up for sale.

5. Negotiation & Closing The Sale – It’s unlikely that you will sell your house at the price you set. When you sell house by owner, you will need to negotiate with the buyer not just the price but the terms of the sale. You then proceed to close the sale.

By simply following the 5 above steps, you can be guaranteed that your ‘sell house by owner’ experience is a rewarding and successful one.

Selling as a For Sale By Owner? GREAT! Where do I start? Let’s start at the beginning. When you sell your home on your home, you’ll reap the benefits of skipping the Realtor and can keep that 5-6-7% commission. This is often a 5 figure number, and is not worth it, right? This is just a brief ‘playbook’ of some of the things you’ll have to do on your own, search for, ask about, and still stay compliant of all local and federal laws.

So this is what you’ll see as a FSBO:

You’ll probably miss calls off a sign in your yard, so make the number one you can be reached at 27-7-365 days a year. You’ll be answering the door to strangers and not know if they are even qualified to owning your home. You’ll also have to have them fill out some sort of information form, which could be asking illegal questions.

The ones who do come talk about offers lower than you imagined, and leave you disappointed. Maybe more flyers will help. They seem to disappear a lot- jealous neighbors, perhaps?

Open houses work, but work to make a list of buyers not interested in yours. Those nice lawn signs pointing to your home will work, until the city takes it down for cluttering up the landscape. More wasted money, right?

On average it takes about 43 people to come through your home, probably more if you’re looking like an average home. They’ll see everything you have as if they were “casing the joint”.

Then, if they DO like it, and want to write an offer, which contract do you use?

What disclosures do you need to meet Federal guidelines?

Do they have financing? If not, what then?

They may have a Realtor of their own asking all sorts of nosy questions. How do you answer them? Does he have a down payment/escrow check that needs depositing? Those typically go in escrow accounts. Do you have one? Do you know deposit law on that? OK, then what’s next? What about city inspections and insurances and the taxes? And who does all that? Who pays it? Who will you ask? Gotta Know.

Then what? What is that person’s lender doing? What’s taking so long? Without the proper paperwork, you’ll only be able to guess. You’ll have to do it yourself, right?

Your closing attorney will be charging you to do the work you can’t. What has to happen to get the title, title search and plat of survey ready for closing and who’s paying?

Suppose the buyer wants sell financing or to assume your assumable mortgage? Cash at closing? 5% sellers credit for closing costs? Do you know what to do to benefit yourself? You’ll have to find out.

What about a home warranty to protect the new owner, AND YOU. Have that done? You’ll still have all the utilities to call and wait on hold to cancel your service, but if you don’t know HOW to close the accounts, you could ruin the closing.

And there’s MORE…if there are ANY small glitches, you need to handle them in the moment or the closing gets farther away.

AND STATISTICALLY YOU’LL GET 16% BELOW WHAT A REALTOR WOULD GET YOU.

People give several reasons for trying to do a For Sale By Owner (FSBO) on their property. The reasons are really as varied as the people doing it. In most cases, however, all those “reasons” boil down to one thing, the commission to an agent. It’s all over the Internet as well. Tons of posts on how to Sell it Yourself and SAVE the Commission. Simply type in FSBO tips, or FSBO how to and see the list. Here’s the real truth and why it’s a Big FSBO Lie; Whether you sell it yourself or you list with an agent, you will rarely, if ever, save the commission.

Wow, I bet you’re saying, “harsh words, Roger.” Especially if you are, or are considering, selling FSBO. This article is not about whether it’s a good idea to sell a home yourself or not. If you are planning on trying, you need to do it for the right reasons. If it’s because you think you can save the commission, read on.

First, determine where you read that you can save the commission by selling it yourself. Most FSBO articles are written by one of two groups of people. The first group is the FSBO websites and magazines. Of course they are going to be saying that. They make money off of you, as a FSBO (by the way, there went some of that ‘savings’). Tack on their Premium Flat-Fee Listing Service that many offer and you’ve lost some more of that savings.

