You want to sell your home yourself. If you have not read Consumers Guide to Selling a Home, we highly recommend that you do. Selling a home is a complex task and involves much more than putting a sign in the yard and advertising your home for sale in the newspaper. 

If you decide that you want to do it yourself, you will need to be armed with the right tools to succeed. Our tool kit will prepare you for the most common situations that you will face as a FSBO. You'll learn step-by-step the basics about pricing, marketing, writing ads, qualifying, negotiating, financing, closing costs, and much more.

Before you decide to sell your home yourself you should ask yourself a question. Why do I want to sell my home myself? The answer to that question is usually "to save real estate commissions". It is true you can save real estate commissions if you successfully sell your home yourself. 

EXPOSURE
A problem you can expect to face when selling your home is marketing. In order to maximize your home sale chances your home needs to be exposed to as many home buyers as possible. As a seller of your own home, you have limited access and limited marketing dollars available to sell your own home. What if it does not sell? Do you want to risk money for advertising, when nationally, less than 1 out of 10 homes are successfully sold by an owner. Statistically you have a less than 10% chance of selling your home. Those are not very good odds.

ATTRACTING QUALIFIED BUYERS
Another problem you will face when selling your home on your own is the home buyers you attract. It is human nature to want to save money. You want to save real estate commissions. The same applies to for sale by owner home buyers. What attracts home buyers to for sale by owner homes is the presumption of a deal. The buyer's mentality is "the seller is saving the real estate commission, so I want them to pass that saving on to me". FSBO sales attract bargain hunters and lookers. You may get a lot of people through your house, but will it result in a sale? Are those people qualified buyers? To sell your home you will likely be faced with selling your home at a discount, and then still be responsible for all the work, time, and landmines that come with selling a home, without the benefit of professionals who sell homes for a living. Does that make sense? Is selling your own home truly in your best interests? Only you can answer that question.

ADVERTSING
Once you have made the commitment to move forward and sell your home yourself, we recommend you place ads in the newspaper and hold open houses on weekends. You should use directional signs to point home buyers towards your home, if allowed by your city or area. Check with your local government for sign regulations. We also recommend that you put a large for sale sign and brochure box in the front yard. Be careful about listing your home on the Internet. The Internet is absolutely a way to help sell your home. The problem is that most Internet web sites cannot market their web site effectively enough to truly generate enough serious Internet home buyers. Your home may be listed on the Internet, but how are buyers really going to find you. Most home sale Internet web sites make their money from getting you to place your home on their Internet site, not by selling your home. 

AGENTS
A word of caution, be prepared for all the real estate agents who call you and want to list your home. Many will call with the pretense of having a buyer or simply wanting to preview your home for a potential buyer. Some of the agents may have an interested buyer, but many do not and are simply looking for a way to have an appointment with you to talk about listing your home.

OPEN HOUSES
A word about open houses. Statistics show that open houses serve primarily as an opportunity for agents to get new buyers and listing prospects. The vast majority of the time the people who go to an open house do not buy the house they went through. The process is just too hit and miss, however, occasionally they do result in the sale of a home where the open house was held. If you choose to host open houses, they should be on Saturday and/or Sunday from about noon to 4:00. That is the time most prospective home buyers are out driving around looking for homes. Selling your home by owner is a tough proposition.