How To Sell Your House Without a Realtor
Did you know that, in November 2020, 841,000 new single-family houses were sold in the US? Despite the uncertain economic times we’re living in, many people are buying homes—and selling them, too.
If you’re one of these Americans who is planning on selling your home, then you might be wondering about how to sell your house without a realtor. After all, even though realtors can be helpful, they are likely to slow down the process. Then there’s the fact that realtors take a pretty big cut of the money once you’ve sold your home.
But selling your house without a realtor also has its own challenges. How do you get the word out? How do you get people interested in y our home? What about the laws related to home-selling? How do you ensure you follow those?
Not having this information is stressful. That’s why we’ve put together this guide. By taking you through every step of the way of selling your house without a realtor, you’ll know what you need to so you can sell your home fast. Read on to learn more.
Prepare Marketing
When it comes to how to sell your house without a realtor, the first step you need to do is prepare the marketing materials for selling your home. This means preparing your home so that it looks good in all the advertisements you put together.
Go through your home, making any fixes necessary and cleaning it out so that the light will shine nicely in the pictures you take. When taking these pictures, take photos of the large parts of the property outside if you’re selling a rural or suburban home. If it’s a home in the city center, then you should focus on design details in the home.
In addition to the photographs, you need to write a description of the home, which describes not only its feel but also the features that set it apart from other homes like it. Later, when you put your listing up, you will be including this description with the photographs.
Competitive Pricing
Throughout this article, we’ll be giving answers to the question: “How do you sell a house without a realtor?” One of the answers is ensuring that you use competitive pricing when deciding on how much you’re going to sell your home for.
It’s important you get this right. After all, if you price it too low, you’ll sell it, but not actually make a good amount of money. If the price is too high, then you won’t have interested potential buyers. You need to sell your house fast, so setting the price right makes a big difference.
To get your competitive pricing right, we recommend you do three things. First, use online real estate valuation sites. These sites, such as Trulia and Zillow, are free to use and will give you your property’s value, fast. However, these are only estimates and might be quite off.
For this reason, we recommend you hire a licensed appraiser. Unlike a realtor, who will want to help you sell your home, an appraiser is here to do only one thing: appraise the value of your home. Keep in mind, however, that the appraiser will charge you somewhere between $200 and $300 for their opinion.
You can always go with a realtor if you don’t want to pay that fee. However, a realtor will try to convince you to allow them to sell the home on your behalf. So, stick to your guns and tell them you’re selling it yourself. Do keep in mind, as well, that the realtor might give you a slightly higher estimate in the hopes that you’ll hire them.
What iBuyer.com Can Do For You
Once you’ve prepared all your marketing materials and decided on a selling price for your home, you can use iBuyer.com to sell your house easily and fast. You can get cash offers in as little as 24 hours by using their online service, which matches sellers to buyers.
The best part? The entire process is online. Considering that we are currently experiencing a health crisis, this makes it easier to sell your home even if there are restrictions that don’t allow you to have an open house or show potential buyers the interior of your home.
Get Flat Free Listing MLS
When selling your home without a realtor, it’s essential that you advertise it on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) for non-agents. This is a place online where people looking to buy a home can look at homes for sale that aren’t being sold by an agency.
When putting together your listing on the MLS, you’ll want to include high-quality photos and a description of your home. This is where the marketing preparation you did in the first step comes in.
Pro tip: If you want to really make your description shine, sit down with a friend and put together a list of all the things that make your home special. When it comes to how to sell your house fast without a realtor, this will make a huge difference.
Market Your Property
There are additional places where you can market your property. If you really want your home to sell fast, it’s key that you do this. Even though you’ll have to pay some money to list your home in these places, it won’t cost too much. Let’s review these options.
A Website for Your Property
If you really want your home to shine, create a website on Wix, Squarespace, or Weebly where interested buyers can see your property and learn more about it. While this will take a little more effort than putting together a description and photos to post somewhere, this will give your home a professional feel and give you an opportunity to have one more place it appears online.
Local Classifieds Sites
You don’t need to only focus on home-selling websites. You can also advertise your home on local classifieds sites such as Nextdoor and Craigslist. Buyers are still likely to look on sites like this, so posting on sites like these will guarantee more viewings.