The second group of people that promote this are real estate investors that have the “We Buy Houses” systems in place. Real estate investors buy property at a discount and resell. Their primary source of properties? You guessed it, FSBO’s. Now, if you need to sell fast and are in a position to do so, this may be an excellent option, but don’t pretend that you’re saving the commission, here. Any money that would have been paid as a commission is going into the investor’s pocket, not yours.

Second, you have to determine your marketing costs to advertise your property effectively. Selling a house is just not as easy as buying one of those nice red and white “For Sale By Owner” yard signs and waiting on the phone to ring. You have to do some serious marketing in order to give yourself the best chance of getting a qualified buyer in the door. All that marketing, and marketing dollars, are usually spent by the agent. That’s part of the commission cost. If you don’t hire an agent, then you have to foot that bill. At a minimum, you can expect to spend approximately $1000 to $2000 dollars on advertising a property. Nudge a little more off that savings, again.

Third, you have to determine the value of YOUR time. Almost no one considers this aspect of FSBO. It is going to take a lot of your personal time to sell your home. Answering phone calls, showing the home, updating information on the Web, qualifying buyers are just a small sampling of what you will be responsible for when selling on your own. If you spend just 60 hours total working on selling your home, at $50 an hour, you’ve racked up a $3000 charge to yourself. It will probably be a lot more than 60 hours, too. You may be fine with that, but you’re going to EARN that $3K, not save it!

Fourth, you have to know who really pays the commission. What? you say. The seller pays the commission, everybody knows that! Do they now? Sure, the commission comes out of the seller’s proceeds (ie, the sales price), but where does that money come from? The buyer. Without a buyer, there is no sale. Without a sale, there is no commission. Simple comparison: If I’m pumping gas and I give you $10 to pay the cashier, who actually paid the cashier? (Credit to John Locke for the analogy)

Buyers looking at FSBO’s know this and if you have any chance of selling to them, you’re going to have to reduce the price of your house by the commission amount in order for them to buy. Now, it’s the buyer that is saving the commission, not you, the seller. Add in your time and marketing expense to this and it’s a good chance that you may even have lost money in the process.

If you want to sell FSBO, give it a try. I hope you succeed and I’ll even help you out along the way. But don’t fall into the lie that you’ll save the commission by selling it yourself.

When a party is looking to sell their home, they are going to, more than likely, look at all the options available to them. And as everything in any market, there are many choices. As such, there are also many choices that might be better than one another. In the real estate market, it is more left up to the needs of individuals than classifying one better than the other.

Let us take a look at what For Sale by Owner actually means, and the benefits it might provide the buyer and seller.

For Sale by Owner means that ultimately, the sale is by the owner. They have not hired a real estate agent to list or sell their home. Instead, they have basically taken the task into their own hands. Possibly the biggest benefit that people who list their real estate themselves is the fact that they will not have to pay a realtor’s commission.

There are some major drawbacks, however, if you are not experienced in real estate. Unfortunately, general real estate contracts can be hard for most people to read and decipher. It is hard for first time sellers to negotiate a contract from a buyer. These are all things that realtors handle in a professional and knowledgeable manner. Generally, if there is something wrong with a contract, a realtor will pick up on it immediately and inform you, the seller.

Another aspect to consider is time. A typical home sale will require about 100 hours. This can be very costly if you are someone who makes a $75 an hour. At this point, it is wise to weigh the cost of whether a realtor would be less expensive than using your own time. Time is one of those things you cannot recuperate. A realtor has the time that is dedicated to this process of showing the home, setting up appointments and answering questions.

It is also known that many buyers like to work with a realtor for a few reasons. The biggest reason is they trust the process more. Not only that, they feel more comfortable because the realtor has no personal tie with the real estate in question. Many buyers feel the price is more with for sale by owner homes. Although this may not be the case, this is unfortunately how it is perceived.

