10 Tips on Selling Your Home Without a Real Estate Agent

Generally speaking, if you are planning to sell your home, you should choose a skilled and reliable real estate agent who specializes in your particular segment of the real estate market so that they can serve as your representative for this real estate transaction. However, if you don’t want to choose a real estate agent for whatever reason, you should know that you can still buy and sell real estate properties even without their assistance. After all, there are plenty of resources out there that exist for the purpose of making sure that you know what you are doing.

You should put these 10 tips to use while you are selling your home without a real estate agent:

1. You want to make sure to set the right price because too high means no buyers, whereas too low means no profit. Generally speaking, you can get a good idea of what price you should set by checking out the sale prices of similar homes in similar neighborhoods.  Sites like Zillow or Trulia can give reasonable comparable estimates as can current listings in these neighborhoods.

2. A lot of home buyers will be using multi-listing services to see what real estate properties are available either on their own or through their real estate agents. As a result, you should make sure that your home is listed on them as well, which you can do by paying someone to do it for you, since you cannot do so on your own.

3. Using a wide variety of marketing methods can make sure that a wide range of potential home buyers hear about your home. For example, if you have a For Sale sign on your lawn, that is a good way to market to people who are passing by. Similarly, you can aim at an older audience by posting in the classified ads or you can aim at a younger audience by posting in a digital counterpart such as Craigslist.

4. You will have the most marketing success if you know who is likely to buy your home as well as where they get their news from. If a sample of your neighbors leaves you with the conclusion that you are relatively representative of your neighborhood, you should consider what would convince you to buy your home as well as the places where you are most likely to come upon a For Sale ad.

5. If you are going to sell your home, you need to know all about its selling points, which can range from its number of bathrooms and bedrooms to the style that has been used for its interior design. To learn more about what appeals to people and what does not, you should check out some listings for similar homes in similar neighbors before scrutinizing them to see what they bring up in their write-ups.

6. Eventually, you are going to have to show your home to potential home buyers. If you have the time, you can do this on your own. However, if you do not have the time, you can still hire someone to do it for you, but make sure that they are trustworthy because they will be having unrestricted access to your home. As always, the home that sells the fastest and at the best price is the home that seems warm and welcoming without being so closely identified with its current homeowner that it makes it hard for potential home buyers to imagine themselves in that position.

7.  Some small renovations before a sale can do a lot to make a home more appealing to potential home buyers. Common examples focus on the bathroom, the bedroom, the kitchen, and the exterior, since these are the places that will be taking up most of your potential home buyers’ attention. Such renovations do not have to be particularly expensive and time-consuming, since they tend to consist of new coats paint in neutral colors, small repairs and replacements, and other relatively simple changes.

8.  Remember that you do not have to accept the offers for your home as they are, since you can respond with counter-offers. Negotiating a good price is much the same as negotiating for other things, meaning that you should start high but work your way down in order to arrive at something that is acceptable to both you and your home buyer. Unless you are in a hurry to sell your home, you should remember that you have time, meaning that you can take all the time that you need to think about your options before making a commitment.

9.  Before you sign the contracts that will complete the real estate transactions, you should make sure that they have been looked over by a real estate lawyer so that you know what they say, particularly when it comes to your duties and responsibilities as one of the parties involved in the contract. This is important because the contract is what will be protecting your financial interests once you make the commitment, meaning that you don’t want any surprises.

10.  Finally, you should know that there are a fair number of rules and regulations concerning real estate transactions. As a result, you want to spend some time researching these rules and regulations so that you won’t end up doing something illegal by mistake. Some of these are pretty obvious, as shown by the Fair Housing Act, which states that you cannot discriminate against potential home buyers on factors such as their sex, their race, and their religion, whereas others might be much less so because they are restricted to relatively small jurisdictions.

Further Considerations

If you are planning to sell your home on your own, you should make sure to read as much as you can before you proceed, which will prepare you for the potential pitfalls in a real estate transaction. However, if you are either unable or unwilling to do the research, you should give some serious thought to whether you are really prepared to sell your home on your own because you really do need real estate-related expertise and experience on your side for the best results.