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On 2006-03-06 19:10:53 -0500, "Griff" <pgriffin@ixi.net> said:
> Depending on how badly you want to sell your home I'd just
> recommend listing with a broker... You'll end up spending a ton of
> money and you're going to loose 40% marketability on your home anyway.
> If you do not mind sitting on the market for a long period of time and
> spending lots of time screening everyone that calls or knocks on your
> door then go for it. Use the local newspapers, want ads in other areas
> and internet but fair warning, it'll take a while. If you're needing
> to get out quickly and sell for the top dollar worth of your property
> then bite the bullet and go with a broker. To sell your home by
> yourself takes a ton of work and costs a ton of money.
It does not have to cost you a *ton* of anything as long as your smart
about it and you have the right situation. I recently sold my own home
FSBO. I was capable of doing an open house for several hours on
Sundays and sometimes Saturdays. I was able to show people through the
house on a fairly short notice if they called me about it.
The area my house was in had several similar houses in it on the MLS so
I was able to let people find my house because of the MLS without being
on the MLS. My house had "upgrades" to it such as walk in closets,
hard wood floors, more open floor plan, partially finished basement and
jacuzzi tub that my "competition" did not have and yet I was able to
price competitively against them because I was not *loosing* 6% of my
houses value which turned out to be 10 thousand dollars.
We got a infotube to put flyers in and a FSBO sign to put out in the
yard. Wen you get the info tub you can list on their site for free:
http://www.infotube.net/
The FSBO sign we got gave us the ability to list our house for free on
owners.com:
http://www.owners.com/
We also listed on cragslist which is in our area and free (owners.com
also suggests you use cragslist after you post with them):
http://www.craigslist.org/
I also happened to own the domain name for the street I lived on so I
put out flyer I made for the house on it and linked all the above sites
to it.
http://www.macintoshlane.com/
We also tried listing our open houses in the local newspapers and got
very little interest from it but I'd say it is still worth a shot
at least a couple of time especially if you can advertise in different
ones. Your area might give you better results.
It took about 4 months to find our buyer but that was quicker than the
houses that had an agent and were on the MLS. Listing my house on the
above sites did increase its exposure but the big exposure winner would
have to be the fact that house buyers were driven to my area because of
other houses for sale near me. This is a case were having competition
is *good* since they were paying the commissions that ended up
advertising and selling my house indirectly.
Now if you are moving *far* from your home or need to sell *now* you
might wan to go with an agent and get on the MLS. The MLS will help
move your house and that is what an agent gets you. I should know
because I used to write the software that ran Agent/Broker/MLS
websites. If you can find a good deal that will get you on the MLS for
a small percentage or flat fee you might wan to take it but those types
of deals only really get you a deal on half of the commission so you
are typically still going to end up paying out around 4%. I was able
to use the MLS in an indirect way to get my house sold and it worked.
I did not pay a cent to agent but when a agent would come to me with a
buyer I'd offer them a flat fee of two thousand dollars. It was a
fraction what they "should" have gotten but if they wanted some money
and the chance to move on to the next deal then they had it and it
never stopped them from bring the people though.
If you are afraid of all the paper work, do not be. All the seller has
to do is fill out a property disclosure form, write up a contract and
get your deed transfered. The property disclosure form is available
from your states web site, you can cheaply buy a FSBO contact online
and it cost me 60 bucks to have the deed transfered by a lawyers
office. The buyers mortgage company / title company will get
everything else in order. Getting though the FSBO contract can be a
little tough but we sat down with our buyer and went though it with
them and made everything on it to the point that we could agree on
everything and if we had a question about what something meant we knew
people that had done realestate contracts before and they were able to
help.
A last note on this subject but should be a given, make sure the house
is in selling condition. Make it look good, get every small problem
you have been living with fixed up and looking good. Make sure the
yard is mowed and things are dusted. Searching the web for selling
your house and watching HGTV a bit will fill you in if need be.
So I've written a lot and that might put you off but the above saved
me a big chunk of change and I learned a few things in the process so I
think I came out on top. Considering how I did the above and just told
you all about it your risk factor for doing something similar should be
even less as long as you have the type of situation that will allow you
to do it.
Good luck and if you are anyone else has question feel free to ask them.
--
David Steinbrunner
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Re: Any suggestions to help me gain exposure for my house for sale?