Last but not least, there are definitely other expenses you will incur outside your hourly rate. Even if you were not going to consider your hourly rate, there is no getting around advertising costs associated with the selling of a home. Moreover, the costs of legal fees can be fairly expensive for drawing up the contracts.

Overall, selling a home if you’re the owner really only works if you are knowledgeable about the industry yourself. Face it, the home could be sitting on the market longer than you want and the money is coming out of your pocket in that respect to. For the most part, it is generally wiser and more cost effective to go with a realtor.

The vast majority of buyers are searching the Internet to find the real estate they are looking for. The figure keeps changing but somewhere between 85 to 90% of all buyers use the Internet as their main tool for property search.

In these economically challenging times most professional real estate offices (including the large national franchises) have cut way back on their budgets for print advertising in the newspapers. In real estate offices this is known as a BLACKOUT on advertising and it is happening all over the country.

The other reason why real estate agents and offices heavily utilize the Internet is because it costs next to nothing and it works! Plan and simple it works.

The Internet has changed the way real estate is marketed forever and agents have accepted it. Print advertising is extremely expensive and the Internet has now made print advertising passé.
This is not a bad thing. Agents place their efforts and energy on what works and now so can you!
Right now is the perfect time for the average home seller to learn this truth and use the Internet to sell their property without the expense of a listing real estate agent.

One of the best-kept secrets around is that for peanuts and very little effort, sellers can put their property on the Internet without an agent or a real estate broker.

If you have a digital camera and have ever used or seen Ebay then you can figure out how to post your property on the Internet. It’s that easy. Fill in the blanks, download some pictures and your property is out there for the world to see.

Oh sure, you are comfortable with the Internet. Maybe you have sold a car on it or have bought and sold other items on Ebay or Craigslist. Or perhaps you are quite leading edge using all the latest technology. But this is real estate and it all seems a bit complicated. What about all the other steps that are involved in the real estate transaction?

Relax! This is not rocket science and most professionals in the real estate business are not scientists.

Use of the following 12 steps and it will make your transaction very manageable.

THE12 PRINCIPLES FOR SUCCESSFUL INTERNET REAL ESTATE SELLING is not only a guide for using the Internet to sell real estate online but also a formula for protecting and securing the seller throughout the entire transaction.

1. Be brave and set the price. The seller always has
2. You must perform all inspections before you market the property
3. Honestly represent the exact nature and condition of the property
4. Hire an Attorney. Do it early on in the sales process
5. Get proof of insurance from everyone
6. Anything you say can and will be used against you. So zip it!
7. You need to cooperate with and pay buyers brokers and agents
8. You can sell directly to buyers without an agent. If they don’t have one
9. Online advertising is cheap
10. Showings are easy
11. Be effective and follow up
12. All information concerning the property becomes the property of the property

If sellers will follow these principles they can sell their real estate online with the confidence that they can accomplish this important transaction from beginning to end.

If you are in the market to purchase a home, you should not overlook the “For Sale by Owner” signs in your neighborhood. Why? Homes that are put on the market by their owner are often a great value. This is because there is no middle man or real estate agent standing to make a cut from the proceeds which, in turn, allows the owner to lower their asking price.

In addition to being a great value, homes for sale by owner offer many other benefits to the purchaser. Here are just a few:

• Less Competition – Homes that are not listed with a real estate agency receive less attention than those that are. This means that there will be fewer people viewing and placing offers on a home that is for sale by its owner. Without competition, you will have more bargaining power and will not have to worry so much about being outbid.

• Direct Negotiation – Negotiating directly with the homeowner allows you to come to an agreement far quicker than you would playing the offer and counter-offer game. You will not have to wait for your agent to get into contact with their agent who will then have to sit down with the homeowner. All negotiations will be done directly and immediately.

• Better Access – Homes for sale by owner also offer greater access to the property. You will also be able to get a first hand account of work that has been done to the property and a break down of what still needs to be done. Of course, you should still rely on a professional inspection before you make any decisions regarding the condition of a property, but the homeowner will be able to give you information that an inspector will not.

