FSBO Tips

Are you for sale by owner?  Here are some tips to help you increase your chances of selling your own house.

1. Know your local market.  Is it a sellers market with home values increasing, a buyers market with home values decreasing or has the market been flat for a while?  This one piece of knowledge will affect multiple parts of your transaction.  For example if values are declining, you will need to find out by how much because if values are dropping 2% a month, and you are only dropping your price by 1% a month, the market will be getting ahead of you, and you’ll end up overpriced with no activity.
2. Find out how many homes sold in your area and in your price range in the last month.  This is approximately how many buyers are shopping your price range and area at a time.  If you are hoping for 20 calls a week but only 5 homes sold in your area and price range  for last month, it would be nice to know what to expect wouldn’t it?
3. Check out your competition.  If there are 30 other homes in your area, in the same price range as you, that are for sale, you want to know about them.  The nicest one for the money will sell first.  Is yours the nicest, or will you have to drop your price to make your home the nicest one in your price range?
4. Use professionals that don’t have a vested interest in the sale of your property to help you with your pricing strategy.  Establish a starting price and a timeline for regular price adjustments.
5. Delegate.  Remember you aren’t supposed to know everything.  You have “people” for that.  Put together your team of professionals, (inspectors, appraisers, attorney’s, closing and title representatives etc.) and focus on what you know best (your house).

Find out what other successful home sellers did and add their experience to your list of FSBO tips.  Ask, read, learn, save!  What are your favorite FSBO tips?  Add them in the comments below.