Posts Tagged sell your house
Selling Your Own Home and Got an Offer? It’s Not Just About Price!
Posted by Deane in Administration on October 14, 2009
Y
ou decided to sell your own home and now you’ve gotten an offer! Do you know for certain what you need to do next?
First you need to respond to the offer. You can either accept, reject, or make a counter offer. You should always make a counter offer. It’s expected. If you said “yes” right away, the buyer would feel they offered you too much! If you just flat out say, “no!” you could lose a potential deal. Don’t take getting a low offer personally or get angry with the potential buyers. They are doing what is in their best interest. When you are a buyer, you might even do the same!
Agents make offers and negotiate via faxed contracts. So when selling your home yourself, feel free to use fax or email to make counter offers. It’s never a bad idea to have everything in writing to avoid misunderstandings anyway.
Since you are selling your own home, you must provide the proper sales contract and disclosures. If you don’t have a “for sale by owner” contract and you’ve gotten an offer, you better get one NOW!
If you are working with a title company, you should be able to get one from them. If not, you can purchase a state specific “for sale by owner” contract online.
I recommend Standard Legal. Their “FSBO Home Sale Package” provides you a state-specific “for sale by owner” contract and disclosures, as well as other “for sale by owner” forms to make the administrative part of the sale easy, safe, and foolproof. They also offer a Legal Document Preparation Service, where they’ll provide custom, fully completed documents for a very reasonable fee. All you have to do is sign! What could make the daunting task of handling the paperwork to sell your house easier?
The “for sale by owner” contract you will be using will be a relatively simple document compared to the standard contract that realtors use. Much of what is in the standard realtor contract is there to protect them, not you or the buyer.
Before getting the sales contract signed, you and your buyer will need to agree on the following terms. It’s not just about the price!
SALES PRICE
Remember to take into account real estate commissions. If your buyer is working with an agent, your commission will usually be 3%. If your buyer isn’t working with an agent, there will be NO commission to be paid!
EARNEST MONEY DEPOSIT
At the sales contract signing, a buyer needs to give you an earnest money deposit, made out to the agreed upon title company. Typically, you want to collect at least 1% of the sale price.
DOWN PAYMENT
This is the amount of money the buyer needs to come up with at closing from a source besides their loan. The minimum amount needed is determined by the loan program the buyer will be using.
CLOSING COSTS
Decide how the closing costs will be divided. Some buyers will ask for closing cost assistance. In many parts of the country, the division of closing costs is customary. However, this is a point that can be negotiated.
In my state they are usually divided 50/50; however, a seller can offer to pay 100% if that would make the difference between the deal going through or not. Talk to your mortgage broker about how this would work with the particular loan program your buyer is using.
CONTINGENCIES
Contingencies let buyers cancel a contract without penalty. It is in your best interest for there to be as few contingencies as possible. Some typical ones include loan, inspections, appraisal, and contract contingent on buyers selling their own home.
OTHER PROPERTY
Generally, everything attached to the house stays with it. If you really want to take your fridge with you, you need to put that in the contract.
DATE OF POSSESSION
Decide on a date that you and the buyer want to close.
When you come to an agreement on the price and all the terms, a sales contract will be signed by both you and the buyer. Any required disclosures will need to be signed, too. These differ by each state, but some examples are lead paint, notice of defect, and mold.
When you and the buyer are signing the sales contract, the buyer also needs to provide an earnest money deposit, made out to the name of the title company that will handle the closing.
When you have done all this, your house is now officially “under contract”! Whoo-hoo! 
Is Using an Agent to Sell Your House “Just Because” a Good Enough Reason?
Posted by Deane in Strategies on September 8, 2009
Have you ever thought, really thought, about why we all do certain things? Too many times the reason is “because that’s the way it’s always been done”.