While buying a home directly from the owner stands to save you thousands in real estate commissions, you will still be responsible for legal fees and paperwork that the agent normally takes care of. And it is always a good idea to have an attorney look over all documents before the sale is final.

A MLS flat fee listing is when you pay a MLS flat fee listing service company or broker to put your house on the MLS for a fee, usually between $99-$500. Doing this, you skip over the listing agent who generally gets 3% of the sale when the house sells. Remember, you still have to pay the broker who brings a buyer a certain percentage, usually 2% – 3%. So if your NOT OK with paying 2% – 3% for the buyers agent you shouldn’t do this. All this strategy really does is give you access to more potential buyers from being on the local MLS. Your essentially banking on if any agent who sees your listing has a buyer. Listing your house on the MLS using a MLS flat fee listing just exposes it to more agents or brokers who may have a buyer, that’s it!

So lets say you sold your house for $230,000 using a MLS flat fee listing and you agreed to pay 2.5 % to the broker that brought you a buyer and that you paid $200 for the flat fee listing. $230,000 x 2.5% = $5,750 + $200 flat fee = $5,950. So you save $7,850, vs. paying the full 6%. If you wanted you could use this 1 strategy to bring you a buyer. But, that wouldn’t be smart. You want to use the marketing techniques that are the least expensive and bring you the most qualified buyers in the shortest amount of time. By listing your house on a FSBO site, using free online classifieds, and web 2.0 sites you’ll bring in tons more traffic than any broker could ever bring. With that said if your marketing budget allows, use the MLS flat fee listing strategy with all the other strategies and see what happens.

The best time to get your MLS flat fee listing on the MLS is Wednesday or Thursday morning. You want to make sure your listing hits when the most agents will be looking at or planning their Friday, Saturday and Sunday as that’s an agents busiest work days. Most agents set their schedules by Friday. Monday and Tuesday are the worst days to list as brokers and agents are either off or are going over last weekends negotiations.

If your selling your home using a 3 or 5 day home auction strategy using a MLS flat fee service makes sense. You can include keywords in your listing description like this: This is not a foreclosure auction, reo property, hud auction, IRS auction or short sale. This way your house comes up on more listings and draws interest to your home since you said its not any of these types of sales. Plus, you can also give all your leads to the broker you decide to work with for all the people that come to your house looking for a house. The agent should pay you anywhere from $250 – $2,000 for those leads. Thus your MLS flat fee listing cost is free and all the marketing you did for newspaper, etc. is free.

TIP: Since you’ll be doing all kinds of marketing to sell your house, agents will see your marketing and ask if they can bring you a buyer. Instead of advertising in the MLS and paying for a flat fee listing, just tell the agents that call you up, that you’ll pay 2% – 3%. Decide on an exact %. You can even mail your Kick Ass Property Flyer into the main office of a brokerage to let all the agents know. If you decide to mail your flyer in be sure to offer 2.5% and then when they ask for a higher % if you can, go to 3%. If you use either of these 2 strategies you can skip out on the flat fee listing. It won’t be on the MLS but plenty of agents will sure know that your house is for sale. Just send a letter to each of the best brokerages close to you along with your flyer.

If you are considering selling your own property without the help of a realtor, there are some important things to remember, and I’ll try to cover most of them here.

First, there are many real estate forms you will need, and you should be able to purchase everything you need on the internet.

It is more important than ever that you set the right price before you put up a sign or advertise your property. With a little work you can appraise your own property and be fairly accurate in doing so. It is very important that you set the correct price relative to the property’s real current value.

Once you have established the true value of your property, you should continue to collect comparable home sales information while it is on the market, since market conditions today have been changing monthly, and you need to adjust pricing as the market changes to be competitive. Once you know your property’s current value, you will need to look at the competition before setting your price.

