for sale by owner

What To Do When You Want To Sell Your House By Owner

In our social circles of friends we are often asked about selling your house by owner, what are the differences over selling with an agent, and how to go about it. In this short write up we cover just that and give you a few tips about selling your home yourself without using an agent.

Is It Necessary To Use An Agent?

Absolutely not. In Georgia you can sell your property all on your own. While there are advantages of using an agent (mainly someone else doing the work for you), with a little work you can get the job done yourself:

While a good agent can certainly help with the negotiation process, he or she also has a vested interest in the transaction. “And closing the deal may in some cases be more important to the agent than getting you the absolute best price,” Schorr says. If you’re a good negotiator and can handle the process without emotion and with clear eyes, you might do better on your own.

You will need to write your own description of the house, take your own photos, and give your own tours to prospective buyers. “If you excel at these things — or if you’re a control freak like me — you may do a better job than some realtors would,” Schorr says.

Read The Full Article “How to Sell Your House Without Paying an Agent’s Fee” Here

We haven’t run across many cases where agents were more concerned about closing the deal over price. The one thing we have come across is where agents give bad advice to sellers. The biggest one is pricing the property to high, only to lower the price later again and again to get interest. This has a tendency to backfire when buyers see a property with multiple price decreases leaving them to wonder what’s wrong with the property.

We recently looked at a house where the seller’s agent told them to NOT make any repairs, or change anything and even empty the house for showings. The asking price of this property was over 500k, so it was a rather large home. The interior of the property needed painting and carpet and was almost completely bare. With that kind of asking price and everything else in the area selling for around that price in immaculate condition, this seller had their property on the market for well over a year. So by not using an agent and following advice you find on the web, you just may be better off.

Anyhow, we’re a little off topic, so let’s get back to it –

What’s The Difference Between Selling By Owner And Using A Realtor?

In our previous article “Selling Your House Without An Agent“, we touched on just a few things on selling your home yourself. But what are some of the differences if you choose to use an agent vs. selling yourself? Really, there is no difference, except for the fact that if you choose to sell by owner you will have to do a bit of work on your own, as described on Home Guides:

There is no difference in the process of a FSBO transaction and one with realtor representation. An offer is made that – once it is accepted – begins a series of actions. An escrow account should be opened with good faith money deposited. The buyers begin the inspection period, while the sellers provide all required disclosures about the property and potentially about hazards in the area such as waste disposal sites. The buyer orders a title report to review all ownership and to complete all requirements for the lender to fund the loan. Buyers provide lender approvals and get funding.

Read The Full Article “What Forms Are Needed to Sell a Home by Owner?” Here

It’s exactly the same, except for the fact that you aren’t paying 5% or 6% in realtor fees. In Georgia the closing attorney is usually the one that orders a title report and handles the escrow account and ensures all of the mortgage papers are correct. If you aren’t in a Judicial State, meaning you don’t have to use an attorney, we would recommend that you do hire an attorney just to help make sure everything is done correctly and on the up and up since you won’t have a realtor to make sure everything is correct.

Where To Start

Now you know that you can do it and it’s basically the same process. So where do you start? Do you just put a sign in the yard and hope for the best? Nope. There is a lot that a realtor does, and now you need to do their job.

The first thing you need to do is research:

1. Research the MLS.
Do your research and find a few websites that allow you to post your home for sale online. Websites like this typically charge a flat rate, plus the cost of additional services.

2. Check out the competition.
Get a pulse on your local real estate market. How much are homes selling for in your area? How do these homes compare to yours?

3. Choose your list price.
Real estate agents run a comparative market analysis (also known as comps) when determining a home’s list price. When in doubt, start with a lower asking price. Overpricing by $10,000 can cause it to sit on the market and ultimately force you to sell for less than if you had priced it right initially.

Read The Full Article “How to Sell Your Home Without an Agent” Here

Make sure you do all the research you can on the internet when trying to find the value of your property. Zillow.com, Trulia.com and Redfin.com are all great places to start. Once you have the asking price set, then it’s time to start marketing.

Here is a great video that will give you 10 great tips when selling your home by owner:

Lastly we wanted to cover making the entire process almost hassle free, and that is by selling your home to a cash buying company. These companies can make it extremely easy to sell your home by owner. You still will want to do some research to find out approximately what your house is worth, but then these companies pretty much handle the rest.

We are one of those companies, and we can make it really easy to sell your house by owner. If you have a house in Dunwoody, or anywhere in Metro Atlanta, we would like the opportunity to make you an offer on your property. You can learn more on our website, or call us anytime at 770-756-8680 for a hassle free offer.

How To Sell My House By Owner Fast

Trying to sell your house by owner, and trying to do it fast? Just selling your house yourself without an agent can be a task all in itself, but if you need to sell your house fast as well, then you are going to need some good guidance and all the tips you can get.

