The looming question most home owners or for that matter any property owner has when deciding to sell their property is this. Can I sell the property by owner? Usually at this point in their thought process, a multitude of additional questions arise. How can I market my home to really be found by potential buyers? If I get a buyer, what is the next step? How do I determine a competitive price for the property? The list can go on and on. So read further and I will answer some of these questions and help build your confidence in the FSBO process.
How can I determine a competitive price for my property?
The first thing you will want to know is where to get property values and what they cost. The first most logical place to start is a real estate appraiser. They are the most accepted form of property valuation. Most lenders will not consider approving a mortgage on a home/property without an appraisal. The next is Comparable home sales in your close market area. This can be accomplished in several ways. You can ask a realtor to give you comparable values, frankly I feel this is unethical, using another persons time without compensation, or there is a vast amount of websites that offer FREE or very inexpensive Automated Valuation Models (AVM). One such website is easy to use and remember, GetOurHomeValue.com. For a Personalize Home Valuation Report, the cost would be $29.95 from this site. The report supplies you with the tools you will need to price your home competitively.
Once you have determined the property value, the next step is to find a cost effective way to get buyers to view your home. With the internet being such an invaluable tool in our daily lives, this is my recommendation. Finding a FSBO website that offers a professional venue to present your property to buyers at a reasonable cost to you is a huge key to your success in selling. In addition to the presentation, you will need tools. No, not the traditional tools, but marketing tools. This is a very good example of a website that knows this fact. They offer several web tools to assist your efforts. One such item is the QuickURL tool. The easiest way to explain this is to give you a link to look at and try, [http://62328.GoToMyHomeForSale.com] You will see the first part of the web address is numbers then a dot and then the website name. The listing number becomes a sub domain of the home website. This directs buyers directly to their home on that website from local classified ads or their yard sign. For more on marketing, visit GoToMyHomeForSale, click on Ad Tips or Ad Features in the main menu.
So now that you have buyers looking at your home. What next? The next step is to have the legal tools available to get the agreement of purchase in writing. Real estate Offer and Acceptance, Counter Offer and other legal forms are available usually for a reasonable price. Google search legal forms and find a trusted website to purchase the appropriate forms. I always suggest legal council if you are unsure of how to complete any of these transactions.
I wouldn't be doing you justice if I didn't add this brief statement in to this article, and here is a time saving step.
BE SURE THAT YOU HAVE YOUR BUYERS GET PRE-QUALIFIED BY THEIR LENDING INSTITUTION.
Following this step can save you an enormous amount of time. Be sure to ask the potential buyers to provide you with a letter of pre-approval or pre-qualification for the amount of your home/property.
Once you have an agreed upon sales contract signed by all parties, it time to move onto the next step. This is Title and Escrow. Some states use attorneys to facilitate the real estate transactions and others use Title companies. Check into this with your attorney. Either one is responsible for checking the property title history to assure there are no liens or encumbrances on the property. In addition to that they handle all payoffs and hold earnest money for the transaction. The title process is much more in-depth than I will get into here. Rest assured that they should be looking out for both sides as an uninterested third party.
Finally, once the title company/attorney has completed their job, and the buyer has been approved for their new mortgage loan, its time for the buyers to go to their signing. Once the signing is complete and the title company/attorney records the transaction. Its time to receive your proceeds from the sale.
