Has anyone sold their own home (for sale by owner)?

[MommyBryn]

Just looking to find people with experience doing this! Would love to hear stories. Thanks!

 

[sharlon]

We sold our house last summer FSBO, and we are in a market that doesn't normally support FSBOs. We used one of those sites that lets you pay a flat fee (around $300) so it will be listed on the MLS. We had an offer in 2 1/2 months. We did pay the buyer's agents commission, but it was so worth it.

 

[cvjw]

We bought our first house without a real estate agent - it was for sale by owner. When it got time for a bigger house, we sold our first house ourselves - by owner. I put a for sale sign in the front yard, and at the front of the neighborhood, and had 2 offers within a week - this was 8 years ago, when houses were selling in our area very quick. When we bought our current house, we bought it without a real estate agent. That whole buying/selling house process just isn't that complicated. We found all of the forms very self explanatory.

 

[SarahKate]

We sold our house in '07. We listed it on a local FSBO website (there are a few in town, and we went with the one that got a lot of traffic). I think it was a couple hundred bucks. I made the description as detailed as possible, highlighting the best parts of the house. I also took GREAT pictures.

At the time we had agents helping us buy a new house but they were very, very awesome and giving us tips on making the most of our listing.

Your pictures need to make people imagine how their stuff would look if they owned it. Clear ALL of your kitchen counters. Take the family portraits off the wall. DECLUTTER, get a storage unit if necessary. Make sure PETS don't appear in the picture.

I think we paid a little extra to have additional pictures on our listing.

It took about 1.5 months I think. We had a couple of open houses, and used all the tips our agents gave us (get drugs OUT of the house, locking up valuables, etc.).

Ended up getting two competing offers. The contract from one of the buyers looked a little "scary" (they were on their own, but used a contract a realtor friend of theirs had given them). So I contacted our agents to see if they'd look at the contract. Well, they arranged a deal for us to where for $1,000 they would help negotiate the deal between the two buyers, draft the final contract on the local realtor association template and make sure everything was in order for our closing. They ended up charging 1/2 of that (they both go to my church) as a feeling of goodwill!

I don't know if others do that, but it was great! They had both buyers come to our house, laid everything out for them and we ended up selling to an awesome couple and MADE $500 over asking price. We did not expect that, because we weren't in a desirable neighborhood.

Didn't have to pay any commission since our buyers were not represented.

It was a positive experience for us and we would do it again in a heartbeat.

Now buying our NEW house......THAT was a totally different story.

You can totally do it, OP. You just have to be willing to do all the legwork - make your ad on the website really kick butt, keep the showings organized, take precautions w/ your open houses, declutter and make your house look great.

When all was said and done, the owner of the FSBO website commented that my listing was the best one he'd seen in years!

If you need any other words of wisdom just let me know! I'm sure you'll get some other great feedback here too. Best of luck!

 

[TxRabbit]

We have. Two. Two very different situations.

House 1: 2003-2004. On the market for 8.5 months. Ended up giving the buyer a price that basically was what the house might have sold for minus a 6% real estate commission.

Side note: The house had some floor plan issues that made it a rough sell. The master bath had a shower only and one sink. The basement was finished with two bedrooms and a large rec room but no bathroom. The house was a 2000 build, so newer, and we finished the basement ourselves and couldn't afford the bathroom. The 5 bed/2.5 bath house was a hard sell for a decent price.

We were still living in the house. My son was young. We had cats. My husband was living with family during the week (over 3 hours away) at his new job while I was home with kid and cats during the week. DH came home on the weekend.

House 2: 2004-2005. On the market from November to March. We stuck a FSBO sign in the front yard and moved out of state. Left a new construction (lived there 6 months) home empty. A Buyer's agent called us, used the garage code to get into the house. The agent more than earned his 3% commission considering he was the only person in the state. The Buyer's were moving in from out of state and we were out of state. Thank God the new job's moving benefit covered the amount we needed to bring to escrow to sell the house.

Side note: We only owned the home for 6 months. Sold it for over 10K more than we paid. Had to pay $3500 at closing to cover the fees and commissions. (We hadn't put a big percentage down.) The house was a winner of a floor plan, no major issues. Empty and beautiful, it just needed the spring (it was in Kansas) to sell.

Like all sellers, you must clean, declutter, really market your home. You need good pictures and good marketing.

There are special issues for FSBOs:

A FSBO is like a "potential listing" sign for many Realtors. Be prepared for the phone calls and how you will deal with them.

Know if you are willing to pay a Buyer's commission.

Be totally familiar with the selling process. As an unrepresented seller, cost-wise all you care about are title fees. Depending on state, it is customary for resale homes for the SELLER to pay many of the title fees, including title insurance. I would shop around at title companies and negotiate the fees there so that you will be prepared in the event that you have an unrepresented buyer.

I would have a purchase contract on hand. It's likely that a buyer that will work directly with a seller will also be budget conscious, thinking to save money on a real estate purchase since they are unrepresented. Since they are unrepresented, they may not have a clue about a written contract and begin negotiations with you verbally. You may need to be the one to get it into writing.