Tips On How To Sell Your House By Owner Fast

There is a lot to do when selling your house, and even more when selling a property yourself, or For Sale By Owner –  FSBO (pronounced FIZZ-BO). Now not only do you have to pack and get ready to move to your new house, but you also have to take on the roll of being your own real estate agent.

Get Your House Ready

So where do you start? The first thing you need to do is get the house itself ready to sell:

Gone are the days of selling homes with unmade beds, dishes in the sink and toys scattered throughout. Today’s homes must be spotless and resemble a model home. Make it look like nobody lives there.

  • Before you begin to prepare your house for sale, examine the home from a stranger’s viewpoint. Ask a friend to help, who might be more removed from your attachment. Ask her to walk through your home and note deficiencies.
  • Consider spending money on improvements, fixing things that don’t work and making repairs before selling to improve your profit. Don’t spend too much money! The single biggest downfall for sellers is spending too much money on repairs that will never be recouped.

Read The Full Article “For Sale by Owner FSBO Tips” Here

Getting your friends opinions about how your house looks is a great idea, just be prepared for any possible negative comments. It’s what they see and probably what a potential buyer will see as well.

When it comes to making repairs you have to fix all of the little things like faucets that drip, doors and windows that don’t operate correctly, broken cabinet handles and every other little thing. If you don’t do it now chances are it will come up when the buyer has a home inspection done anyway. Also if a buyer sees a lot of little things wrong with your house they are probably going to wonder how many more things are wrong that they can’t see.

Set The Price

Now that you have your house all nice, neat and repaired it’s time to set the asking price for your home. This is more important than you might think. Set the price to high and you won’t have anyone interested in even looking at your house. Then when you lower your price buyers tend to wonder what’s wrong with your house. Here’s some great advice from Zillow on getting the price right:

So how do you set the best price for your home? First, understand it doesn’t matter what you “need” to get. You can use the proceeds calculator on your Zillow Owner Dashboard to find out how much you’ll actually pocket for a given sales price. That’s good information, but it’s not how you set your price. Forget what you owe or how much you want to walk away with. Not surprisingly, buyers don’t care. Instead, you’ll need to take a cold, hard look at your home and the housing market in your area. Your strategy depends on whether it’s a buyers’ market or a sellers’ market. But the first thing you need to determine is your home’s estimated market value.

Start with your Zestimate®. That will get you in the ballpark and, just as importantly, it’s a number buyers will look at. But don’t stop there. Look at comparable home sales in your neighborhood. The Zillow Owner Dashboard allows you to both pick comparable recent sales (called comps) as well as update or correct any information on your home so that your Zestimate is more accurate.

Read The Full Article “How to Set the Right Selling Price for Your Home” Here

Personally we don’t go by Zillow’s Zestimate at all. We do however look at what similar properties in the area have recently sold for, within the last 6 months. These properties are called comparables. We also look at comparables on other sites as well like Trulia and Redfin to make sure we are looking at as many comparables as possible. If you are having trouble setting your price you may want to reach out to an agent and ask for their help.

List Your Property

Now you have your house looking like a shiny new penny and have your price set. Now it’s time to start marketing! You need to list your property on the web in as many places as possible. Most buyers now start their search on the internet for their new home, many times right from their smart phone.

Here are some great ideas from Consumer Reports for listings:

Realflyer, for example, lets you create professional-looking brochures starting at 32 cents each. Owners.com will list your home (including photos) free for 30 days. For $295, it will list your home for six months on its site as well as on Realtor.com, Trulia, and Zillow. For an additional $100 it will add your listing to the Multiple Listing Service for six months, where you’ll get the most exposure, but you have to commit to paying a buyer’s agent’s commission if one represents your buyer (generally 2 to 3 percent of your sale price).

Read The Full Article “8 tips to help you sell your own home” Here

Using Owners.com is a great deal to list your home for you on multiple platforms. It is important to remember that no matter if you list on the MLS or not your buyer may have an agent in which case you will have to pay 3% in buyer agent commissions. Check out or previous article “How To Sell Your House Fast Without A Realtor” for more tips on places to list on the web including social media.

Lastly here is a video with a great tip when selling your house by owner:

As a final reminder, if all of this is too much for you and you don’t want to be bothered with all of it you can contact us, Mandich Property Group. We buy houses in Holly Springs and all throughout Metro Atlanta in any condition. You don’t have to do a single thing to your property, including even cleaning it! You can learn more on our website, or call us at 770-756-8680 for a free, no obligation offer on your property.

Tips On Selling Your House By Owner

It’s time to sell your house and you are thinking about doing it yourself. Maybe you have a new job in a new city, downsizing or the opposite, need a bigger home for a growing family. Whatever the reason you need to sell your house, you can do it yourself without hiring an agent, thus saving yourself some money in realtor commissions. However you must take some careful steps to make sure the process goes smoothly.

Getting Your House Ready For Sale By Owner

You may think that all you need to do is put a sign in the front yard “for sale by owner” and you will have a buyer for your house in no time. However without some careful planning it may take some time to get the right buyer, or even a buyer for that matter, to put your house under contract.

