Selling a home through FSBO “For Sale By Owner” is an attractive option for many. You have more control, and you can save thousands in realtor fees. Quite often, a For Sale by Owner process is preferred by homeowners looking to sell their houses quickly.
Depending on the types of buyers you target, you can sell your house in a matter of days instead of the average 60 days it would take with a traditional sale.
In short, you need to know your enemy. If you are to sell your property, you need to fully understand what you are up against- and what to do about it.
To do this, you need to do some legwork and gather as much information as you can. Fortunately, this is much easier to do now than decades back, being the information age.
An excellent place to start would be attending open houses in your location. Over and above seeing what you are up against, you will learn:
How to position and stage a house. If the houses are being sold using a realtor, the realtor will most likely bring their A-game on this. Pay attention to furniture arrangements, wall paint colors, and themes.
Pay attention to how realtors show houses. What to show, what to avoid and what areas of the house they pay most attention to. Being selling experts, they know exactly how to handle this process to bag a buyer.
Look at properties that sold the fastest and try to determine what they did right. Study the language on the listing, the description, photos, and so on.
There are many variables involved in determining a property’s value. Sadly, the owner’s sentiments are not one of them.
If you have a realtor, they will use various resources to price your house objectively. With an FSBO, you need to do this yourself. The best way to approach this task impartially is by consulting external sources.
Look at public records in local Florida municipalities, consult a realtor, and look at similar listings to analyze similar houses’ going rate.
You can also consider hitting an appraiser or property value to appraise your home and give you a more accurate asking price figure.
This step is simply about giving house buyers what they want. Think about the specific you prioritized when you purchased the home, then deliver that and more.
While buyers are looking for different things, there are shared preferences across the board. The main one is that most buyers want a house that requires minimal work.
This will take some work on your part. Go through your house inch by inch identifying pain points. Among the ley things to sort out are problems that interfere with the house’s structural integrity.
Think about things like a leaky roof, mold and mildew, termite problems, and so on. These are things that can make buyers shun a house.
Once these are sorted out, improve the aesthetics of the house. Begin by improving your curb appeal. How does your house look to a stranger standing out in the street? The siding, landscaping, and hygiene of your house’s exterior will determine how many people will want to view the inside and make an offer.
Do the same analysis on the inside of the house. Small changes like painting the walls a neutral color, decluttering, and changing lighting fixtures, doorknobs, and faucets can do wonders.
Going the FSBO way does not mean you should not get any help along the way. MLS is a great partner when trying to sell a house. You will still sell your house yourself, but MLS will accord you a higher level of exposure and the kind of buyers you are eyeing.
MLS or Multiple Listing Service is a database that carries listings of all properties available at any given time. To keep your costs low, you can use MLS via a realtor on a flat fee basis. This way, you benefit from using a platform visited by thousands of homebuyers without paying full realtor fees.
Whether you opt for MLS or not, selling a house calls for aggressive marketing on your end. This is a game of numbers: the more people who know about you, the higher you increase the probability of someone being interested in your house.
Begin by telling people in your circle. They might not be in the market for a new house, but they might know or hear of someone that is.
Social media is yet another resourceful marketing tool that allows you to potentially advertise to millions of people at no cost. To target your market better, look to join real estate, interior décor, and other property-related social media groups. Provide information regarding the house, then price and professionally taken photos.
With the house spruced up, an MLS listing, and social media marketing, it only a matter of time before offers start trickling in.
Do not get overly excited by this. Instead, have the lowest price you are willing to accept in mind, and review the offers streaming in against this, Vis a Vis your asking price.
Nonetheless, it’s important to know that not every offer you get will result in a deal. You need to vet and qualify all offers coming in. If the buyer is using a facility, pre-approvals are important documents to ask for. If they are cash buyers, request to see proof of funds.
Once you get a good offer and verify it, consider bringing an attorney on board to prepare the closing documents and guide you on payment matters.
In Closing…
At times, an FSBO seems too tedious and time-consuming. For these reasons, homebuyers at times look for alternative avenues for selling their homes. Fill in the form below and let us give you a cash offer to buy your house as-is.
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