What Does Listing For Sale by Owner Truly Cost?

Are you thinking about listing your home For Sale By Owner? If you are, don’t forget to consider the true costs of taking this route.

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If you’re considering listing For Sale By Owner (or FSBO), I’ve got some key information on the true cost of selling.

First, ask yourself what kind of back payments there will be. Any back payments or taxes that aren’t paid up by the time of closing will be deducted at that time.

Also, be aware that there are certain loan programs out there that don’t allow sellers to list their home more quickly than the loan was expected to be paid off. Make a call to your lender and find out if you’ll be subject to any prepayment penalties before you list.

What about carrying costs? On my team, we pride ourselves in selling as quickly as possible. However, some FSBO sellers may find their listing sitting on the market for weeks or even months. If this happens to be the case, you’ll need to factor in the carrying costs. These costs are what you will need to pay to hold your listing on the market.

These holding costs can include mortgage payments, taxes, routine maintenance, and more, so be careful.

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Is it truly going to benefit you to go it alone?

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Next, don’t forget about closing costs. Many sellers, especially FSBO sellers, don’t realize that closing costs are going to be deducted from their bottom line. Listing your home on the market doesn’t happen for free. You will also need to think about the costs of preparing your home for the market.

Think about what you’ll need to do to get your home ready for listing. How much is it going to cost you to make sure your home looks as good as possible? Depending on the condition of your home, this can be very costly.

If you are a FSBO seller, you’re going to have to outsource a lot of costs at closing. Take your bottom line into account. Is it truly going to benefit you to go it alone?

If you have any other questions, would like more information, or want to learn how we could help you sell your home quickly and for top dollar, feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

What You Need to Know About Selling Your Own Home

If plan on selling your home on your own, make sure you avoid these seven “For Sale By Owner” mistakes.

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If you’ve decided to list your home as “For Sale By Owner,” congratulations. It can be a challenge, but there are a few people out there who can do it.

That said, according to the National Association of Realtors, 90% of all homes that were sold last year were represented by an agent, Realtor, or real estate professional.

Of the 10% that were FSBO properties, just over 50% of them were a shorthanded transaction, meaning the owner sold their home to a friend, family member, or someone they knew. Of the remaining 4%, about 2% successfully sold on their own, while the remaining 2% pulled their homes off the market.

There are seven common mistakes that you should try to avoid if you plan on selling your home by yourself:

1. Pricing your home inaccurately. This is the No. 1 mistake most FSBO sellers make. Test the market data to make sure that your list price is effectively positioned in the market.

2. Not preparing your home for the market. Many FSBO sellers just put their home on the market and hope for the best. Unfortunately, in today’s market buyers are looking for turnkey properties or homes that have been prepared as best as they can be.

3. Not marketing your home correctly. Most FSBO sellers don’t have the understanding or wherewithal to market a home properly. Marketing is one of the most important parts of selling your home these days.

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Marketing is one of the most important parts of selling a home.

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4. Not understanding the paperwork. There is a lot of money on the line. If you don’t dot your i’s and cross your t’s, you could be putting yourself in a harmful situation from a liability standpoint.

5. Not understanding the proper terms and conditions. When speaking with buyers or industry professionals, you may agree to terms that you don’t understand, which can put you in a negative financial situation.

6. Saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Just because you did a repair doesn’t mean you have to bring it up. As long as it’s not an active issue, you are protected. You don’t have to talk about what happened when the house flooded or the foundation crack that you’ll repair.

7. Overlooking details. Some FSBO sellers are simply not educated on the process. There are many steps involved in a successful home sale, and an overlooked detail could cost you tens of thousands of dollars.

Avoid these seven mistakes and you may be one of the successful FSBO sellers in 2017.

If you have any other questions or you are interested in working with an agent to sell your home, just give us a call or send us an email. We would be happy to help you!

What to Do When Your Home Is Just Sitting on the Market

If your home is sitting on the market without any offers, there are three steps you can take to make sure it’s properly positioned in the market.

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What should you do if your home has been on the market but you haven’t gotten an offer yet? That’s why there are a few firewalls we install when working with our sellers so that they can sell quickly and for top market value.

If your property is just sitting on the market, luckily, there are a few steps you can take to sell your home.

1. Check your listing. Make sure your home is properly labeled and categorized on the MLS and in all of its marketing materials. I’ve had sellers come to me unable to sell only to find that their four-acre property was listed at 0.04 acres, so people looking for acreages didn’t even know their home was available. So, make sure that your home data is correct.

2. Make sure your home is strategically marketed. If you’re selling on your own, make sure you’re marketing more. Otherwise, go to your agent and see exactly how much exposure your home is getting on the market. If your agent is marketing your home correctly, they will be able to support that data by pulling in supporting information.

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Make sure that your listing data is accurate.

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3. Conduct a comparative market analysis. There’s no better way to find out what the market is doing than by doing a market analysis. Look at what homes are comparable to yours. Find out what’s going contingent or under contract. Most importantly, look at what homes are being closed on in your area that are very comparable to yours.

Now, the National Association of Realtors has said that if your home is active on the market and (no matter which comes first) has had 10 showings or gone 14 days with no offers, then there’s something wrong with the listing.

If you go through the three steps I mentioned above and you don’t have any offers, you may need to go through a price reduction to get to your accurate market price.

You can never predict what your home will sell for, but these steps will properly position your home in the market. If necessary, a price adjustment will help your home move.

If you have any other questions about selling in our current market, just give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to help you!