Selling you home yourself requires an extensive commitiment of time and energy. You must Market Your Home, Quailfy Buyers, Negotiate the Sale, Justify Your Sale Price with Appraisers, Coordinate with Attorneys, Schedule Engineers and Inspectors, and Stay Objective while keeping your buyer excited and enthusiastic from 1st Accepted Offer through Closing.
If you are confident and willing to do all that and more, read on:
1. Set your price by researching on the internet, looking at other homes for sale in your area, and visiting the village or city hall AND county seat to examine tax records to determine actual, recent sale prices in your neighborhood. Attend my on-line seminar Pricing Your Home To Sell.
2. Attend my on-line seminar Staging and Preparation and put your house into it's best shape, inside and out.
3. Set your Advertising Budget. Most people who sell their own homes spend between One Thousand to Two Thousand Dollars on advertising alone.
4. Create a One-Sheet with all the details about your home, starting with Price, Number of Bedrooms, Number of Baths, Other Rooms (Living, Dining - formal or combo, Kitchen -"eat-in" or "efficiency", Den, Family, Laundry, etc.), Number of Floors, Style (Colonial, Tudor, Ranch, etc.), Features (Fireplace, Skylights, etc.), Type of Heating System and Fuel, and other information that you feel makes your house attractive and valuable. Top the page with a Color Photo of your home. At the bottom, be sure to include your name, address, and phone number.
5. Buy a Yard Sign and Post for the front of your home. Go to a professional sign-maker and have your phone number set in large print.
6. Display your One-Sheet at the local Supermarket bulletin board, and in any local stores that provide Community Bulletin Boards (the Diner, Coffee Shop, etc.)
7. Run classified advertising in your local newspapers.
8. Fax all local real estate offices.
10. Try to pre-qualify buyers. Ask questions over the phone, including:
- How will you pay for the house? (i.e., will you pay cash or obtain a mortgage) - Have you been approved for a mortgage? By which Bank or Mortgage Broker? - Do you have a home you must sell before buying mine? - What terms are you offering (i.e., what is your down payment, and when will it be delivered. The standard formula is one-half of the total down payment is delivered upon signing formal contract, the second half is delivered at closing).
11. New York State requires you to provide all potential buyers with a 48 Question Property Condition Disclosure Statement. Down load the Adobe Acrobat file HERE. You must fill this form out and present it to all potential buyers in response to all Offers To Buy. You should make copies of the completed form in advance, in anticipation of multiple offers. If your home was built before 1978, you will also need the Federal Lead Paint Disclosure Form. Down load the Adobe Acrobat file HERE.
12. Hire an attorney before you put your house on the market. Discuss all aspects of the sale INCLUDING the above mentioned disclosure forms. When offers are made on your home, you must be able to move quickly to close the sale.
A Word About Security
On one hand, you want potential buyers to come as quickly as possible to view your home. After all, yours is not the only house for sale, and they will be talking to other sellers and Realtors if they are serious buyers. But on the other hand, you should be careful about who you are inviting into your home. One method is to ask for the caller's own home address and verify it with the on-line white pages (www.anywho.com). The on-line white pages also have a "reverse look-up" feature, but it does not work for un-listed numbers or cell phones. Keep a log of everyone that calls and visits. If you hold an open-house, make sure everyone "signs in" upon entering your home. If you are single, have a friend over to keep you company during visits and open houses.
Terry Woods is a Licensed Realtor with Prudential Douglas Elliman Contact him at 516/650-1131 or email: Terry @ TerryWoods.com