You want to sell your home and you want to sell it for the best price. Years ago when the internet was not around or in was in its infancy, there was no central place for potential buyers to search for available homes for sale. At that time, the only place for buyers to go looking for a list of homes for sale was at the local real estate office or rely on the classified section of the newspaper. But now the internet has became a haven for home buyers and sellers alike. There are many options for you to consider when listing your home with or without an agent.
The benefits of selling your own home are clear. Paying no commission to an agent can result in thousands of dollars in savings that can either be passed onto the buyer to entice them or just pocketed. But the downside to listing your home on your own is clear. The disadvantages are lack of real estate knowledge, not having the proper forms, forgetting to disclose things, and many others. But don’t let this hinder your decision because all of this information can be found online and at your local real estate lawyer’s office. The closing and title work can be arranged for my both the title company and the loan officer helping the buyer. There are numerous for sale by owners transaction closing each month and yours might just be one of them, in which case we wish you a success closing. Below are some simple steps to get your home sold for sale by owner.
1. Use www.craiglist.org and list your home with a picture and description under your area. This site is localized and has a lot of traffic, if your home is listed for the right price, you will get a buyer.
2. Do a search on Google for “your area FSBO” or “your area for sale by owners”, you will get a list of websites that you can list your home on for a small fee.
3. You need to make sure to list your home for the right price, find out through free valuation site the approximate price of your home. In addition to this find out what the homes sold for in your neighborhood by asking or using the county’s website to check the tax records for the recent sold info. This is freely available and is made public record.
4. Once you have a buyer, you can hire a local Real Estate lawyer to prepare the purchase agreement and other disclosures for you. Since many of these forms are templates, it would only take a lawyer a few hours to do this. Most of the time, the lawyer will pass this task on to a paralegal and just spend a few minutes to review the documents. This will cost a few hundred dollars
5. From this point on, the loan officer and title company will work with the buyer to bring the transaction to a close.
Having an agent can have many benefits. If you are limited on time or don’t have the patience to take care of all above tasks yourself, then hiring an agent will be beneficial. The following is what a good agent can do for you.
1. An agent can help you determine the value of your home with market data and compare your home to the recently sold homes based on bedrooms, bathrooms, lot size, etc. that the county’s tax data will not be able to .
2. An agent can provide and help you fill out all types of forms and disclosures to insure that you’ll be protected from future law suits pertain to the sell of your home.
3. An agent can take calls for showing and requests for information that would consume a lot of your time otherwise.
4. An agent can provide other type of online marketing for your home that would not be available to you such as featuring your home on the MLS listing service which will be available on numerous Real estate website using the MLS feature. This will expose your home to more potential buyers.
5. The agent can coordinate with the buyer’s loan officer, appraiser, title company, and any other parties to insure you have a great closing.
The choice to sell your home with or without an agent ultimately lies with you and should be consider carefully. We hope that you can use this as a guide to make your determination.
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