Active listings, the houses that are for sale in your area, are important in determining the price you wish to ask for your property because they will be the properties you are competing with. That is, you are competing for the buyers that are available in the current market and who will be comparing other properties they are shown to your property.

If you did your own appraisal you will have a lot of great information on the active home listings in your neighborhood. You should list those homes that compare with yours on a work sheet with each home’s address on a line and the price per square foot on the far right. Add up the right hand column and divide the total by the number of homes on your list. After that multiply the answer (average price per square foot) by the number of square feet in your home. The answer rounded down should give you a price under the average of the comparable competitive homes in your neighborhood and a point at which to start adjusting.

Now look more closely at the homes MOST comparable to yours (same features, floor plan, age, amenities, square footage, etc.). You can adjust your price up or down a little to be more competitive with these specific homes.

There are many shows on the home improvement channels on cable and satellite TV. Take some time and watch these shows, they contain many great ideas, especially the suggestions they provide for “curb appeal” and “interior decorating enhancement” or “staging.”

If all this turns out to be more than you have time to do, contact three local real estate agents, tell them you are thinking of selling your property, and ask them each to do a comparative market study of your property. Make appointments for them to present their market study, let them do their presentation, and ask them to leave the information with you. Take time to study all the information presented, and you should be able to make your decision.

Good luck, you should have a good start now on selling your own property or finding a good realtor and I wish you much success in your efforts whatever you decide to do..

If you have made the decision to sell your house on your own, the most important factor in selling the home quickly is setting the right price. Aside from the fact that you need to attract buyers, but even if you come to an agreed price, the buyer still must get financing. Long Island mortgage approvals depend on the correct pricing. Here are the most important steps in pricing your home correctly:

1. Do a quick drive by homes listed for sale in your area. (These homes should be similar in size and features as your own) Bring a pad of paper with you to make notes regarding the homes similarities, appearance, condition, etc. Some of the more bold FSBO’s I have worked with even asked to have a quick peek at the inside. I have also worked with Long Island mortgage applicants to qualify the potential buyer.

You’re looking at the available homes for sale to get a better feel for the market. Please don’t use these comparisons as justification to create a price for your own home. An asking price means very little, as you can ASK for any price you want. Most will be quite overpriced.

But this exercise will give you a better feel for what’s available, and perhaps even give you some extra ammunition when speaking with potential buyers who will likely try to talk you down on price by telling you what they COULD buy and for how much. (If you know what’s out there, and for what price, you won’t fall for these tactics)

2. Make a comparison sheet of the homes that are most similar to yours. You should include features such as:

- Size
- Age
- Condition
- Bedrooms
- Baths
- Basement (Finished/partially/unfinished)
- Garage
- Lot Size
- Added Features/Amenities

3. Now it’s time to take a look at the homes that have sold in your area. These are the true indicators of your homes value. Study this list. And pay particular attention to homes that have sold within the past 6 months.

As you review the size, features, and condition of these homes, please resist the urge to assign value to most upgrades. See, many homeowners will spend thousands to maintain their home, with the assumption that a new roof, new cabinets, or tile will add value to their home equivalent to what they spent.

This is typically not the case. The only upgrades that truly add an equivalent value to home appraisal are upgrades that add square-footage and/or living space to the home. (This is a rule of thumb, not a hard and fast rule)

4. Determine how quickly you want to sell your home. After you’ve reviewed the most comparable properties as yours, you will generally find a “range” of prices. For instance, if you found 4 homes similar to yours: $213,000, $219,000, $228,000, $209,000. If you’re in a hurry, you may price your home closer to the lower end of the spectrum.

If you’re not in a hurry, and would like to squeeze as much out of the asking price in possible, then of course you would price your home within the upper range. Keep in mind that even if you find a buyer right away, they still must qualify for financing and this may take some time in today’s market. Even though Long Island mortgage rates and rates throughout the country are generally lower, this is still a factor. Follow the steps listed here and you stand a better chance of getting the home sold quickly and for an acceptable price.