Real Estate Websites
You should also put your home listing up on real estate websites. These include Zillow and Trulia. It’s free to do and guarantees that your home will be seen by many homebuyers. Finally, you’ll want to post on…
FSBO Websites
For sale by owner sites, also known as FSBO sites, are where many owners selling their homes without a realtor. This is a great way to get buyers since there are some who will be specifically interested in buying homes without a realtor being involved.
Maybe they don’t want to deal with the fees, or maybe they want the authentic experience of working directly with the person who lived in the home while buying it. Whatever their reason, you’ll be doing yourself a huge favor if you list your home on FSBO websites. This said, keep in mind that you’ll have to pay for the listing.
Hold an Open House
Another answer to the question, “How do you sell your house without a realtor?” is to hold an open house. This happens after you’ve priced, marketed, and put your property up on different listing sites online. To prepare for your open house, it’s smart to visit other open houses in your local area and take notes.
Then, you’ll want to create a brochure. Have some fun with the design so you stand out. Instead of simply printing off information from your online listing, get on Canva and make a beautiful, fun, professional brochure for free.
When it comes to planning the open house, schedule it for a late morning or early afternoon on a weekend day. Advertise the open house in a variety of places, such as online on Nextdoor and Craigslist, in a mass email to everyone you know, on social media, and on flyers in areas you know it will be seen near you.
Right before the open house, you need to ensure your home looks the part and that you do, too. When it comes to how to sell your home without a realtor, you need to look professional since there isn’t a realtor there to do it themselves.
What Sets Your Property Apart
When putting together your marketing materials and getting ready for your open house, you need to answer the question: “What sets my property apart?” If you focus on this element of your home, then it will stand out among the many options your potential buyers are looking at.
Whether it’s a fireplace, a deck out back, a cool piece of technology, an updated kitchen, or a special design feature, you want to focus on these elements when selling your home. It’s this feature (or features) that will impress buyers if you have everything else they’re looking for in a home when it comes to the basics.
Negotiation Process When You Sell Your House Without a Realtor
When you sell your house without a realtor, one of the biggest challenges will be managing the negotiation process. After all, realtors are professionals, and their emotions aren’t involved when they’re fielding offers. Yours is.
You’ll want to read up on negotiation strategies so that you aren’t caught off guard. Additionally, remember that there’s no need for you to reply to offers that are unserious or low. Even though you might feel that obligation, you really aren’t obligated to. If potential buyers don’t take you seriously, you don’t have to take them seriously.
It’s also important to value patience. You don’t have to take the first offer you get. Wait until you get an offer that you’re happy with.
Comply with Laws
While selling your house without a realtor, you also need to comply with the laws. This is especially important since there won’t be a realtor there to ensure you do everything right.
Closing the Sale
When it comes to closing the sale, you should hire an escrow agent to handle the legal elements of the settlement agreement or retaining a title company. To find someone to work with, you can look into the American Land Title Association to find someone in your state.
You also need to ensure that you do a title search on your home to ensure that you actually have the right to pass the title on to the buyer. If this isn’t done, you risk the sale falling through.
Complete the Right Paperwork
You also need to ensure you complete the right paperwork during the sale of your home. If you don’t do this properly, then you can run into legal trouble. You need to follow the regulations of the Fair Housing Act, which applies in every US state.
There might be additional paperwork you need to fill out in your specific state. For this reason, we recommend hiring a real estate attorney or escrow agent to manage the paperwork for you. Even though you aren’t paying for the services of a realtor, it’s worth paying for these services.
Get the Timing Right
When choosing to sell your home, keep in mind that most home sales are done in the spring and summer. Especially considering the current COVID-19 Pandemic and the vaccine that will be out soon, it will be easier for you to have an open house during these times, too.
However, keep in mind that there will be more options out there for buyers in the spring and summer. For this reason, really work on marketing your property if you sell during these times.
Advantages and Drawbacks
When it comes to the advantages of selling without a realtor, you don’t have to pay their commission, you have complete control, you don’t have to work with a realtor you don’t get along with, and you are the expert when it comes to your home.
However, there are also disadvantages. These include not having the professional experience of selling homes, not having local expertise when it comes to homes, needing to spend a lot of your time marketing and selling your home, needing to negotiate well, and getting resistance from the agents your buyers are working with.
Need More Help?
When you sell your house without a realtor, we can help you. At iBuyer.com, we have all the real estate tips you need on our blog. We also can connect you with buyers interested in buying homes and markets where you can advertise your home.
The post How To Sell Your House Without a Realtor appeared first on iBuyer Blog.
Powered by WPeMatico