If you have time and believe you can sell your property on the MLS, you should consider For Sale By Owner (FSBO). A realtor can take up to 6% of the sale price in Alabama. For example, if you sell your house for $150,000, your agent’s commission will be $9,000 – taking a significant portion of your profit.
Is Selling Your Own Home Right For You?
The first step to successfully selling your own home is deciding whether you are ready for the challenge. “It can be done, but you have to be really cautious,” says Mike Hills, vice president of investment brokerage at Atlas Real Estate in Denver.
Evaluate your capacity to take this on. Home sales are time-consuming, difficult transactions that can cause a lot of stress. If you’re inheriting a house, pre-foreclosure, or have other problems to solve – this option may not be best for you. As a personal seller, it will be up to you to prepare, market and show your home. Also, there are paperwork and legal requirements that may demand you hire a real estate attorney, title company, and other professional real estate professionals. Some properties, such as vacation homes or mobile homes, are not feasible to sell without an agent.
Have a plan. Owners that decide to sell their own property should have a plan for what that process will look like well in advance. This plan should outline each step in the sales process. It’s also helpful to identify in advance which professionals, such as attorneys and escrow agents, will be used when the time comes to finalize a sale.
Be patient. Depending on your market, you’re looking at a timeline to a month to even more – depending on the market conditions and how fast you move. In today’s market in Arizona, for example, the market supply of homes is far less than Alabama and an owner could easily (we say that lightly) do FSBO in that state. The demand for houses in some of those markets is so hot that anything that goes on the market gets bought instantly! If you can’t wait nor have the resources to do FSBO, then consider other options.
Step 1) Determining A Price To Sell At
Method 1: Pulling comps yourself
Comps or comparable sales are similar properties to yours that have sold within a specific radius, time period, and possess similar characteristics.
Method 2: Connecting With A Local Realtor To Pull Comps
Alternatively, you can outsource pulling the comps from a realtor. If you ask a realtor to pull comps for you, they may do it. As a courtesy, you should pay them for their time. It doesn’t take long for an experienced agent to pull them, but you still want to pay them for their time.
Method 3: Using Other Real Estate Professionals
Contractors or other professionals can provide you with estimates. With contractors, they are simply going off of experience. If they work often in your area, have an excellent reputation, and are respectable in the community, then their advice is fairly reliable. Otherwise, you should consider their advice with a grain of salt. LVL Home Solutions uses a combination of realtor comps and our own comps to give you a thorough, fair, and accurate estimate for your home.
Step 2: Marketing Your Home
After determining the value, you will want to market the home. This part is important as the effectiveness of your marketing can be a huge contributing factor for how long your house stays on the market. In a hotter market or neighborhood, the house may just sell it itself. In slower markets, you may have to spend more in order to reach a larger audience. Some methods include ads (doing them yourself or outsourcing them), putting signs down on busy streets (check with your HOA/city to make sure it is legal), and posting on craigslist or other popular forums. With marketing, you want to be create a ton of interest in a short amount of time. As more time passes it may no longer be feasible to sell your property.
Step 3: Selling
You will have to deal with managing showings, inspections, coordinating with title and escrow, and also informing the buyer. You should also hire a real estate attorney to help you manage the legal side of things. Negotiations may be involved and these can be stressful. A positive to all of this is that you control all aspects of this and you know who you are talking to. Staying organized and maintaining a calendar of who and what is happening will help you greatly.
Step 4: Enjoy The Fruits Of Your Labor!
If all goes well then you should have no problem selling your home. This process is an incredible amount of moving parts and pieces and you should be extremely proud of yourself for accomplishing a feat. If this process is outside what you want to do – consider selling to us or listing with an agent. If FSBO is interesting to you we can give you advice and help but ultimately you are responsible for the sale of your house. We can only buy so many homes a month for our investors. We want to help as many people sell their home quickly because but that does not always work out.
[SEE: Our Process – LVL Home Solutions]
Additional Resources: