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 Sign
Flyers Of Your Home
Flyers For Nearby Businesses
A Website Of Your Home
A Business Social Media Account Of Your Home
A Method To Organize
An Open House Sign-In Sheet
A Separate Phone Number For Buyer Inquiries/Calls
List 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.
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, do not make mention of what your plans are, where you’re going, the reason you’re selling, or any other non-important, non-impacting pieces of information. Much like law enforcement, whatever you say and do can be used against you. These people are not your friends, they are looking to buy something you own, in a way that gives them the best advantage in the deal.
Beware the real estate agent; oftentimes they are not there to help you, they are likely there for one of two main reasons:
- They are trying to convince you to use their services by pretending to “have a buyer” just to get a chance to meet you in person to list your home for sale. Avoid these like the plague, this is an example of deceptive tactics.
- They have a bonafide buyer and will be representing their buyer’s interests while working against you to get a “win” for their buyer client. Use great caution, they are interested in the best for their buyer and trying to get the most out of you.
Once you’re publicly listed for sale as a For Sale By Owner, the majority of calls you will get will be from real estate agents who are looking to list you for a commission. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with that (as long as they are honest about their intentions), they are not the people you want to hear from unless they have a bonafide buyer with a pre-approval.
There is a half-decent chance that you will have to go toe-to-toe with a professional agent should one actually have a buyer that’s interested in your home. This is where you’ll need all of the help you can get.
Real estate agents are fully trained to negotiate. They do this regularly. They are coached and trained to do this. Chances are you’re going to be at a great disadvantage here.
What can you do to change the odds and tilt it slightly back in your favor? Be short and sweet with your responses and answers. Do not provide sensitive information to anyone and focus on the price of the home. You have a number, if it is a realistic number, you’ll get it. If it’s a low number, you should have multiple people bidding on the home to get it.
Real estate agents advise their clients that they shouldn’t concentrate on just one home for sale, especially in a “seller’s market” and will advise their buyers to view multiple homes and to consider multiple offers. As a For Sale By Owner, it’s your responsibility to make your home enticing but also a great deal.
Bear in mind, that being a For Sale By Owner puts you at a tremendous marketing disadvantage; you do not have the reach a professional agent has, and the agent knows this. The agent and their buyer know that your home will never have the exposure to entice a bidding war like they can, so you could be seen as a discount opportunity.
Step Five:
Getting To Closing
This is where you prepare to negotiate with buyers and/or agents
Congratulations! You’ve successfully navigated through the process of planning, preparing, showing, negotiating, and ultimately accepting an offer!
At this point, you shouldn’t be surprised to hear that the potential buyer of your home is looking to do a home inspection. This isn’t really something to be overly concerned about, unless you know of some issues that you’re trying to hide.
It would be best if you were 100% honest and upfront about your home. A new law in New York has gone into effect helping ensure the honesty of homeowners by requiring a disclosure called the “Property Condition Disclosure Form” which is a multipage document asking the homeowner about a wide variety of questions about their home. This document must be filled out and provided to the potential purchaser before they sign the contract of sale. This document does not make-up-for or “replace” a home inspection.
Once the inspection is complete, the potential buyer may request repairs as a result of the inspection. It is up to you as to how you wish to handle them. Some homeowners will agree to the repairs, others will negotiate a cost/credit to the buyers instead of doing the repairs, while others may decline to have the repairs done. It will be up to you as to which you choose should it arise.
Once this is complete, your attorney will create a contract and have it sent to the buyer’s attorney who will review and potentially edit portions of the contract which will then be given back for your review with your attorney. This may go on for a couple of days.
Eventually, the contract is set and the purchaser will be the first to sign and provide their down payment money. The now half-signed contract and down payment money will be delivered back to your attorney where you will then sign your portion of the contract.
Once this is done…CONGRATULATIONS! You are officially “Under Contract.”
At this point, you will wait for the buyer to work with their bank to secure the mortgage. While you are waiting, beginning your final steps of homeownership in that home is best.
A YourHomeYourTerms.com Agent will not be there to provide you with proper guidance if timing changes or something “goes wrong,” so it will be up to you to keep an eye on things, but if you made it this far, why not the whole way through!
Now this blog post made the process sound much easier than it is, but the purpose of that was not to overwhelm you with more information than a person can handle. Everyone’s real estate situation is different and can vary greatly.