In reality there are a few things that you must do to get your house ready to sell. People are going to want to look at your house. So a dirty or cluttered house most certainly won’t entice any would be buyers. Getting the house ready to sell should be at the top of your list. For Sale By Owner has a great article that explains this and more:

1. Make Your Home Look Great
Presentation is everything. Home buyers are attracted to clean, spacious and attractive houses. Your goal is to dazzle buyers. Brighten-up the house and remove all clutter from counter tops, tables and rooms. Scrub-down your house from top to bottom. Make it sparkle. Simple aesthetic improvements such as trimming trees, planting flowers, fixing squeaking steps, broken tiles, shampooing rugs and even re-painting a faded bedroom will greatly enhance the appeal of your house. Also, make sure your house smells good. That’s right, clean out the cat box and light mildly scented candles.

Invite a neighbor over to walk through your house like a buyer would. Get their opinion on how it “shows.” The stuffed donkey in the family room may have to go to your in-laws for a while.

2. Price Your Home Right
Careful not to over price your home. Over-pricing when you sell a home reduces buyer interest, makes competing homes look like better values, and can lead to mortgage rejections once the appraisal is in. Over-pricing when selling a home is the single biggest reason why many “for sale by owner” (FSBO) home sellers don’t sell their homes successfully. The home selling market dictates the price (not what you think it should be worth).

One of the best ways to correctly price your house when selling is to find out how much other homes, similar to your own, recently sold for in your neighborhood. Talk to home sellers, buyers and check out the real estate listings in your local newspaper.

Typically, if you set the price of your home at 5 to 10 percent above the market price, you are likely to end up with an offer close to your home’s true value. Also, you may try calculating the cost per square foot of your home compared to the house selling prices in your area (divide list price by square footage of livable space). If your house has more features or other desirable qualities, you may want to set a slightly higher house selling price.

The easiest way to accurately price your home is to contact your local home appraiser.

Finally, set your house selling price just under a whole number, such as $169,900 rather than $170,000.

Read The Full Article “8 Easy Home Selling Tips” Here

All good stuff. Your house HAS to be kept clean when you are trying to sell it, whether you use an agent or not. Some more good advice is to go ahead and pack some things and put them in a storage unit before you start to show the home to make it less cluttered. You don’t want potential buyers to think the house doesn’t have enough storage.

Also pricing is another big point. Over price your property and you won’t get any interest. When you are trying to determine the price make sure you are comparing “apples to apples”. You can’t expect to get as much for your home that was built in the ’70’s and never updated to one that was built around the same time frame and has a brand new kitchen and bathrooms with granite counter tops.

Please read the full article as there are a lot more good tips on getting your house sold.

Closing The Deal And Getting Your House Sold

So you have cleaned the house top to bottom, put the sign in the yard, maybe done some internet marketing and ready to start showing the property. What next? US News has some good info on that:

4. Be available

Once your listing is up, potential buyers will likely come to you. Are you ready?

Udelson says being available in multiple ways is essential for good marketing. In other words, potential buyers should be able to reach you by email, phone or in person. Some prospects will email first and won’t want to meet in person until later. That’s OK. Your goal is to engage prospective buyers in conversation, and try to get them to look at the home in person eventually.

Also, be sure to welcome calls and interest from agents. “Just because you elect to sell without an agent,” Udelson says, “doesn’t mean that the buyer should be expected to go without.”

On this note, be prepared to work with a potential buyer on arrangements for showing the home. If the buyer is coming with an agent, you can most likely leave the home, allowing the agent to take his client through. But if you’re showing directly to a buyer, you’ll need to be there to highlight the best points of your home, and answer any questions the prospect might have.

5. Get ready for closing

Before you even start marketing your home, it’s important to know what you’ll need for closing. This can be a complex process with lots of paperwork. You’ll need to stay on top of the paperwork, and make sure your buyer is on top of things, especially if the buyer doesn’t have an agent. Closing is one good reason to use a FSBO sellers website, since many of these sites have helpful information to walk you through the closing process.

Read The Full Article “5 Tips for Going the For Sale By Owner Route” Here

Great advice. We would add that you might want to go ahead and schedule a few Saturday’s & Sunday’s for showing to tell people about when they call or email about your property. That way it will be a little easier on you to have the house spic and span when a buyer is looking at the property and not just have people popping in.

You may also want to contact a closing attorney to check and see what documents you need to sell your house. They may have a template that you can use and make the selling process that much easier.

In Conclusion

Selling your home by owner can be a lot more involved that just putting a sign in the front yard. As long as you clean your house well, do some marketing and make sure you contact an attorney to help you with the closing, the entire process should go smoothly.

As a reminder, one of the best ways to sell your house by owner is to contact a real estate investor like us. We have a streamlined process to purchase properties. In fact you don’t even have to worry about any of the things we have listed above, not even clean the house because we buy houses as is. You can contact us at 770 756-8680 for a free, no obligation offer any time 🙂

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