HOW TO SELL A HOUSE FAST WITHOUT A REAL ESTATE AGENT

19 years ago, when I first got into real estate, I encountered a “for sale by owner contest”. It was a contest for whomever could list as many for sale buy homes as possible and convert them to list with an agent. I actually won that contest within my first few months doing real estate.

Why should for sale buy owners want to sell by themselves? The number one reason is saving on commission. Commission varies but is usually on average, if you were selling a $400k house, you would be paying about $24k in commission. $24k, when you are negotiating, comes out of your equity. Your equity is the left-over amount after you have payed the bank if you have a mortgage on your house. So, if your house is worth $400k and you have a $250k mortgage, your net equity is $150k. Then you’re the $24k commission that will come off of that, so you are netting $196k. If you have mortgage penalties closing costs, or any repairs found by building inspection by the buyers on top of the commission, this will eat at your net profit. So that is big reason why someone would try to sell it themselves.

Here are the steps on how to sell your home yourself:

1) DETERMINE THE MARKET VALUE

This is the most important step, so you have to do this right! If you price too low, you’ll lose profit and if you price too high, your property will sit on the market. It is super important for you to get it assessed properly, so here are three options.

- For research, you can use online sites! I have two sites with free online market evaluations, 1 for New Westminster and 1 for Vancouver and the rest of the tri cities. If you are from US, I recommend Trulia.com and Zillow. For those in Canada, I recommend Zolo.ca and Evalue.

- Another option is to get a realtor in. Make sure you tell them that you are planning to sell the property yourself in advance. Or else, they may try to get the listing and overvalue the property just to get your business. You want to avoid this situation to ensure you get an accurate number.

- A final option is hiring an appraisal company. Banks usually use the top companies, so if you want to use those, you can ask for recommendation from a mortgage broker who works at a bank. This usually costs about $300-$500, and ensures an accurate appraisal.

2) PREPARING YOUR HOUSE FOR SALE

Start simply by slowly walking through your home and looking at it from the perspective of a potential buyer. Be as critical as possible. This is difficult for most sellers because they do not want to admit there are faults with their home but the chances are that a buyer would point those faults out. 

Get rid of things that are negative to a buyer like clutter and smells. Do little repairs to things like windows, patio slides, wiggly doorknobs, and broken light switches. The little things count! 

If don’t have time to do this, hire a staging company or handyman to come and do a list of things. Staging companies usually have someone that can do minor repairs.

3) MARKETING

You want to start out with a good sign on your lawn. Something substantial, not flimsy. Maybe 2-3 signs on the yard because you want to make sure you stand out! Have flyers and brochures that include your address and crucial info that points out pros of that house. Photos of the property are essential to helping your audience visualize the home, so make sure to have as many as you can. 

When marketing online, you are selling yourself, so you won't be getting the MLS presence. However, you can use many good platforms like the Facebook market place, craigslist, and you can even work with agents by having them do exclusive marketing for you. 

Lastly, host some open houses to get some excitement about your house! Offer some refreshments and invite some neighbors. Some don’t like to invite their neighbors, but keep in mind that neighbors likely know other people looking for homes that they would like to have as their new neighbor! 

4) NEGOTIATION

This is toughest part when selling yourself. This can be a sensitive process when someone is not going to offer you exactly what you would like for your home. The reasons may not be to your liking either. This is biggest reason why people have realtors because we are neutral third party. 

You want to be quite careful because for sale by owners tend to negotiate verbally initially, and though verbal communication is legal and binding, this can change. Make sure whatever negotiation you do verbally, get it finalized in writing. If you don’t know how to write your own contract, get a lawyer to help you. Or, you might be able to enlist a realtor with a fee to do that for you, which can take some pressure off for you. 

Lastly, a buyer might think they are pre-approved, but not get their mortgage approved at the end of the day. This is the biggest obstacle, so make sure they are approved and can actually go forward and buy your house.