When you post classified ads on various websites in order to sell a home online you are really setting the readers up to contact you directly as the homeowner. Many sellers are quite hesitant to do this because their house is listed with a broker and they feel that marketing their own house is not allowed. That is simply not the case at all. There are some brokers who discourage their clients from pursuing any promotions of their own, but that doesn’t mean it’s inappropriate or in conflict with the exclusive right to sell listing agreement most sellers have signed.
After all, a broker’s primary concern is to collect a commission on the sale of a house, and as long as that right is not jeopardized the fact that a seller is proactive and marketing his or her house online is not a conflict. In today’s market with so many houses for sale, as the seller you really have to realize that everybody involved has to put in some effort to sell a house online today.
The truth is that people looking for houses are generally online communicating with their friends on Facebook, shopping and playing games, as well as conducting their business activities. Because people are spending so much time online it’s crucial to make sure your house is out there, too, where it will be seen by the most potential buyers. I’ve found that buyers spend some time surfing around on craigslist.com and ebayclassifieds.com whenever they are mildly curious about the possibility of finding a new house in a certain area, even if it’s just for entertainment.
But that doesn’t mean they have contacted a broker in the area to see what’s on the multiple listing service, not at all. Apparently there are many buyers who would rather deal directly with the seller to find a house for sale, especially online. Possibly it’s because they are not actually serious buyers, but in my own experience I get more calls and emails from my online classifieds than I do from brokers calling me to show my house through the multiple listing service. I believe that best way to get your house sold is to sell your house online, which means you work at finding buyers for yourself, and then you let your broker take care of the details when it comes time to write up the sale documents and oversee the closing process for you.
Tags: Agent, Broker, Investor, Real estate, Realtor, sell a home, sell a home fast, sell a house, sell my home, sell my house
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)
There’s a relatively unknown problem creeping into real estate transactions in this tight mortgage market and it is causing some sellers to consider selling a house for cash in order to avoid delays. The problem is related to property appraisals. This problem can affect you and the sale of your home, so it’s good to understand the impact of recent changes in the appraisal methods used by national lenders.
The best way to describe the problem is simply to say that it’s cheaper to use county tax assessor’s records that are available online, usually for free, than to hire a live human being with professional credentials as a real estate appraiser to go out and look at a home to conduct an appraisal. Now, this makes some sense in theory, but in practice it’s causing a big mess.
The reason it’s causing a mess is because computers do not have all the information, starting with local county assessors’ offices whose records are frequently inaccurate, and moving along to the fact that computers are not always smart about the way they select comparable properties. In other words, a computer is thinking that proximity is more important than similarity.
Here’s an example when trying to sell a house: You own a 3,600 square foot brick home that was built in the last 10 years on a lot in a more established neighborhood. Some of the older frame homes in your neighborhood are also similar in square footage, but they are much older and they are not brick. A computer is not putting two and two together and selecting another brick home a little farther from your neighborhood to compare values. No, it is selecting the considerably older, frame homes next door to yours. That’s what is mean by proximity not similarity.
And it’s easy to see how it could cause a big discrepancy in the valuation of your home. A human appraiser would immediately see the situation and select a series of brick homes that are located nearby, not necessarily on your street, your block or even your same subdivision. An appraiser will have more sensitivity to the characteristics of your home than a computer program could possibly have.
A seller who is considering selling a home for cash because he has been involved in a failed transaction due to a poor-quality appraisal will generally tell you that it’s a problem with national and online lenders. Local banks tend to stick with local, live appraisers so the quality and reality of the appraisal works better for both the seller and the buyer. But if you find yourself in a time crunch because you have missed out on a pending sale you will discover that selling a home for cash may work better for you, too.
Tags: Agent, Broker, Investor, Real estate, Realtor, sell a home, sell a home fast, sell a house, sell my home, sell my house
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)
There are some sellers who really want to sell by owner, but when it comes time to sell a house they give up and list it with a real estate agent. I often wonder what motivates them to change their minds. Because I buy and sell houses for my business I usually make a decision about each house individually, sometimes I sell by owner and sometimes I go ahead and list the house. What it comes down to is this – rather than spending the time and effort required to get a sale closed I’m better off hiring an agent to help me than trying to do everything myself. Of course I know what to do, but I just don’t always have time to do get it all done. Homeowners who decide to sell by owner with no previous experience selling real estate may find themselves at a disadvantage when it comes time to sell by owner.
