Selling your home privately? FSBO tips and tricks to help you sell fast and for a higher price

One of the main reasons people want to sell their home or property privately is to save on real estate sales commissions/fees. If you have decided to sell your property privately, you must be well prepared.

Selling your home is always stressful; While the following information can’t completely take the stress out of selling, it will help you get organized, gain the knowledge and tools necessary for a successful sale, and hopefully help you sell with a lot less stress.

1. Know the market: Familiarize yourself with the current real estate market in your area. Is it going up or down or is it stable?
2. Take a look at the competition: See recent comparable home sales, how they’re selling, how many similar homes are on the market, and how long it takes to sell. This should help you establish the sale price.
3. Decide on the selling strategy: how you want to sell your property, the traditional way where you price your property a little higher than market, or the new popular way of selling your property by setting it below market price and inviting offers.
4. Establish the listing price: Once you have decided on the marketing strategy and know the market, decide on the sale price of the property.
5. Get a Pre-Sale Home Inspection – Most buyers would have a building inspection condition in the agreement to purchase their property. If you are not aware of the problems, you are likely to lose the sale. So why not do the home inspection and fix the problems before they become big problems to sell your house?
6. Marketing – There are different media to advertise your property and most media will get some sort of response, but that is not enough. You need to know which media will give you the most effective response. Internet has become the main source of information for buyers; while newspaper advertising is less and less effective. Check out real estate brokers’ ads and see how they advertise houses. You might get some tips on how to write effective ads. This will save you time, money, and speed up the sales process. You will need a “For Sale” sign and an “Open House” sign to sell your home; go to a sign company and get professional signs. You’ll also need some flyers that highlight important features of your home with quality photos. Seek professional help; if you need anything, this is not where you want to save money.
7. Home Staging: Selling is becoming more and more sophisticated. To get the most out of the sale, many seek the help of professional Home Stagers. New home builders have used home staging services for decades, but the resale market has only recently embraced this marketing tool. Home staging companies can provide anything from simple clutter cleanup and furniture rearrangement to full furnishing such as a model home/suite. The cost varies depending on the services required and can range from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars. Most of those who have used them would use Home Staging again.
8. Know and rearrange your schedule: Whether it’s you, your spouse, or someone you trust, you’ll need to be home to show the property. It would help if you can schedule your activities in advance to allow for the time you’ll need to be home for this. You don’t know when an interested buyer will call and ask about your house; If you can’t answer the calls, hire a professional answering service so you don’t miss out on any potential buyers.
9. Showing Your Home – Sounds simple, but even showing your home professionally takes learning and experience. Do some research on this subject before attempting to sell your property privately.
10. Know your current mortgage: If you have a mortgage, talk to your bank and find out the amount outstanding. Is the mortgage fully open or is there a penalty for paying off the mortgage early? If there is a penalty, find out how much it is; try to negotiate the fine and also find out how this fine can be reduced. Since this penalty will reduce the net proceeds from the sale of your home, the time to find this penalty is sooner rather than later when you have an offer on the table. If you are buying another home, investigate the possibility of taking this mortgage with you to your new home; many banks allow this and this can help you avoid the prepayment penalty.
11. Obtain a mortgage commitment for your property: Most buyers will require some type of mortgage. If the mortgage cannot be arranged on short notice, you will lose the sale. Talk to your bank manager or mortgage broker so a mortgage can be easily arranged for a qualified buyer.
12. Negotiations: Negotiations are a very important part of the sales process. It takes years of learning and experience to know these skills and be good at them. Therefore, if you are not good at this (you may think you are but you may not be), seek professional help as this is not what you can learn in a short time. A lack of professional negotiating skills can cost you the sale or you may fall short.
13. Have Legal Help Ready – When you’re lucky and have a buyer interested in buying your home, you need to have the legal documents ready to close the deal in no time. Having legal help on short notice and after hours would go a long way in securing a strong binding sales agreement.

If all of this sounds a bit overwhelming, hire a professional real estate broker to help you with some of the issues or give them the full task of selling your house.