For Sale By Owner: The 5 Steps To Selling Success!
Step One:The Starting Line It all starts at the beginning, a strong start will mean everything. It can’t be stressed enough: Make Sure You’re Ready To Sell Your Home! Having your plan(s) up to date and ready is one of the most significant aspects of home selling. Usually, an agent will help you with the logistics of your next move, locating many new on-market and/or off-market listings, office-exclusive listings, access to homes/rentals across the country, etc. Since you won’t have access to that, you can rely on Zillow, Trulia, etc. You will need a place to move to once your home is sold, and buyers may not be able to wait extended periods for an unrepresented home seller to secure their next place, especially since the buyers know you’re doing it alone. If you struggle with this, it could be an excellent time to speak with a YourHomeYourTerms.com agent. Step Two:Preparing Your Home Preparation is not only key, it’s the master key to selling. One great way to prepare your home for sale is to use the homes around you as an example. For instance, you can check Zillow for homes in your area and see how they are staged and photographed. You’ll notice a variety of “styles.” Some homes are meticulously staged with beautiful photographs; this is important since all buyers will look at images provided of a home for sale before making an appointment. You may also see some homes that look poorly photographed, staged, and cluttered. These homes are not your competition, even if they match your home in every way. Why are they not your competition? Because humans are visual. If you stage and photograph your home better than others like yours, your home will enjoy a positive benefit, which will far increase the likelihood of your getting top-dollar offers. Make sure your home always smells nice and fresh. Avoid using “cover-ups” to mask odors. Open windows and do a cleaning. Remember, we’re dealing with human beings, and they will judge. Check the exterior of your home and make sure the “curb appeal” is maximized. If you have to pay for a landscaper, do it. YourHomeYourTerms.com agents have access to a massive list of professional resources that can be shared with you for your benefit, including attorneys, landscapers, plumbers, and handypeople. Step Three:Showing & Promoting Now it’s “Go Time!” Listing your home on the market and looking for results This is it! The moment of truth: You’re listing your home for sale publicly! It’s an exciting time that can benefit you and your bank account. SHOWING YOUR HOME: Have a system in place to organize times and days for buyers to come visit and tour your home. Have a set of times for each day of the week that would be convenient for buyers, such as “6pm-8:30pm Mon-Fri” and have weekends be open and flexible. Remember, buyers work too and they can’t always make it during normal business hours. Make sure that you’ve got plenty of flyers handy for buyers who come visit your home. Additionally, you will want to plan a “tour route,” which should begin at the front of the house and take them through to the back of the house and through the backyard. Ideally, the buyers should leave through the backyard, but always ask if they would like to re-enter to view any of the property one more time. If they do, that’s a good sign. You also want to make sure that the home looks the same in person as it does in the pictures you took. No one likes being “deceived” by pictures, so if the house looks neat in pictures, then make sure it is when you show it. PROMOTING YOUR HOME: An Attractive Lawn SignFlyers Of Your HomeFlyers For Nearby BusinessesA Website Of Your HomeA Business Social Media Account Of Your HomeA Method To OrganizeAn Open House Sign-In SheetA Separate Phone Number For Buyer Inquiries/CallsList Your Home On Zillow Do not “cheap out” on these and do not cut any corners. Competing homes around yours have professional agents working for them, so when a buyer visits your home for sale you will need to make sure yours looks as polished and prepared as the professional agents do. Unfortunately, Zillow reserves “For Sale By Owners” to what feels like the “rear” of their website, pushing agent-listed homes to the front of the website. This can come at a significant disadvantage to homeowners, so you must utilize your social media accounts through local group pages and pay-for advertising by creating a business page of your home as your bread and butter for marketing your home digitally. CLICK THIS LINK HERE TO SEE WHAT WE DO TO PROMOTE THE HOMES WE LIST FOR SALE. FEEL FREE TO COPY THESE IDEAS FOR YOURSELF. Step Four:Representing Yourself This is where you prepare to negotiate with buyers and/or agents So you’re now doing everything you can to promote your home without the assistance of a trained professional, and things are seemingly going well. You’ve got a lot of attention on your home, your phone is set to ring, your advertising is set and ready to go. SELLING YOUR HOME: Having an additional “throwaway phone number” is a good idea since you’ll be getting a lot of calls from people you don’t know, so invest in a prepaid cell phone for your protection. Let’s say you find a buyer who is interested in your home. You’ll want to interact with this person and see if they’re financially capable of buying. This is done via the Pre-Approval letter. A pre-approval letter does not guarantee a bank mortgage to a buyer, instead, it indicates to the bank that the buyer may be financially capable of being approved for a mortgage. When you receive a pre-approval, take some time to call the mortgage officer and ask questions about the pre-approval including what that person has done to review the finances of the buyer. When negotiating a price,
