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Selling Your Clovis Home By Yourself – What’s the Risks?
August 8th, 2009
Selling Your Clovis Home By Yourself – What’s the Risks?
Should You Sell Your Home by Yourself?
Some people can fix their car by themselves. They don’t need a mechanic to change the belts or put in a new alternator. The same is true in real estate. Some people can complete all of the legal forms, contracts, and disclosures required by law. Most people, however, don’t have the legal, marketing, advertising, and real estate background to pull it off. Here are 4 reasons why you should hire a Clovis Realtor to sell your home: (1) to make more money off the sale of your home, and (2) to sell your home quicker and easier, and (3) to avoid potential legal pitfalls.
Selling a house without an agent is called a FSBO (For Sale By Owner). If you’re thinking about selling your home on you own, you need to be aware of the following:
1. Legal Issues: No law requires you to hire a real estate agent to sell your house. However, it means you need to learn the legal rules that govern California real estate transfers, such as what legal documents you need, who must sign the papers, who can conduct the actual transaction, and what to do if and when “encumbrances” arise that slow down the transfer of ownership. You also must determine and provide buyers with the appropriate and mandated California disclosures regarding the physical condition of your house. Cut corners here and you can easily wind up in the courtroom later.
2. Money. You’ll need to evaluate the current Clovis housing market and then price your home. To do this you’ll need to check previous sold homes and current comparable homes on the market. Unfortunately, you won’t have easy access to this information. Plus, the market can change quickly so make sure you’re not comparing your home to your neighbors’ that sold last year. Even if your neighbor sold their home last week, that doesn’t necessarily mean you can get the same amount for your home. You may receive less (or more) depending on the features and condition of your home. In other words, pricing your home is tricky and complicated. If you price it too high it will sit on the market for months and then people begin to wonder, “what’s wrong with that home,” essentially killing your chances of ever selling it. If you price your home too low, you’ve unknowingly taken money right out of your own pocket.
You not only have to price your home correctly, you have to market it. Simply placing a For Sale sign in your yard likely won’t sell your home. If it were that easy, everyone would do it. You need maximum exposure (the more buyers who see your home the more likely it is to sell if it’s priced right). That’s why yard signs and a newspaper ad alone don’t work in today’s market. Buyers are more sophisticated than ever so you need a sophisticated state-of-the-art marketing plan. Why? For decades, the National Association of REALTORS® survey of home sellers found that home owners who do not use a real estate agent sold their home for an average of 20% less than a home represented by a Realtor. That’s a loss of $80,000 on a $400,000 home! So even though you pay a commission by using a real estate agent , you are more likely to make far more money.
3. Time. Running pricing reports, comparing your home to others, marketing, advertising, completing the mandated legal documents, preparing your home for sale, staging, holding open houses, contacting buyers, negotiating the sale, and handling all of the paperwork is extremely time-consuming. And time is of the essence when selling your house. Just like a donut in a donut shop, the longer it sits around, the less likely someone is to buy it. Once that happens, the only way to sell it is to discount it and sell it for much less than the others!
4. Stigma. Fair or not, most people don’t want to buy a For Sale By Owner home. Some people are just plain leery of someone who posts a for sale sign in their yard. They much prefer working through a Realtor who handles these kinds of transactions every day. In other words, regardless of how nice your home is and how well it’s priced, some people won’t even consider it.
Summary. If you’re thinking about selling your home, contact us. We’ll give you an honest assessment of your home’s value and whether it makes sense to sell it yourself or list it with us. We have proven marketing strategies to sell your home for top dollar and quickly. Best of all, we’ll handle all of the required California forms, disclosures, and other documents needed to legally sell your home.
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