Why Sell Your Home On Your Own
Thinking about selling your home and want to know your options?
There are two primary options for you to choose from.
You can go the traditional route of using a real estate agent and pay a high
commission or you can choose the increasingly popular route of selling your home
on your own, commonly called For Sale By Owner or FSBO.
Questions You May Have
Why would you want to sell your home on your own? What are some common questions that people have when selling on their own? Can you sell your own home and who can help you?
Reasons To Sell On Your Own
The biggest reason people want to sell their own home is to save money. If you sell with a real estate agent you will typically pay 6-7% of the selling price of your home. So selling your home this way can cost you thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars. Another way to look at this commission is how much of your equity you are paying to have someone else sell your home even though you made the down payment, you paid the mortgage payments, and you made the home improvements. Here is a calculator to help uncover these important numbers for you.
Knowledge is another reason people want to sell their own home. You have more knowledge of your home and neighborhood from living in your home. You are the best salesperson to represent all the positive qualities of your home and neighborhood.
Focus is another reason people want to sell their own home. When you sell your own home you will be focusing on marketing and selling just one home. You won’t have to juggle multiple open houses or remember all the positives of multiple homes. You can focus on your home. So you can have open houses on the times and weekends you want and you can market your home they way you want.
Common Questions
What do I need to know and do to sell my house on my own?
There are several things you need to do whether you sell on your own or with a real estate agent like preparing your home for sale by cleaning up and making your home look it’s best. Specific to selling for sale by owner there are disclosures, negotiating and the closing that you will need to handle. For answers to these we provide a free FSBO Steps Consultation through a partner of ours. If you would like to schedule this consultation you can email or call us.
How do I know what price to sell my house for?
You can determine the value of your home by doing some research. There are several different options to help pinpoint the value of your home.
Assessor’s website – You can go to the local city or county website. If you are unsure of your local assesors's site go to http://www.IowaAssessors.com and locate your city or county, and then look at your home as well as other houses in the neighborhood and see what they sold for and compare the comparables.
IAHomesForSale.com and http://www.Realtor.com to look at houses in neighborhood that are for sale and compare comparables.
If those do not provide you with sufficient information you can hire an appraiser, estimated cost $300-$400, to give you an appraisal of your home. You can interview/meet with real estate agents to get a Competitive Market Analysis.
Once you determine the value of the home you can think about what you want to ask for your home. If you have some time you may want to ask for the full value of your home. If you are wanting to sell quickly you may want to price under the value price and since you are not paying a commission you have some flexibility.
Lastly, no matter how you choose to sell your house once you have set your asking price you should continue to monitor the market and particular the homes around you to see what they are doing and if they are selling or dropping their asking price.
Won’t selling my home on my own take up a lot more of my time?
No matter how you sell your home you are responsible for getting the house prepared for every open house and every showing. So the extra time you have to spend is researching how much your house is worth (something many people will do regardless of how they sell), determining your marketing plan (see Why IAHomesForSale.com below), showing the house (time you would have to spend someplace if someone else was showing your house for you anyway) and negotiating the price with the buyer. Now take a look again at how much you will pay someone else to sell your home and you determine if you think it’s worth your time. We think it is worth your time but only you can decide what’s right for you.
Can I sell my home on my own and who can help me?
Yes, you can sell your home on your own and IAHomesForSale.com is here to help you. We helped just under 300 people sell their homes last year alone and nearly 900 people since we started this service. Click Why IAHomesForSale.com below to see what we can do to help you sell your home on your own and save you thousands of dollars.
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