Have you been considering selling your home on your own? We generally don’t advise this since it is a lot of work, contracts, and you will still likely pay 3% to the buyers agent. Did you know, FSBO’s sell for 19% less, on average, than homes sold by agents according to NAR?
Regardless, we wanted to put together a high level guide so you understand the process and all of the steps required for selling a home!
Listing Your Home
In order to start the process of listing your home, you’ll want to get it cleaned and staged to impress any potential buyers.
You might need to do some minor cosmetic repairs like painting, fixing your curb appeal and updating some fixtures to ensure you get the most return on your home. It’s best to do some research and find out which of these will get you the best return based on other homes in your area.
You’ll need to get professional photos taken of your home as well to help you in marketing it on various platforms. Market standard is also leaning towards having a 3D walkthrough of the space so people can virtually visit the home.
You’ll want to get all of the details of your home down, including square footage counts, age of the home, number of bedrooms and bathrooms and any other notable features that buyers might be looking for.
Marketing
Buy and set up for sale signs for visibility around your neighborhood.
Since you don’t have Multiple Listing Service or broker network access, your first priority has to be establishing a marketing plan to get your home in front of as many people as possible. At minimum, post your listing online to sites like Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist. Make sure to include all relevant information about the home and attach the professional photos you had taken too!
Take time to spread the word that your house is for sale. You’ll want to get the word out to as many people as possible to make sure the right buyer gets in front of your house listing!
Showings
Take time out of your schedule to meet with prospective buyers and show them your home. You might do anywhere from 5-100 of these before you find someone who’s ready to put in an offer! Treat each showing like the grand opening. Double check your staging, organization, lighting, scents (or odors) to ensure a great impression.
Under Contract
You will receive requests from the buyer’s agent, transaction coordinators, and the title company for certain documents that you will need to submit. Mind the deadlines to avoid potential default!
Getting to Closing
Closing is often one of the more intimidating parts of this process. There are a lot of important steps that you’ll need to do to make sure things go smoothly when you’re closing on the deal.
First, you’ll need to verify that the potential buyer is qualified with a trusted lender and confirm that the earnest money is received.
Your buyer will need to set up inspections, and it’s important to verify that the appointments are set up to align with the closing schedule.
After the inspection, it’s likely that the buyer will come back with items on the home that they want fixed before they will agree to purchase it. You’ll need to negotiate inspection items to make sure you can get money out of the deal still and that you don’t overspend.
If there are a lot of repairs that will need to be done, it’s best to hire a contractor to get them done quickly so they’re done properly.
The last two things to check before closing are that the buyer’s loan is moving along on schedule and that the buyer’s lender has scheduled an appraisal for the home. Once these things are done, then it’s time to arrange a meeting time to close on the house and start moving out!
If you have any other questions about the process, feel free to reach out to someone on our team. You can call or text us at (719) 417-4419.