How To Price Your Home And Sell It Yourself
08 May 2009
Your home is a very large investment but oddly, many of us price our homes without adequate research when selling. Don’t just pick a number out of the air. Don’t go by what you “need for it”. Pricing your home right the first time is very important. If you price it too high, you will not attract buyers. If you price it too low, you will probably sell it for much too low a price. Here are some suggestions on how to price your home.
Be Unemotional
To price it properly, look at your home unemotionally. Buyers don’t care about memories. They don’t care about what you paid or about specialty items that were just for you. For example, if you installed a $5,000 gadget that slides your TV through the floor tio hide it, that may or may not appeal to them.
Buyer are interested in curb appeal (landscaping) bathroom and kitchen. Paint and carpets are so personal, they may or may not be willing to pay more for your choices.
Keep you emotions out of it and use the techniques below to find out what your home is worth in the cold light of day through buyers’ eyes.
Open Houses
We suggest you go to open houses in your area for homes like yours. Nothing is more accurate than an estimate you make after seeing the home. Take pictures, pick up listing sheets. Tour the home and see what it has to offer that is better than your home and worse than your home. Don’t see more than three in any day or you will be confused. As soon as you can, write out what you feel your home should be listed for compared to the open houses you saw. Keep a file so you can return to it and change your estimates as you learn more.
Realtor Opinion
Call three to five Realtors. Tell them you are thinking of listing and ask them to do a market analysis of your home. They will bring you “comps” or information on similar homes in your area. Take these reports and see how they compare to the estimates you are assembling from your open house tours.
On Line Research
There is lots of help for you on line. Visit www.zillow.com, for example. At no charge, they will tell you how much homes are worth and what neighboring homes have sold for. Also, your town or city has a site that probably list what homes have sold for by area as well, as part of the assessor’s office web site.
If you take these factors into account, add special features and improvements, deduct or add for condition, maintenance etc., you will be able to arrive at a good estimate of the market value of your home.
Some may say this sounds like a lot of work…and it is. But, how much time will you spend if it helps you get $10,000 more for your home? How much will you use this information when negotiating with potential buyers? Knowledge is power. Be sure to have as much as possible if you want to sell your home.
When trying to sell your home without an agent, you should take advantage of all the resources available on the Internet. Try different sites like Craigslist, Zillow, and FSBO. One “For Sale By Owner Expert” recommends using many different sites, but linking all the sites back to one main source, to keep everything consistent. Watch this Expert Real Estate Tips video for more ideas on how to use Internet resources when selling your home without an agent.
Many times, the reason a house sells is circumstance — having the right house for the right buyers at the right time. Former real estate agents and experienced for sale by owner sellers share some of their tips. If you have the skills to be able to sell your own home, you can save yourself a hefty commission.