What's Involved in
Selling Your Own House
Without a Realty Agency?

Selling your own house is certainly more complicated than selling your car, or a used sofa. And there's a whole lot more risk involved. So ...

Don't Assume the Responsibility Lightly

I'm not aware of any all-purpose 'how to sell your house guide' anywhere. So, if you want to forgo the extensive services and professional protection of hiring an experienced and knowledgeable REALTOR®, to learn how to sell your own home, you must do a lot of reading.

Start here.

To sell your own house successfully, these are the principle skills you'll have to learn:

Staging

When selling your own house, to maximize your sale price, your home needs to be in top condition. It'll need to show well. That includes cleaning, decorating, furniture placement, de-personalizing and de-cluttering. You'll need to know on what you should spend money, and on what not. What improvements will generate the greatest return? This part of selling your own house demands complete objectivity. You must see your home through the eyes of an impartial party.

Some REALTORS® possess the skill to properly stage a home, and many do not. So, if you've decided to pass on the idea of selling your own house, it's a good qualifying question to ask when interviewing agents. If you like your real estate sales person, but they don't have the talent, you could hire a professional stager. This could cost a few hundred dollars, or a few thousand, depending upon how extensive you wish to stage your home.

Evaluating

When selling your own house, you'll have to correctly and objectively evaluate your property. What's it worth? What is its market value? You mustn't automatically believe your neighbours when they tell you what they heard about so and so's house that sold last month. Or for that matter, what they tell you they got for their own. People exaggerate. And by no means should you guess about your home's market value based upon newspaper ads and asking prices of other properties. They've not yet sold, and may be over-priced.

To do this properly, you'll need to visit the local Registry/Land Titles Office to learn about sale prices of comparable homes in your neighbourhood. Be prepared to invest some time there. If your neighbour's home sold last year, you'll have to make adjustments to your estimate of value for the time difference, as well as features and specifications. If your home has a double garage, for example, as compared to your neighbour's with a single, you'll need to adjust for that. Square footage, bedroom numbers, physical condition, lot size, finishing materials and renovations are a few of the things for which you'll need to make adjustments during the evaluating process of selling your own house.

And you must consider the time of year. When do you want to begin selling your own house? Does your home have a swimming pool? You'll get zip for it if you attempt to sell your own house in the winter. The same goes for your award-winning professionally designed landscaping. Typically, the spring market is the busiest, when many buyers are out looking for a home to occupy when school's out for the summer.

You could hire an appraiser to perform this task for you. They'll charge a fee of several hundred dollars to prepare a written appraisal report. But keep in mind that the result will be an appraised value, which is not necessarily market value. Appraisers use historical data, whereas a REALTOR®, when evaluating property, also involves their knowledge of current market conditions and educated guesses as to where it's going in the immediate future.

Once you have a reasonable estimate of value, you must determine an asking price. Too high, and nobody will be interested. Too low, and you may undersell your place. What is the typical sale to asking price ratio in your area? This is obviously a very important step, so be careful.

Marketing

You'll need a lawn 'for sale' sign with a phone number where prospects can call you to inquire. So, when selling your own house, be prepared to receive calls anytime, day or night, seven days a week. And yes, even during dinner or your favourite television show. And get ready for 'no shows'. Hey - it happens. But it's particularly annoying if you canceled your social function to accommodate the buyer who insisted on that appointment time and day. So much for that wonderful dinner and theatre you'd planned.

You'll need to know how to create an effective advertisement, one that will entice a prospect to call by not giving away too much info. Don't answer all their questions in your ad. What features do you advertise? What's hot in your area these days?

Follow the old 'AIDA' ad writing formula - attention, interest, desire & action. Include a bold heading to grab their attention, something to catch their interest, a little something to ignite their desire, and finish with a call to action.

And where to advertise? What's the favoured print medium in your area? Of course, you'll need to pay for the ads yourself. Wait until you find out how much they cost, and that you may not get any calls. Welcome to real estate advertising. REALTORS® advertise, not to sell a particular listing, but simply to make the phone ring. They want buyers to work with. Is there an internet website that's popular in your town that specializes helping home owners selling their own house? Check out the fees.

How about an open house? Will you handle these yourself? You'll need to know how to hold one, and how to effectively show a property. Remember that the prospect is probably not going to believe a word you say about your home because, well, it's your home, and you're obviously biased. Don't talk too much. Don't over-sell. Let the property sell itself. The buyers aren't stupid, so don't identify each room by its purpose. If you're overrun with people everywhere in your home, you've lost control. Are visitors stealing from you? It's best to permit only one party at a time, not only to maintain control, but to allow you the opportunity to quickly establish interest level. And don't forget to get their contact info before you permit the next party inside, if they're still patiently waiting outside.

