Selling Your Own Home

There are no rules that say you can’t sell your home yourself. However, before attempting to do so you should be properly prepared. The major steps involved in getting the house ready prior to selling it are:

• Making repairs so that the place looks decent. A run-down, unattractive house will not appeal to most homebuyers and will definitely not bring in a decent price. Preparation should also include cleaning up the yard of clutter, giving some areas a much needed paint job and making sure to give the place a good overall cleaning.

• Get a valuation: When selling your own home, it is a good idea to pay to have a professional valuator appraise the house and set the value based on market rates in your area. You can also do this yourself by doing a little research to find out the going rate for property in your geographical location.

• Believe it or not, letting go of emotional ties to a house can be hard and can make selling it harder than it needs to be. Before actually selling the ‘old place’ you need to let go of emotional ties as much as possible.

• The first major disadvantage is the cost and hassle of marketing the property you are selling. Marketing a property can be difficult especially in bad economic times.

• Having to negotiate selling price. Many homeowners do not have the personality or desire to haggle over price.

• If you sell your own home you get to keep the entire sale price except for marketing costs and any government taxes that may be incurred. If you go through a real estate professional you will need to pay a commission to them for selling the house.

• If you are really attached to the house you can decide who feels or seems like the best fit for it. Having total control over the sale is a benefit for many homeowners.

The actual process of selling can be hard or easy depending on the time the sale is being made and how much you are willing to learn about selling a house. Apart from the professional appraisal, you need to do the following as well:

1. Set your first open house visits so that prospective buyers can have a look around. This should be done weeks in advance so that it gives a deadline to get the other things done.

2. Marketing the house can be done a number of ways. Marketing options include placing ads in newspapers, sending out flyers, and creating signs for posting on the lawn. In addition, advertise the house online on sites such as forsalebyowner.com, fsbo.com or other multiple listing services websites (MLS). Although these websites charge a fee for the listing the advertisement will reach many more persons who are looking for houses to buy.

3. Get a professionally drawn up sales contract that you can give to potential buyers. If they are really interested they will need this for their lawyer to look over and advise them on how to proceed.

4. Be prepared for home inspections and be ready to accommodate inspectors when they arrive. Generally, the prospective buyer pays for the inspection. If disagreements occur at this stage, you may want to get another inspection done at your own expense.

5. Once you have settled on a buyer be prepared to negotiate. Once both parties have reached an agreement the exchange of money takes place and contracts are signed.

Thank you to Jessica McCurdy Crooks for this "Selling Your Own Home" article.

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