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People tell me all the time. It’s impossible to sell my home myself right now. But your typical real estate agent may not succeed in selling your house either. If you are thinking you don’t need to do anything but list your house with a real estate agency, you may find yourself disappointed. The more difficult the market, the more you need to cover all your bases to sell your home. And guess what, you have to do these things whether you sell through a real estate agent or sell the home on your on.
Currently home sales are much slower than they have been since the 1980s when rates were at credit card rates, in spite of today’s very low interest rates, however there are several tasks you can do to help your home sell and sell faster, too.
1. First, create some great street appeal before you put the house up for sale. It is your best chance to make a good first impression.
2. Price your home right. The key here is a realistic assessment of your competition. Overly optimistic pricing is the most common issue that results in a very slow sale whether you are going to sell your house on your own or through an agent.
3. Paint the outside and inside if it has been a good while since you have painted. Plain, fresh paint looks good to potential buyers. Avoid exotic or very bold paint treatments and wallpaper. Buyers just don’t go for them. DIY if you can do a good job. The big home centers can assist you with these critical tasks.
4. Purge all that excess clutter and junk, enough to leave closets, the garage and even rooms a bit empty. Closets should also have nothing on the floor.
5. Clean up and stage your house like it were a model home. Have it ready for a prospect with virtually no notice. The above item will make this step considerably easier.
6. Make everyone aware your house is for sale. You never know, your neighbors may want to pick their new neighbor and help themselves as well as help you. This worked great for us in the slow upper Midwest real estate market. Our house was sold and closed in 4 weeks surprising the selling agent we hired who didn’t have a thing to do with locating our home buyer. To show just how slow the market was, the home across the street from us was for sale for more than a year and was still on the market when our moving van left.
7. Place an ad for your house in the local papers. It worked for us again in a slow real estate market. We didn’t bother with the agent this time. We got an offer from the very first prospect and had a closing within a few weeks.
8. If your area’s real estate market is really bad, try offering owner financing if possible. Those two little words can do more than just about anything else to get tons of prospective buyers. Many buyers in the current real estate market, even ones with decent credit have difficulty getting a loan. This is particularly true with self-employed buyers who many times have enough money for a good down payment. Address their problem if possible. You can still effectively get all cash for your home by selling the private mortgage note to a mortgage buyer. One thing to keep in mind. You may have to hold the note for 2 to 3 months for it to “season” a many private mortgage note want this seasoning before you sell a note or sell private mortgage to them.
We are in do it yourself times and selling a home is no different. 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.