Real Estate Information Center

Selling your own home can be challenging, especially in today’s over-saturated real estate marketplace. However, with a few FSBO tips on how to present your home to the best of its ability, you can overcome some obstacles and beat out your competition! If you are getting showings and foot traffic through your home, it’s a great indicator that you have set the price and marketed the home properly – now you need to ensure your home shows well – after all, these are very interest leads and you don’t want the small things getting in the way of a possible offer!

Your objective here is to make your home as attractive as possible – preferably before any traffic arrives. The following techniques are proven methods that I have recommended to sellers over the last few years. These ideas will leave a positive impression with people coming through your home. While representing buyers I have noticed that these are the main reasons for them to become uninterested in a property. So take this seriously!

Make sure your home is clean – ultra clean. Hire a maid service if need be. Wash and wax flooring, clean the carpets, wash the windows and blinds (if applicable), make sure the lighting fixtures are clean, and do a dusting once-over. You want to eliminate all odors as well, if possible.

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For Sale By Owner or FSBO has long been an option that many people look into when it is time to sell their home. They do so for a variety of reasons. However, usually it is simply because they are trying to save the expense of hiring a real estate agent. Ideally, this means that homes sold by owner should even be less expensive than others, making them more desirable. The price of a FSBO home is often at least 5% cheaper than a comparable one listed by an agent.

Finding homes, which are for sale by owner, is not always the easiest thing to do. It requires a little extra work because you simply cannot call up an agent and give her the specifications of what you are looking for. By putting the following tips to work, you will be well on your way to finding great FSBO home sales in the area you want.

1. Check out websites that feature free classified ads like Craiglist.org and other local real estate web sites that offer low cost for sale ads. Even eBay has a section for real estate that is worth investigating.

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Real estate marketing has steadily gained popularity over the past decade. Here’s some insight on what your real estate marketing website should contain.

1) Area Information
When dealing in real estate the area of the property is of great importance. Make sure your website has the proper info of the site of the property mentioned

2) Proper Searching Facilities
Clients are generally going to use the search facility available on your website to choose their preferred location. Make sure your site is equipped with an easy search option.

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If you choose to sell by owner, choosing the right words in your for sale by owner ad is crucial for driving traffic into your home. You can use local newspapers, magazines, free real estate books, websites, Craigslist, etc – the list goes on and on. These 5 for sale by owner ad tips should give you a great start to writing an eye-catching ad, and I have saved the best for sale by owner ad tip for last!

Make The Title Catchy and As Short As Possible
# You want to include the best feature of the home in the title, but keep it short. You want potential buyers
to continue reading, not just skim over the title and go on to the next for sale by owner ad. Make the
title bold, and feel free to use underlining or italics when describing your home’s best feature.

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You have decided to list for sale by owner, or fisbo, or FSBO – however you pronounce it, and you’ll need to know a ball-park estimate of what this will cost you. Below you will find a list of costs of selling a home in this current market.

The actual cost depends on plenty of ever-changing variables, but let’s make it simple. We’ll make a list of the most realistic expenses when you sell your own home.

First, let’s take a look at the pre-listing expenses:

Inspection Report: $150-$300 (optional)
You may think about hiring an inspector to look over your house and make sure it is salable. This is completely optional but more times than not buyers greatly appreciate this as it saves them the fee.

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It’s no secret that today’s real estate market is tough. Worried sellers are trying to sell their homes themselves. Home property values are down, and they desperately want to save the cost of a real estate commission, so they try to market their properties as FSBOs (for sale by owner sellers). Makes sense, right?

Yes, “if.”

If you are accustomed to taking responsibility for yourself, have some business sense, have bought and sold homes before, have some time and money to invest in the project, and know and can use the tools and techniques that good Realtors use, then the answer is an unqualified and resounding, “Yes!” You have the right mind set and the ability to actually earn the Realtor’s commission. Either the whole commission, or just the part the selling agent would have gotten. Earn is the operative word here.

So how do good Realtors do it?

Good Realtors start with the basics and work through a systematic, well designed and thought out, integrated, multi-media marketing plan.

Continue reading ‘For Sale by Owner – Realtor Secrets 101 For FSBOs’ »

It is the job of a real estate agent to find you a buyer, but perhaps you can do it yourself.

Standing at your yard looking at your house, you think to yourself, you are going to sell the house but would you just do it yourself or hire an agent? Think, consider, and assume.

Apparently, when you have an agent or broker, about 3-4% of the sales price goes to them, for after all they did their part of the job. But, that could mean money getting out of your pockets or wallets and fat bank accounts, right? Plus there is a global financial crisis, deny it or accept, that even the well-off families and companies along with big corporations are forced to thrift if they want to keep their business running. Finally after a day or two of reconsidering, you have decided to get yourself a buyer without the help of a broker or an agent. Now, the big question is – How? That’s what we are here to find out.

Often the first steps are fundamental and basic to house selling and even home renting. To be visible to a community of buyers, why not do promotional activities or ads?

Continue reading ‘Is a Quick Home Sale Possible Without the Help of a Real Estate Agent?’ »

For sale by owner…selling your house – There are many things to think about when considering the option of selling your house yourself. To begin with, taking this avenue will be time consuming. It will be like having a part time job along with your current occupation and you must invest time into different avenues if you want to be successful.

You need to start by preparing your home for sale. This would mean fixing everything that needs fixed around the house and giving all areas of the house a new and fresh look. To do this, you would first want to paint and clean everything. Be sure to remove all clutter from the home and make everything as neutral as possible.

Paying attention to the outside of your house is crucial. This is the first thing that potential buyers will see and an untidy and unattractive lawn can easily put buyers off. Make sure your yard is cleared of any debris and that it is well manicured. You may want to invest in planting flowers or a hanging basket of flowers in order to add flare to your out side space.

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Selling your house is one of those times when it pays to do your research – literally. Time after time it has been seen that spending that little extra to “prepare” your house for the property market can make a huge difference on the end price. Unanimous opinion is that if you prepare your house the way your buyers want to see it, you will have a much better chance of selling it for the price you want – and faster too.

So, here are 7 tricks to help you sell your house, gleaned from the conversations of those that came, saw, bought, or rejected for sale by owner properties in the last few years. Follow them and you will easily be able to reap the rewards of an earlier sale and a higher price on your rural or residential property.

De-Clutter
Nothing conveys space like an uncluttered room! Clear the all rooms of any furniture you can do without. It doesn’t matter what you do with it: sell it on eBay, put it in storage, give it to friends, just get rid of it. Potential buyers like to imagine their own furnishings in a room, so doing this gives them a chance to do so.

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When you sell your home, you may be wondering if it is better to list it with an Agency, or if you should sell it on your own. Everyone who is selling a home has this option, and you should be aware of what the differences are, and what might work better for you. One popular option for selling homes is to do a flat fee MLS listing. This means that you list your home yourself with MLS and only pay one fee. Compared to listing your home with an Agency, this can end up saving you a lot of money. Of course, when you sell your home yourself, you are not going to get the services that an Agency can provide you.

Flat fee MLS listings allow you to post your own listing on the MLS listings that are seen by Agencies and home buyers. For one flat fee you are able to list your home until it sells or until you decide to take it off the market. Once your home is listed with the MLS listings, you are able to advertise it to home buyers and other Realtors from all over the United States. The MLS database holds listings that are stored in a large database. These listings can be seen by any Agency in the area or home buyer who is searching for a home.

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