Selling my home by owner-tips anyone?

[ksantilli]

We are selling our home FSBO and I am looking for any advise you might have to share. We are in a suburb of Denver and from what I am told, the market here is pretty good.
Has anyone done this before who would be willing to help me know what to do to market my home?
I have a sign up in the yard, I made a brochure and have it out with the sign. I have listed it on Craigslist and Zillow. Anything else? Thanks so much!

 

[bucket o' butter]

This may sound silly, but one of tips my mom had (she was a worked in real estate) was to bake cookies just before a showing. (Be careful not to burn them! LOL!) The smell of fresh baked cookies does help with the sale of a house. it reminds people of "grandma's house!

Try not to overdecorate because people like to visualize for themselves on how the house will look like when they live there, but at the same time, don't let it look "plain Jane".

Also, be sure the walls are a neutral color. Sharp colors tend to turn people away. Just because you like bright red walls, it doesn't mean everyone will and they know they will have to repaint. If any painting does need done, put on a fresh coat. That helps immensely if people know they don't have to paint before they move in. If I think of anything else she told me, I'll let you know. Good luck!

 

[bas71873]

DO NOT SHOW YOUR HOUSE ALONE. I used to always go get my neighbor to come sit with me if I was showing the house and DH wasn't going to be able to be there with me!

Good luck. I had a VERY good experience with a FSBO a few years ago, but the couple that bought my house came in with a pre-approval letter from their bank, gave me asking price, we agreed to split closing costs 50/50 (with the exception of the buyer's pre-paid costs....insurance, etc.).

OH, if you can go back to the title company YOU used to close on the house when YOU purchased it, you might be able to get a discount. We did. I even took my settlement statement to them and sat for 5/10 mintues to get a definitive answer on what exactly the seller's responsbility to pay and what were the buyer's. They were VERY helpful.

 

[Soon2B4]

The flier at the street is the best thing you can do. We did that and it saved a lot of phone calls from people who weren't interested. When you do an open house, put signs at the nearest busy street a few days before. We attached a sign at the bottom with our address and open house times. Do the same in your yard at the bottom of your for sale sign.

 

[ibela]

Some great tips on here. Also, anything obvious that needs to get fixed you should do yourself or state up front how much off you'll give to get it fixed. If you leave it up to the buyer, they'll will want to deduct more than enough to fix it! (ex. leak, stained/torn carpet, etc.)

 

[MyGirlLovesTink]

Make sure you de-clutter your house as best you can. I've heard from agents before that it is best to take away any personal photos or anything that makes the home specific to you. You want buyers to be able to walk in and picture it as their own home.

I second the baking cookies idea. The smell of freshly baked goods gives buyers a nice feeling about the house. If you don't have time to bake they make scented candles that give off the scent of freshly baked pies and cookies. I think Yankee Candle might sell some of those scents.

Good Luck!

 

[Praying Colonel]

Second the de-cluttering. The first thing our realtor told us to do is rent a dumpster--it was $150 for 2 weeks for a "half dumpster" and $300 for a large one. They deliver it, you dump your trash and they come pick it up 2 weeks later.

We took the stuff that had no value and couldn't believe that we'd filled up that dumpster 2 weeks later! It's amazing how much stuff we'd accumulated over the years that was just trash and junk.

Anything that had value we tried to sell at a garage sale. We made enough $ to pay for the dumpster. Everything that didn't sell, we took to Goodwill.

Even after doing all that, our realtor said our house was still too cluttered when we got ready to sell it. So we rented a 5' x 10' storage space for about $70/month and filled it full with stuff we wanted to keep but didn't need while we were showing the house.

After that, our realtor helped us "stage" the house by bringing over some pictures and doo-dads she had in her garage.

(I know this isn't your question, but as you can tell from me mentioning our realtor 3 times so far, I think it's money well-spent to hire a realtor. In addition to the outstanding tips she gave us on de-cluttering and staging, she helped us get good renovation help at an affordable price, took care of the advertising and open house, managed the offers we got and got all of the paperwork in order, and perhaps most importantly rode herd on what turned out to be a very complicated process of getting our house closed and getting our new house to closing in a seamless way. I know that not everybody has that good of an experience with realtors, but it was the best 6% we ever spent.)