Marketing your house on your own is not a bad idea. That part of the sale process is not hard for anyone, even inexperienced sellers. Writing ads to post online and placing ads in the newspaper is pretty easy. And it’s free to post ads on craigslist.com and ebayclassifieds.com, though some local forums associated with TV stations or printed shoppers often charge a fee. Most buyers are looking for their new house online, which means you have a great opportunity to have your house out on the web where almost every buyer is shopping.
There’s no doubt that you’ll get traffic to your classified ad when you post your house online these days, even people who are also working with an agent are looking on craigslist.com. And remember, you only need to find one buyer, one who is interested and also qualified for financing, so marketing your house successfully is not really the hard part when you sell by owner. The hard part is what comes after finding the buyer when selling a home.
As soon as someone is interested in making an offer on your house you have to make sure to use the proper sales agreement forms for your state and local area. And you also have to check to see that you have filled-out all the proper disclosures regarding the property condition because most of these forms are actually required by the federal government for every sale and they have to be filed with the county recorder along with the other sale documents. Than you have to take the signed documents to an attorney or a title company for them to complete the necessary legal work. The seller is responsible for researching the title because that process will reveal any liens against the property or any defects in the chain of title that may require the attention of an attorney to clear up prior to closing. Some of these problems can be time-consuming.
I can’t fail to mention the process of buyer financing that will start at the same time you take your sales agreement to an attorney or title company. Although you are not responsible for helping the buyer with his or her financing, you do have to open your house to inspectors and appraisers when required, and then you will be waiting for your buyer’s loan approval for as long as it takes. Truthfully, these days it’s the mortgage loan approval that can delay a sale, so it’s best to be prepared for that fact in advance.
Tags: Agent, Broker, Investor, Real estate, Realtor, sell a home, sell a home fast, sell a house, sell my home, sell my house
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)
Image via Wikipedia
Everybody is busy and looking for the fast, easy way to accomplish nearly every task in life. That goes for selling a home as well. So, in this article I will give you my best selling home tips so that you can get the job done quickly. I’ve been buying and selling homes over the course of several decades so that means I’ve learned a thing or two about selling homes!
There’s no doubt that this is a tough real estate market all over the country, and in some areas it’s worse than others. I’m fortunate that where I live part of the time and where I own property is doing better than most areas, so I am still active as a real estate investor with homes for sale and for rent. Let me share my biggest tip of all right up front, and that is to make sure you think like your prospective customer. That’s right, you have to take off your seller’s cap and put on the buyer’s cap in order to think like a buyer. That needs to happen right up front in order to renovate the home if necessary, clean it up to show it off in the best possible light, and advertise it for maximum exposure. Probably none of my other selling home tips even come close to this first one in overall importance because you have to get into the mind of your prospective customers when prepare your home and write your ads to appeal to them. You have to really work at seeing your home the way your customers are going to see it.
How do you accomplish this somewhat unnatural feat? How do you suddenly see your home the way other people will see it? Well, it’s not complicated, but you just have to take time and wonder through your home, really looking at it with fresh eyes, as though you are the new buyer. This is really the kingpin to success in advertising and showing your home, I promise you. It has worked for me for over thirty years and it can work for you.
In other words, the kingpin to all my sell a home tips is to think like a buyer and not a seller. Once you make this important transition in your own mind, it’s easy to fix up your home, write a chatty, detail-filled ad with plenty of juicy details to post online and show your home to prospective buyers with enthusiasm. It’s easy because you are coming from the mindset that sounds like this, “Wow, this is a great house, look at all these unique features…” You don’t come across as a seller who is tired of the place and just wants to get rid of it. In fact, if they don’t make an offer quickly you might just keep it yourself!
