How To Sell A Home On Your Own Fast In A Bad Housing Market
People trying to sell their home tell me all the time. I can not sell my home myself, particularly in this real estate market. But your average real estate agent may not succeed in selling your home either. If you are thinking you don’t need to do anything but turn your house over to a real estate company, you may find yourself disappointed. The tougher the market, the more you need to cover all your bases to sell your home. And you know what, you have to do these things whether you sell through a real estate company or sell the property yourself.
Recent home sales are much slower than they have been since the 80s when rates were in double digits, in spite of today’s very low interest rates, but there are several things you can do to help your house sell and sell quickly, too.
1. First, create some great street appeal before you put your home up for sale. This will be your best chance to make a great first impression.
2. Set the price for your home right. The key here is a realistic view of comparable homes for sale. An overpriced home is the most common factor that results in a very slow sale whether you are going to sell your house on your own or through an real estate agent.
3. Put a fresh coat of paint on the outside and inside of your home if it’s been a good while since you have painted. Neutral, fresh paint will look good to prospective buyers. Avoid exotic or very bold paint treatments and wallpaper. Buyers just don’t like them. Do it yourself if you can do a good job. The big home stores can assist you with these necessary chores.
4. Clear out all that excess stuff, enough to leave your closets, the garage and even interior rooms a bit empty. Your closets should also have nothing on the floor.
5. Clean up and prep your home like it was a model home. Have it ready for a prospect at a moments notice. Item number 4 will make this process considerably easier.
6. Let everyone know your property is listed for sale. Your neighbors might want to pick their new neighbor and help themselves as well as you. This worked great for one of our homes in the slow upper Midwest housing market. Our home was sold and closed in 4 weeks surprising the real estate agent we hired who didn’t have a thing to do with finding our home buyer. To show just how slow the real estate was, the home across the street from ours was for sale for over a year and was still on the market when we left.
7. Place an ad for your home in the local newspapers. It worked for us again in another slow housing. We didn’t bother with a real estate agent this time. We received an offer from the first prospect and closed within six weeks.
8. If your area’s housing market is really slow, consider offering owner financing if possible. Those two little words can do more than just about anything else to get tons of prospects. Many buyers in the current real estate market, even ones with solid credit have difficulty getting a loan. This is particularly true for self-employed buyers who often have plenty of money for a nice down payment. Solve their problem if you can. You can still effectively get all cash for your home by selling the private mortgage note to a mortgage buyer. One thing to be aware of. You may have to hold the note for 2 to 3 months for it to “season” a many private note buyers want this seasoning before you sell a note or sell private mortgage to them.
We are in do it yourself times and home selling is no exception. If the normal sales just aren’t happening you can take charge and make things happen for you through FSBO! Take heart in this one last point. Your work can have a much greater impact on selling your house than any real estate firm or agent.
Tags: fsbo, fsbo tips, mortgage buyer, owner financing, sell my note, sell own home
Leave a Reply