Here is a good example. In the Netherlands, a country where the bicycle is a serious form of transportation, kids learn to ride bikes WITHOUT training wheels when they are 2 or 3! But we wait until kids are 7 or 8 AND use training wheels. Read the post below, complete with amazing photos of little kids on really little bikes, and find out how they do it. And why we don’t.
I’m sure you’ve connected the dots and figured out what this has to do with selling your house. Most people will call an agent to list their house “because that’s the way it’s always been done.” Whether it is the best, most effective way to sell their house or not.
Since you are reading my blog, you probably already selling FSBO, so you aren’t one of those people!
Even I Was Stunned at These Realtor Tactics
Posted by Deane in Strategies on September 4, 2009
You may be figured out that I’m a bit cynical about the real estate industry. After all, my mission is to empower you to sell your own house, if that is what they choose to do. But what I just heard stunned even me.
This week I saw a local real estate company offering FSBO classes. “Wow! Aren’t they becoming enlightened?”, I thought. Wrong. After doing some research, I found that there is a realtor/guru who teaches other agents how to hold “FSBO classes”. The intention of these classes are to daze, confuse, and bewilder attendees so they drop their idea of selling FSBO and list their house on the spot! The agents also offer a free book, something with the word “guerrilla” in it, designed to do the same.
Here is a direct quote from the website, “The more tools you give them (homesellers), the more they wish someone else would do the work!!”
So please beware of gift-bearing real estate agents, OK?
It’s a Great Time to Get Your House Ready to Sell
Posted by Deane in Preparation on September 2, 2009
I’ve always thought of September as the month of new beginnings. The kids are back in school. The worst of the summer heat is behind us. Vacations are largely taken and becoming a fond memory. I remember I how I spent my son’s first day of school each year cleaning out his room. Man, that felt good!
Fall is a great time to do “spring cleaning” and work in the garden.
And for all these reasons, it’s a great time to sell your house! People are ready to get back to their “real life”.
If you want a step-by-step system to sell your house, I encourage you to invest in “The Truth About FSBO – Complete Selling System”. It has everything you need to sell your house fast. It will help you get your house ready to sell faster, too. Take advantage of the Repair Checklists, Cleaning Checklists, and room-by-room staging tips. Follow the FSBO Marketing Plan. It will help you market your house better and faster.
If you already have “The Truth About FSBO”, don’t let it sit on the shelf. Use it!
If you are serious about getting your house sold before the end of the year, now is the time to start.
How to Take Great Outside Photos of Your Home When Selling FSBO
Posted by Deane in Preparation on August 25, 2009
When you have decided to sell your own house, it will be up to YOU to take professional-quality photos of your house! The photographs that you post with your listing will be extremely important. One bad photo can prompt a potential buyer to skip over to the next listing. You will want each picture to be intriguing, showing off your house in a great light and prompting the potential buyers to click away at all photos and then read the details of your posting. This guideline will tell you how to take excellent photos of the outside of your house in order to maximize the amount of traffic that stays looking at your listing. Click below to read the rest of this article.
How to take great photos of your house
When Selling Your House, Your Best Leads May be In Your Own Backyard
I read this startling statistic from two places in the last week, “One out of three FSBO sellers sell their house to someone they already know!” Wow – this is huge!
So if you are selling your house for sale by owner make sure to put the proper energy into your grass roots, neighborhood marketing. Even if you are certain you want to list with an agent, it wouldn’t hurt to do this first for a week or two and see if you could sell your house yourself and save the commission.
So here is what I consider an effective grass roots marketing campaign that is virtually free, besides.
Word of Mouth Marketing
The easiest free advertising is to tell everyone you know. Always mention and honor that you will give a $500 referral fee to whoever brings you a buyer (someone who actually buys your house).
Use Social Media Marketing
If you belong to any of the social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc., mention your house.
Change Your Phone Messages
Change any cute or unusual messages on any of your phones temporarily. No kids, weird music, or jokes. You need to sound professional so people will want to deal with you. Change your voice mail greetings on your land line and cell phones to mention “If you are calling about my house for sale….” and leave a glowing description of your house.
