Advice on Selling Your Own Home

My house is on the market too right now. I have mine listed with a realtor and have had a lot of traffic. I am not saying this to make you feel badly though. I live in a neighborhood that is really popular and homes have not lost any value. They did sell in an average of a month, now it takes 4 months, with a realtor. Before the market went bad, people could sell on their own, but even then it was much harder.

My point is that the market is bad and slow. I have had 22 showings in three months. I have open houses every other weekend with an average of 8 or nine groups. My realtor does not advertise the open houses but does put signs at both ends of my street. He tells me that houses do not generally sell at open houses because it is mostly neighbors, not really serious buyers who go through them then.

I tried to sell my prior house on my own. Again, in the same neighborhood, but 7 years ago when the market was much better. Many realtors would not show my place because it was not listed with a realtor even though I was willing to co-op as well. I think it is a really tough time to sell, especially without a realtor.

Good luck. My thoughts are with you.

Does realtor.com give you an MLS number? I think it's worth paying whatever you have to pay to get listed on the BLC with an MLS number so that when people do internet searches, your house comes up like a realtor-listed property.
Also, FSBO.com and Overstock.com (no kidding!) are good places to get your property seen. Good Luck:)

Just for the record, most realtors charge around 6% commission. When someone buys your house with a realtor, both agents would split the commission, so a buyer's agent expects around 3% of your selling price. If you aren't offering fair compensation, they will make absolutely no extra effort to sell your house to their clients because it's not worth their time. I don't know what you're asking for your house, but if it's more than $133,000 you need to up the seller agent's compensation.
Good Luck!

Have you offered rent to own options? You may need to say the price is reduced. I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers.

S.- Have you tried to pay to have your house listed on MLS? with pictures? I have sold 4 houses in the past 10 years and have found that when we are looking, there have to be pics included or we pass right over it. Also, standard realtor fees are 6%, 3 goes to seller and 3 goes to buyer. of the 3% the buying agent makes, a pre-negotiated % goes to the "house" (buying agent company) and the balance to the realtor where they then pay taxes. So 4K is really 2K to the buying agent, not such a good deal compared to working with another realty company. My suggestion if you want to sell without an agent is price the house competitivly, compare it to others that have similar bed/bath, square ft and land. Offer 3% to buying agent. Also, you may have to include an attorney to work out the details of who pays what, (Fees and such) and to make sure there is full disclosure so the buyer can't come back after you for something wrong with the house after the deal has closed. Housing prices have dropped 19%, so your once 300K house is more like 250K (for example). Hope this helps. Good luck, S.

Do you have pictures with your listing? Remember that the pictures are the buyers first impression, they need to be perfect! You need to stage your home, get rid of toys and personal items. The buyer needs to be able to see themselves living there. My husband is a photographer and he took pictures of our friends' home, many people came through it and they had a couple of offers within a couple of weeks. Spend the money on a good photographer!

S.,

It is a tough market out there. Realtors have the buyers that you are looking for! We have the knowledge and expertise to expose your property to the buyers that are willing, ready and able to buy it. Most buyers do not want to go into a deal unrepresented. They want to know that all the details are going to be taken care of. How much is your house worth? You are offering $4,000.00 to a Realtor which is less than what I would ask for a home worth $100,000.00. You are in the same boat as a lot of homeowners right now. Is it possible for you to stay put for several years? The market will come back up but it is going to take time. If you can't wait, I suggest you list with an agent that has a proven track record marketing and selling homes in your price range. Realtors are worth every dime you pay them.

S.,

Good for you!! I'm saying a prayer for you right now.

I know many realtors in the Akron area, and they all say the same thing -- you need a realtor. They all talk about how stupid people are that try to sell their own house, and how they lose money because they don't know what they're doing, and so on.

I just smile as I listen, because I sold mine down in Lebanon (Cincy area) before moving up here. And yes, I did have to come down $2000. in my asking price, but that is very much the norm. I expected the buyers to come in low, so I asked for 15% more than what I really wanted. So I still ended up making more than I thought I would. SO DON'T GIVE UP!! Just make sure you did your comparison for your area, so that you know you aren't asking too much. That's the number one thing owners do wrong, because they are emotionally invested in the house. Of course owners are going to think it's worth more! :) But you need to find out what the other houses in your are sold for over the last few months and go from there.

I was lucky - I lived in a very nice town. (Sorry....I don't want to offend you, but Ravenna is just not that great - or at least, it doesn't have a great reputation) So it might just be that it is going to take you a little longer. (It took me 4 months; not too fast, but not terrible, either) Anyway, is there another house near you that is for sale by realtor? There was another house for sale right across the street from me. So I took advantage of it - every time they had an open house, I put out my open house sign. I knew that buyers would want to check it out, since it was right there. But, boy, did their realtors try to talk them out of it! :) However, I had many people come through (and finally, the buyers) because of that.

Think positively, and I will do the same for you. It will sell soon!

Blessings,
J.