 

[richmond282]

We bought our house FSBO. I found it on the website fsbo.com. Could you list it on a website like that? I don't know what hte fees are, but in this day and age of technology, people will be using the internet to look. The more it's listed online the more people will see it.

 

[Soon2B4]

Oh ya. We have things like Next Home and Help U Sell. They get you an MLS and you can pay for whatever services you want. Some will do your openhouses and some advertising.

We had a great experience selling our home. We did it all ourselves and sold the house in 2 months. You can by contracts at Staples and Office Max.

I do agree on price. Really do your research on comps and be honest with yourself on what your home is worth.

 

[DisneyMissy318]

We decided to forgo a real estate agent when we needed to sell our house - mainly because we found we had a prepayment penalty on our loan which would have taken a considerable chunk out of our proceeds. I did flyers at the road, listed in our local newspapers, put a flyer at local stores - told everyone we knew that our house was for sale... and the payoff came by posting the house on our "electronic bulletin board" where I work. Our house was "on the market" for about 4 weeks - and closed 4 weeks after the offer was made.

When you get a call, ask if they have been "pre-approved" - and to bring a letter if available. We had a lot of people call and want to see the house - and hadn't even made an attempt to find financing. We were even a little leary of a couple of the callers - like they might visit houses for fun (or to case the joint!)

Be prepared with a "spiel" on what to say to the realtors who will inevitably call you asking you to list your house with them. I had about 10 calls during the month - it's one of their ways to drum up business.

It worked for us - and I'm glad we saved the realtor fees.

Good Luck!

 

[ksantilli]

Thank you, thank you to everyone! We actually listed the house 2 years ago with an agent and it didn't sell and was a very frustrating experience. When we listed it then, we painted the interior and exterior and had new carpet put in. The hot water heater,and garage door opener have also been replaced in the last year. I think we're pretty good there.
As far as the de cluttering goes, we did that 2 years ago as well and I liked it so much, I didn't put any of it back in my home. I left the pictures off the walls except for a few, and got rid of all "knick knacks."
I got the flier made today and had a 360 virtual tour done. Hopefully we can do it! I SOOOO appreciate all of the wonderful advise. Thank you! YOU guys are wonderful!

 

[mamaLori05]

Make sure you disclose important info upfront and make sure you have a real estate attorney. For example, if you know you have radon in your basement, high levels of radium in your water, ect... Our realtor told us of a horror story where a FSBO accepted an offer on their house, but forgot to disclose that info. 3 days before they were supposed to close the buyers laywer asked for the paperwork (which in this case disclosed a higher but still safe amount of radium in the city water), got it from the sellers, and then the buyers decided not to go through with the closing because of the radium levels in the water. the owners had already moved out thinking things were all set to go. If that info had been disclosed from the beginning, and the wording in the contract was worded right, they wouldn't have been able to back out that close to closing.

 

[ZuZugal]

I would definitely require a pre-approval letter from anyone who calls to see the house.

We have sold 2 homes by owner. The first home sold in a day (we were blessed with that sale.)

The second home took longer. A potential buyer had an agent; a very pushy agent. They gave us an offer but insisted that we use "their agent, sign their contract", etc. Of course the agent's contract protected the buyers but did nothing to protect us.

We quickly had a contract drawn up and let them know that they could leave their agent and her contract at the door. Their financing fell through anyway, and we moved on, but having our own contract in hand was very important.

 

[Soon2B4]

I almost forgot. We had an agent show up and want to show the home to a client. She expected us to pay her. I informed her that if we did, the pprice would be higher to offset her fees. When we were looking for homes and called about a FSBO, they asked if we had an agent. We of course said no and they told us they had 2 different prices. They padded the price to offset any realtor fees that someones agent might have.

 

[clh2]

We tried to sell our home FSBO about 17 years ago. We were given very good advise by a realtor - pick a time limit. 3 months...6 months etc. If the house hasn't sold by that time, go to plan "b". Plan B for us was to list with a realtor. We needed to move due to a job relocation, so hanging on to the house for an indefinite period of time was not an option.

While we were trying to FSBO - if any realtor wanted to show a client our house, we offered 1/2 of the traditional fee - 3% or 3.5% if I recall correctly.

 

[ksantilli]

Thanks again everyone. This has been so helpful!