Do an Email Blast
You can send an email blast to your friends and family with an attachment of your great looking flyer and ask them to pass it along. Offer the $500 referral fee here, too.
Add your marketing phone number, email, and website to your email signature, along with a quick blurb about your house being for sale so you don’t forget to tell anybody.
Property Information Flyers
Design an attractive property flyer and have flyers in your brochure box. Pass this same flyer out to your neighbors, offering a $500 referral fee. They may just make the effort to tell people they know for $500.
Have an Open House
Consider having a “pre-sale” open house. Invite your people you know, especially your neighbors, before you put your house on the open market. Neighbors love to visit these. Even if they are just being nosey, they may know someone perfect for your house. You can hire a neighborhood kid to pass out flyers for you. Increase your attendance by having refreshments. You can make it an early going away party for yourself!
Put Up Bandit Signs
Besides the professional sign at your house, you can also put up bandit signs at highly visible spots in your area. This type of sign is very effective. They aren’t supposed to be beautiful, but they sure attract a lot of attention.
There are three sources for these – if you are in a hurry, you can buy white coroplast signs from hardware stores for about $10 each. Personally, I wouldn’t spend this much money on them. I get them online for about $1 each. It’s OK to use the inexpensive H-wires for these. Get a jumbo width permanent marker. Plan on 10 minutes to write each sign. I use a sites online where you can order eye-catching bandit signs that look hand written but aren’t. This saves you the trouble of printing up extra signs. If you live in an area where there are enforced anti-bandit sign laws, skip this idea.
Put Up Some Handmade Posters
Buy some neon colored, 8 ½ x 11 paper and make a poster. These are the “lost dog” type of signs. They need to have big, readable lettering, no pictures. Put these on light poles and telephone poles, and at bus stops, with duct tape, push pins, or packing tape.
Go around your local area with some pushpins and tape in hand and put your flyers up on bulletin boards in grocery stores, coffees shops, where you work – anywhere you can post.
Advertise in Local Newsletters
Does your workplace, church, club or membership organization have a newsletter or other printed communication? Advertise there for sure. People love to deal with those who are part of their community.
Whether selling FSBO or using an agent, why not do a grass roots marketing campaign before listing on MLS? You can market aggressively for a week or two and see what happens. You might just be one of the lucky one-in-three that can sell their house this way. What have you got to lose?
My Next Door Neighbor Finally Sold Her House
Posted by Deane in Strategies on July 28, 2009
Selling your house with an agent is no guarantee of a fast sale, any more than selling fsbo is. My next door neighbor listed her house in November of 2007 and my new neighbors just moved in, almost two years later. Watching her try to sell her house was getting an education in “what not to do” if you want to sell your house. Since the entire family is deeply embedded in the real estate industry, I kept my mouth shut and watched her do everything wrong.
You might have a house or two like this in your neighborhood. Pay attention and notice why you think the house won’t sell. Make sure you don’t repeat any of the same mistakes!
Here is how not to sell your house:
• She used her sister, a part-time “dabbler”, as her agent.
• She let her two small, adorable dogs bark non-stop when potential buyers were there.
• There were times agents let themselves in and found “doggie deposits” on the white living room carpet. Horrors!
• She listed it the week before Thanksgiving in a bad market.
• Her sister/agent did no proactive marketing, held no open houses, put up a sign you could barely read, and seriously overpriced the house.
• The listing pictures were taken in the fall and stayed up all year long. They made the house look dark and gloomy. There was one shot of the back yard totally covered with dead leaves!
• Her bushes had overgrown so you could barely see the front of the house, screaming “project”.
• Her kitchen appliances didn’t match, another immediate, obvious project for the buyers.
I could go on, but you get the idea!
I hope she never reads this. If you ever meet her, please don’t tell her, OK? Let that be our little secret.