That said, be prepared to offer a buyer an incentive with your transaction. If they are unrepresented, then they may think that they deserve a cut of the "savings" for having no Realtors involved. You might offer help with closing costs with a full price offer.

It could set buyer's at ease to know you offer a home owner's warranty. Shop around and get one lined up.

Have a plan for showings. You will want to treat it as you would if you had to totally vacate the house so that a Realtor could come in with buyer's, EXCEPT one member of your family should be the designated "shower."

Know that buyer's are generally uncomfortable really looking at your home under your watchful eye. If a couple is looking at your home, they need to be able to make commentary to each other as they look and not feel like their conversation could be offensive to the listener. With this in mind, you need to deal with all personally valuable items and get them under lock and key or packed away so that the buyer's can roam free in your home.

Have a well prepared flyer that your buyers can take away with them.

It is a lot of work to sell a home whether you represent yourself or hire help. I would check out your local library for additional helps regarding successful advertising and marketing.

I'm a spiritual person (trying to be Dis-friendly here). In my beliefs, if it something that you are supposed to do, it will work out the way it is supposed to work out. I believe that there were lessons learned with each of our transactions and there wasn't anything that should have happened any differently with either one. If you are thinking about it, do your research, see if you have peace about it and walk the path laid before you.

 

[java]

Well we did but that was 10 years ago. We lived in a hot market. Our house wasn't even listed and we sold it. -I had mentioned in a mommy and me group that we were thinking of moving. One called me that afternoon- her friend was in town looking would love our house blah blah blah and we had an offer the next day. More than I would have asked. But probably less than it was worth at the time.

It was enough for us though. We just hired a lawyer and went to closing .(NY we needed to be there as did they as well as our lawyers)

Here I wouldn't do a FSBO because it's too rural. We don't live in a "hot" market. Do you? Is your area desirable? Is there very little inventory?

 

[Josh Hendy]

I know 2 families who tried it. This was in Canada, it might not be the same everywhere. Family 'A' had already found a buyer for their house, one of their friends or colleagues wanted it. It was an attached home a.k.a. townhouse in a big neighborhood of identical homes so it was pretty easy to arrive at a fair price, minus the usual real estate commissions. They got lawyers to handle the paperwork and everything went really easily.

The other family tried listing their house in various places privately, and over a couple of months they did not have one serious person take an interest in the house. Every single potential buyer, of which there were relatively few, was some kind of flake or loser. The most common story was, "I don't think I would qualify for a mortgage and I don't have enough for a down payment right now, do you think we could work something out?" Or, they wanted some kind of "extreme" bargain on the price and tried a super-lowball offer, just in case the sellers were idiots who were born yesterday (they weren't). The rest of the people who called were just flakes and busybodies evidently for whom wasting people's time was some kind of social event.

Probably family 'B' could have done things better, like advertised in better places, and more aggressively screened/hung up on the flakes. I'm sure it was pretty easy to spot them, within the first 5 seconds probably. But these were older people and not the bookish type who would do a lot of reading and web research to find out the best way to do these things. Eventually they hired a real estate agent, quickly sold their house and were happy with the price they got.

The funniest thing was, when the packrat old man finally broke down and sold all the junk he had accumulated at a garage sale, his packrat son with whom he was not on speaking terms showed up when he wasn't around and drove off with all his old, worthless junk. We were helping with the garage sale and the son told us, "Just don't tell my wife about all this new junk I'm bringing home OK? She's already on my case to get rid of the junk I already have." Families!!!

 

[MommyBryn]

Wow! Thank you all for sharing your experiences!

We are contemplating selling this house...but it's not just the house, it's the house ON 34 acres. So we ARE rural, but we're also selling farmland in addition to the house so maybe that would make a difference? How do I find out what the market here is like? Can I just ask a realtor? (we have several in the family but none are in our area...we do have a family friend who is in this area but we weren't going to say much to her because she might be offended that we didn't ask her to or something...but perhaps we should ask and maybe she'd be willing to work out a deal with us like some of you got).

Where do you get ahold of all the forms? Did anyone NOT hire a lawyer? All the books/sites I've read highly recommend doing so, and so now I'm kind of concerned about even attempting it without one.

The house definitely needs some little projects to be completed but we're in the process of doing all of that (my husband has years of construction experience so he's on top of all of that fun stuff). It's actually not OUR house, but my FIL's, and we're renting from him (they live across the road), but we want to get it off his hands (so does he) and he said if we are able to sell FSBO we could have a percentage of it to build a new house across the road on the other property they own (less of it so not nearly as much to manage). So I'm going to give this a shot!

 

[SnowWhite607]

We have. Two. Two very different situations.

House 1: 2003-2004. On the market for 8.5 months. Ended up giving the buyer a price that basically was what the house might have sold for minus a 6% real estate commission.

