How to Sell My House Fast Myself

Selling a house in the present economic climate is a challenge. But you may have many good reasons to consider selling your house yourself. One is that you have full control of the situation. You are the one who decides when you will show your house and to whom. Also, there is the fact that you know your house better than anyone else, so you are in the best position to sell it. Best of all is the relief of not paying any commission whatsoever to an agent or middleman. However, a certain amount of know-how is required; here is what you need to know to sell your house quickly.

Things You'll Need

• Digital camera
• Internet connection
• Color printer

Instructions

How To Sell Your House Yourself Quickly

1. Familiarize yourself with the local market. Read the local real estate section of your newspaper, check realty Websites, such as forsalebyowner.com, to learn what similar homes in the area are selling for. Delve into the market situation and categorize the localities in the city into medium- and high-priced brackets. Decide accordingly in which bracket your house lies. Set a lower and an upper limit for the price of your house. You can save yourself a lot of time and headache if you hire an appraiser to evaluate your house. An appraiser already knows the recent sales of homes similar to yours; that knowledge is one of the tools they use to decide your home's value. Ask the appraiser to furnish you with their CMA (Comparative Market Analysis) and get their expert advice on how certain repairs will affect the value of your home. An appraiser will cost between $99 and $600, depending on the size of your home and any current discounts the appraiser may be offering.

2. Carry out any necessary repairs to prepare your house for sale. Try not waste any money remodeling basic areas like the kitchen or the bathrooms as they eat into your pocket and most buyers will change them all again later anyway. De-clutter your home and add a fresh coat of paint (in neutral colors) and vases of flowers or potted plants in strategic places. When in doubt, there are professional stagers who will come and set your house up like a picture in a magazine. A professional stager's job is to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. They will rearrange the furniture to make the most of space and greatly enhance your ability to sell your home alone. This can cost anywhere from $100 to $500. Your local university may have interior design students who would be willing to stage your home for college credits.

3. Take pictures of your home and write out your sales information that you will use to inform buyers about the home. Highlight the photos and the special attributes of your house---such as a backyard or a sprawling garden---to prospective buyers. Include basic information like the size and year your home was built and any extra features, such as pet houses or storage rooms with enhanced space. Highlight your neighborhood assets as well and include aspects of the area that make day-to-day life easier, such as bus and train availability and the location of schools, churches and retail stores. There are many examples of this type of information wherever homes are sold. A scan of the original floorplan is a big plus in digital format. If you decide not to use a professional photographer, do a test to find the best lighting of each area you want to photograph before taking pictures. Take a picture of the same area in the morning, the afternoon and at sunset. You'll be amazed at what a difference this will make to the final pictures. It is nearly impossible to sell a home without photographs; homes with the most pictures sell the fastest.

4. Market your home aggressively. Purchase and place a for-sale sign on your front lawn (you should be able to get one from your local sign maker for less than $200). Let prospective buyers and professionals know that you are in the market by advertising your home through newspapers, free Websites like craigslist.com and specialty Websites like forsalebyowner.com. Don't forget to mention the sale on community blogs or bulletin boards. Consider creating a blog about your home so buyers can click a link and learn everything they need to know about your house without having to wait for you to call them back. Be sure to e-mail this information to everyone you know and ask them to forward it to anyone who might be interested. Try to reach the largest possible audience by creating and printing a professional-looking flyer or brochure with pictures of your home. All computer word-processing programs, such as Microsoft Word, feature a brochure template. Consider an open house to try to rope in your neighbors to get more feedback and potential sales opportunities. After all, what if your neighbor's sister wants to move to the neighborhood? Also, tell local realtors that your house is for sale; they may be able to get their commission from the buyer and sell your home anyway. Don't be an undercover seller---let everyone know your home is for sale.

5. Be flexible in the market and regularly adjust the sales price to avoid being a one-dimensional thinker and a prosaic seller. This could hurt you because you need to sell as quickly as possible. The longer your house stays for sale, the less interested people will be in it. Offer incentives like your boat or all the furniture. The fact is that homes that cost what someone is willing to pay tend to sell right away and those that are deemed too expensive (by buyers) do not. This is called market value; it means that the true value of your home is what someone you don't know is willing to pay for it---nothing more, nothing less.

Tips & Warnings

• If you are hitting roadblocks everywhere and are in a hurry to sell, consider renting the house or offering buyers a rent-to-own option. This way, you can get money right away in the form of deposits, rent or a down payment while still working to sell your home.

• Scant knowledge and feedback in areas such as market fluctuations may lead to incorrect pricing of your home. Keep yourself up-to-date about any changes in your neighborhood.

• Perception is everything. Unimaginative marketing may degrade you in the eyes of a prospective buyer and they may decide to buy from someone who seems a little more together. Any negative reflection on you can give the impression that there may be things wrong with the home. Spend a little to give a professional, desirable feel to your home and your personal presentation.

References

• 10 ways to sell your home faster
• 10 Things you must know before you go FSBO

Resources

• Trulia.com: Home Selling Guide
• iVillage: 7 Ways to Sell Your Home
• ForSaleByOwner.com: tools and guidance to help you sell your own home