Find a copy of HOW TO SELL YOU HOUSE IN 5 DAYS by Bill Effros. We did this and got tons of traffic and offers enough to sell the house. IT does work, but you HAVE to pay attention to your advertising, the weekend you choose (DO NOT do it when there are alot of graduations going on, holidays, etc) We ALSO had it set up so that the drawing room next to the door, we had a couple of chairs. We had done our homework and printed out info as to what the $ per SF was in the county, neighborhood, or whatever comparisons you want to use. We listed what our house had to offer over others in the same price range, etc.

We talked about anything that we were willing to negotiate at closing and asked them what they liked, disliked, etc. so that you can TALK about these things. You can negotiate just about anything you want if both parties are willing. Sometimes you have no idea that they are set on granite countertops, yet when they find out you're willing to negotiate that into the closing cost, it changes everything.

I like baking bread or cookies or something VERY inviting. Offer to give them a tour vs letting them go thru on their own and talk about the features. Many times, they'll run thru and miss alot. FIND OUT WHAT THEY'RE looking for. They may just be passing by and looking for a friend who's moving here, just nosey, etc. COMMUNICATE with enthusiasm. It makes a world of difference and people remember that.

I have to say that I baught a house a year ago and didn't look at any for sale by owner homes because there were sooo many on the market it was one way to limit my search. I was also a first time home buyer and was nervous about buying a for sale by owner due to increase risk and previous family issues with such sales.
I have noticed in the areas I looked, all the for sale by owner homes have since changed back to a realator.
On the other hand, my in laws sold theirs on their own, yard sale up and all. They did what you did, one family walked through and it was in the right location at the right time and they baught it up. They had it up for less than 3 months.
Best of Luck!

My husband and I have sold two houses by owner and it is alot of work, but we didn't pay realtors fees. If you have the time to stick it out, do so just for that reason. It's sounds like you're doing all you can, the only other thing is to make sure and put it in your local and city paper. We got showings from that. Also go to your local grocery stores, library, laundry places, or any other store you can think of that might have an area that you can put postings up. Make sure and get good pictures of your yard or whatever else is a good selling point of the house and then put tags on the bottom of it with your phone number so they can call and set up an appt. to come look at it at their convenience. Goodluck!!! Keep from going to a realator as long as you can!!!

Hi S.!
I think its EXTREMELY important to be on the MLS. When looking for homes for their buyers this is the ONE place they search. If the house is not on the MLS, a Realtor will not see it in their search, thus, not even knowing yours is available- and they are not going to go out and search the internet for for sale by owners when there is a ton of other available properties on the MLS listed with professional real estate agents. Also, open houses RARELY sell a house. It is either people wanting decorating ideas or nosey neighbors!
I hope this helps, good luck!!

First of all, I'm pulling for you and wish you the best. But I must say that we've sold 2 houses in the past 3 years and lost on both (first one, we plain out sold for less than we owed and second, we sold for more than bought for but brought money to realtors/repairs),...and that was before the market totally tanked. We also had built a new house while trying to sell our first, same builder, and because we hadn't sold, they let the house go as inventory and gave us another year to apply our deposit to another one. Unfortunately, we had to "eat" the deposit because we relocated to another state, but did luckily sell that first house once we did.

Obviously, we've not had luck on our sides, but my advice to you based on my experiences is to not expect to make any money on your house unless you can wait a LONG time, basically until the market comes back and even goes up, which will be years out. Not only don't expect to make money, but realize that trying to sell in this market most likely will result in somewhat of a loss when it is all said and done. Get a realtor, price the house to sell, and cut your losses if you really want to get into your new house. And I talk from a lot of unfortunate experiences, so take my advice for what it's worth. I just hate to see people go through this because I know how it feels. Good luck S. and God Bless you and your family (and your new bundle of joy).

We had our house on the market for 9 months with a realtor and it did not sell. We had people coming in for showings 3-4 times per week on average (no fun). When our last contract was up we listed on forsalebyowner.com for a few hundred dollars and sold within a month. We were able to drop the price by close to 5% by dropping realty fees. There is an option to list on the MLS through that site as well which I think is very helpful. The buyer's loan company which happened to be Howard Hanna because they had sold the buyer's home did all the paperwork so we paid closing costs to them, but no commission because there wasn't a realtor involved. Good luck!

The market is really bad right now (as I'm sure you know). Your only option might be to get a realtor. Or if you can't sell it right now and don't want to lose money on the realtor consider renting it out until the market improves. Rent it for a year or two (at least the rentors will pay the mortgage payment) and then when more people are in the position to buy put the house back up. There are soooooo many houses on the market right now, and the pool of potential buyers has shrunk greatly. A few years ago any Tom, Dick or Harry could get a home loan, not now. But a lot of people are looking to rent. Many people have lost their homes and need to rent a place, or all the people who want to move, but now can't qualify for a home loan due to the economy also need to rent. Renting out their home scares a lot of people, but there ARE great rentors out there! Just a thought. Good luck!