You'll need to be available to show your home at the buyer's convenience. If they're only available on a weekday, for example, then you'll need to come home from work to accommodate them. And what about security? Will you, as a woman, feel safe in your house with a stranger - alone? What if, as a man, you arrange for a showing, and two large men show up at your door? Will you feel safe? Are they sincere buyers, or are they casing your home for a break-in? You must consider these things.

Closing

If you manage to meet someone who seems interested, then what? Do you have any selling skills? Can you ask the simple questions, like 'do you like it? This is probably the worse question to ask because it requires a yes or no answer. And people are likely to lie anyway because they'll not want to insult you. It's never that simple anyway. Ask them how they feel about it? And how about contact information? 'When will I hear back from you with a decision?' Or the hard questions about mortgage qualifying? Can they afford to buy your home? Do they have good credit, as well as sufficient down payment? Did you think about qualifying them before you even made the appointment to show the place? They might not even have the financial resources, and you've wasted your time.

Negotiating

Ok. They can afford to buy your property. What are the terms? This is the biggest stumbling block of the entire process of selling your own house.

The buyer obviously wants to pay as little as possible, and you want the highest price. You must deal directly with them across the table. Hmm. Challenging. The buyer knows you're saving the real estate commission, so they want to buy cheaper. But wait a minute - isn't that the only reason you decided to sell your own home - to save the commission? So, right from the start - you're already apart by the typical commission rate in your area.

How do you get them to pay more? By embellishing the wonderful features of your home? In order to justify a low price, the buyer has already pointed out all its flaws and deficiencies. No offense intended, they say. You're feeling insulted and offended anyway. It's part of the emotional roller-coaster with going it alone in selling your own house. But let's say, miraculously, you agree on a price.

Offer Drafting

When selling your own house, who prepares the written offer and assorted supporting documents throughout the entire process? It's unlikely you or the buyer will have the skills to properly prepare the documents with all necessary standard, and possibly custom, clauses. So, you'll need a lawyer to do the work. And, of course, they don't work for free. More expense. And time. Hopefully, the lawyer can act immediately before anyone has the opportunity to change their minds. Buyers do sometimes develop buyer's remorse, commonly known as cold feet, if left too long without progress.

But what terms and conditions do you accept? And do they have a house to sell? Do you accept their offer with a condition pertaining to the sale of their home? Will they be listing it for sale with a brokerage? Or will they try to sell privately too? If the latter, your conditional sale may ultimately fail, and you've wasted your valuable marketing time and expense. With no professional guide, to whom do you turn for advice when selling your own house?

Who will ensure the buyer is doing everything necessary to fulfill their conditions? Who will attend the inevitable home inspection with the buyer and their inspector? Who will handle the possible secondary negotiations when the home inspector finds latent or patent deficiencies for which the buyer demands an adjustment?

Who will hold the deposit? Their lawyer or yours? And how much is sufficient? A real estate brokerage trust account is insured to protect the parties against loss. Will the deposit, which forms part of your sale price, be protected in the same way? What happens if your buyer refuses to close the sale, and their lawyer holds the deposit?

Obviously, there are a lot of significant skills necessary in effectively selling your own home. If you feel you have them, or are prepared to do the work to acquire them, then may the force be with you. If not, I strongly advise you to seriously consider ...

Hiring a REALTOR®

You've learned what is necessary in selling your own house. And because you lack the skills necessary for selling your own house, you've hired a stager, an appraiser and a lawyer to prepare the documents. You've had custom signs made for sale and open house purposes, and paid for expensive advertising in the newspaper and internet, or maybe even a for sale by owner website fee. And you've had to do this a few times because the time it's taking in selling your own house is longer than expected. Plus the offer you had didn't work out very well.

But your efforts to sell your own house have failed, as the vast majority of private sales do. You've wasted your money, but at least, you have the satisfaction in knowing you made the attempt.

Many real estate sales people possess some or all of the skills necessary to market your home. But they absolutely must be skillful at evaluating and negotiating. Anyone can advertise a listing, but only the true professionals excel at these two most important skills. usually, these agents are firmly ensconced in the top 5% of the industry.

If you're within my personal market area, I'd be pleased to assist you. If not, contact me anyway. Maybe, I can refer you to a good agent in your area.

If you insist on selling your own house, I suggest you stay awhile on my website. By doing so, you'll learn either more ideas with which to help you sell your own house. Or you'll learn you need professional guidance.

Click selling your own house to learn more about what REALTORS® do.

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