Tags: Agent, Bestseller, Broker, Buyer, Customer, Investor, Real estate, Real estate broker/agent, Realtor, Sales, sell a home, sell a home fast, sell a house, sell my home, sell my house, You Can Sell A Home Easier When You Think Like A Buyer
Posted in Real Estate Market | Comments (1)
Image via Wikipedia
There’s no doubt that it’s a totally different marketplace now than existed in the US housing market in 2010. But some important statistics from 2010 might come in handy for homeowners considering for sale by owner as a method for how to sell a house. These statistics were compiled and published as the 2010 National Association of REALTORS (NAR) Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers and they should be of interest to every seller, not just those considering for sale by owner. It’s easy to see that homeowners who make the decision to market their own homes have a better opportunity to do so than ever before.
Following are the statistics that will interest a seller who is thinking about putting that for sale by owner sign in her yard. The percentage of buyers who are shopping for a new home and using these tools to do so are: internet 79% (that one’s a whopper, isn’t it?), real estate agent 69% (good news for agents), yard sign 22% (sometimes the old-fashioned ways are best), open house 12% (not too good), newspaper 9% (even worse) and home magazine 6% (might as well throw it in the trash).
Pretty interesting statistics about how to sell a home, aren’t they? Shows everyone who might have had their doubts that posting on craigslist.com and ebayclassifieds.com is the thing to do in order to get buyer’s attention these days. Whether your prospective buyers are working with an agent or not, they are undoubtedly looking for a home themselves online. It’s just too easy and too interesting to avoid. And everyone is so busy that they have to fit their search for a new home into their busy schedule, which can be quite a trick. Many people are surfing around online late at night when the long day is winding down.
As the seller you have the challenge of reaching out to find your buyers right where they are, and doing so in a way that works. According to the statistics above, newspaper ads and agent ads in local homes for sale magazines is not the way to go. A lot more people are looking for homes online, and they are still out driving around looking at for sale by owner signs, too. Besides those two top methods, almost 70% of buyers are working with a real estate agent, too.
So you will want to have your response prepared ahead of time for the day you receive a call from an agent saying she has clients who would like to see your home. She will want to know if you are willing to pay a commission on the sale or not. Of course, she wants the answer to be “yes,” but you are not obligated to pay a commission at all. Make sure you think about this scenario before it occurs so that your interaction is smooth and mutually satisfactory.
Tags: Agent, Broker, For sale by owner, Investor, Real estate, Real estate broker/agent, Real estate economics, Realtor, sell a home, sell a home fast, sell a house, sell my home, sell my house, Where To Market Your Home For A Fast Sale
Posted in Real Estate Market | Comments (2)
Image via Wikipedia
One thing to consider if you are thinking you need to sell a house fast is you really have to set aside some time to think about your goals, and then make a step-by-step plan to achieve them. Now you’re probably thinking that you don’t have time for all this, right? After all, you’re short of time already and don’t need more items on your to-do list. Nevertheless, you simply have to find half an hour with a pad of paper and a pen, or with your favorite digital device and make a list of your actual priorities.
It’s a good idea to start with the most basic questions of all, for example – which of these two represents your highest priority – the highest possible sale price or the fastest possible closing? We’d all like to have both of course, but that is usually not possible. More often than not we have to choose whether we’re going to wait for the highest selling price or close as quickly as possible because our top priority is selling a house fast. It is vital that home owners understand that their priorities must be established before putting the home on the market.
Now, assuming you may have a spouse, partner or others involved in the ownership of your house, and you all have to agree, deciding on everybody’s real goal is a critical first step. It’s likely that everyone won’t completely agree on the top priority, but eventually there has to be an agreement on a plan of action. Needless to say, it can be frustrating for everyone, including your listing agent if there is not a clear agreement up front about the real goal of the house sale.
If you all determine that selling a house fast is the main goal representing consensus between all owners, things can move along very quickly from that point. It’s easy to pick up the phone and call a few real estate investors who regularly buy and re-sell houses as a business in order to get some offers immediately. Most investors are prepared to pay cash and close quickly, often within a week’s time, and they usually take care of all the documents as well. Of course there’s no obligation to sell to anyone who makes you an offer, and collecting more than one offer costs you nothing. You may find this is a practical solution when you are getting started selling a house fast.
Tags: Agent, Broker, House, Investor, Ownership, Real estate, Real estate broker/agent, Realtor, sell a home, sell a home fast, sell a house, sell my home, sell my house, Selling
Posted in Real Estate Market | Comments (4)