Side note: The house had some floor plan issues that made it a rough sell. The master bath had a shower only and one sink. The basement was finished with two bedrooms and a large rec room but no bathroom. The house was a 2000 build, so newer, and we finished the basement ourselves and couldn't afford the bathroom. The 5 bed/2.5 bath house was a hard sell for a decent price.

We were still living in the house. My son was young. We had cats. My husband was living with family during the week (over 3 hours away) at his new job while I was home with kid and cats during the week. DH came home on the weekend.

House 2: 2004-2005. On the market from November to March. We stuck a FSBO sign in the front yard and moved out of state. Left a new construction (lived there 6 months) home empty. A Buyer's agent called us, used the garage code to get into the house. The agent more than earned his 3% commission considering he was the only person in the state. The Buyer's were moving in from out of state and we were out of state. Thank God the new job's moving benefit covered the amount we needed to bring to escrow to sell the house.

Side note: We only owned the home for 6 months. Sold it for over 10K more than we paid. Had to pay $3500 at closing to cover the fees and commissions. (We hadn't put a big percentage down.) The house was a winner of a floor plan, no major issues. Empty and beautiful, it just needed the spring (it was in Kansas) to sell.

Like all sellers, you must clean, declutter, really market your home. You need good pictures and good marketing.

There are special issues for FSBOs:

A FSBO is like a "potential listing" sign for many Realtors. Be prepared for the phone calls and how you will deal with them.

Know if you are willing to pay a Buyer's commission.

Be totally familiar with the selling process. As an unrepresented seller, cost-wise all you care about are title fees. Depending on state, it is customary for resale homes for the SELLER to pay many of the title fees, including title insurance. I would shop around at title companies and negotiate the fees there so that you will be prepared in the event that you have an unrepresented buyer.

I would have a purchase contract on hand. It's likely that a buyer that will work directly with a seller will also be budget conscious, thinking to save money on a real estate purchase since they are unrepresented. Since they are unrepresented, they may not have a clue about a written contract and begin negotiations with you verbally. You may need to be the one to get it into writing.

That said, be prepared to offer a buyer an incentive with your transaction. If they are unrepresented, then they may think that they deserve a cut of the "savings" for having no Realtors involved. You might offer help with closing costs with a full price offer.

It could set buyer's at ease to know you offer a home owner's warranty. Shop around and get one lined up.

Have a plan for showings. You will want to treat it as you would if you had to totally vacate the house so that a Realtor could come in with buyer's, EXCEPT one member of your family should be the designated "shower."

Know that buyer's are generally uncomfortable really looking at your home under your watchful eye. If a couple is looking at your home, they need to be able to make commentary to each other as they look and not feel like their conversation could be offensive to the listener. With this in mind, you need to deal with all personally valuable items and get them under lock and key or packed away so that the buyer's can roam free in your home.

Have a well prepared flyer that your buyers can take away with them.

It is a lot of work to sell a home whether you represent yourself or hire help. I would check out your local library for additional helps regarding successful advertising and marketing.

I'm a spiritual person (trying to be Dis-friendly here). In my beliefs, if it something that you are supposed to do, it will work out the way it is supposed to work out. I believe that there were lessons learned with each of our transactions and there wasn't anything that should have happened any differently with either one. If you are thinking about it, do your research, see if you have peace about it and walk the path laid before you.

Kind of OT but something I have wondered about.......what did you do with your cats (and littler boxes) when potential buyers were looking at your home?

 

[TxRabbit]

Kind of OT but something I have wondered about.......what did you do with your cats (and littler boxes) when potential buyers were looking at your home?

I don't mean to hi-jack the thread, but to answer this:

Having a basement...the litter boxes were in the storage/unfinished area of the basement. They were cleaned daily, and always again before a showing. And we changed the litter more often. The cats themselves have always been freaked out by strangers in the home, so they would hide under the master bed. ALWAYS. They never came out. Most people didn't even know there were cats in the house until the finally went into that area of the basement.

The most recent home we dealt with (not mentioned here, because we actually decided to rent rather than sell), I had the following plan in mind: Keep the litter box clean. Like super clean, since it was in the utility room, remove the litter, cleanser clean the box (we don't use liners because the cats would shred them), and clean the litter daily. For a showing, my plan was to take the cats with me (keep a crate in the car for the purpose) and bag the litter box and take it with me too. Yes, something of a pain, but my goal was to be priced right, have the house be staged to the ultimate, and get the job done, so I was willing to do this for what I hoped was a short period of time.

 

[sharlon]

OP, we didn't have an attorney when we sold last year. The only attorney involved was the buyers' closing attorney.

 

[seashoreCM]

I have sold property without a real estate broker.

It helps to have paperwork (offer and acceptance form, purchase and sales agreement) on hand for the convenience of the potential buyer.

I did not do this part but some sellers and also many brokers pre-qualify the buyer by asking questions about cash on hand and financing and suggest to the buyer he might not be able to afford the house. By doing this in advance you lessen the chances of the buyer's being rejected for a mortgage loan all the while (two weeks or so) the house is off the market as pending sale.