For Sale By Owner:

There is a reason real estate companies have a acronym for you. What is it? It's FSBO pronounced (fiz-bow) it stands for "For Sale By Owner". Nothing comes easy unless the market is like the mid 2000's when inventory levels were less than 1 month and when people could sell their homes before even putting a sign out on the property. Pocket listings took place all the time. A pocket listing for a real estate agent is when we know of someone wanting to sell their home and we can find a buyer ourselves or we could partner with a fellow real estate agent who had a buyer before the home ever hit the public. The key to selling your home on your own without a real estate company is perseverance and knowledge.

Please do not get discourage when it comes to trying to sell the real estate on your own. Let me be honest with you on what it will take. First you need to know the basics of a real estate sale, then you need to have access to the right tools so that you can accomplish your goal. The point of doing it yourself is for one reason only --SAVING MONEY. If you've never sold a home before and are not that knowledgeable about real estate I would NOT recommend this.

Basics:

1. Title Insurance and Escrow. Make sure to close at a title company. Not only will you be protected because they'll insure clean title but they handle all the logistics regarding putting together payoffs from lenders, prorated taxes, setting up signings and escrow fees. Title and escrow companies are an unbiased third party who is responsible for putting a negotiated purchase and sale agreement together and managing it until closing. They will not be able to advise you on anything relating to your negotiated transaction. They simply take instructions from the parties involved in the transaction. If you are closing a home in Oregon click here to get a good title officer.

2. Disclosures. Make sure to disclose everything you possibly can about your home. This way it does not come back to bite you in the butt. A house can change owners many times and if you were the one who never disclosed something you knew about or changed than you could be held liable many years later. As real estate agents we use 6-7 pages of information the seller will disclose to the buyer about the home. Click here to read an article with more information about disclosures.

3. Marketing and Agents. This determines whether you sell or not. If your home is exposed to millions of people you have the greatest probability of your home selling. How do you expose your home to millions of people? You need to put it on the local MLS (multiple listing service). You can do it very cheaply for a flat fee of $600. Basically, a real estate agent will do a limited representation with you where they will be your order taker for an upfront price. Many agents will not do flat fee listings or will charge in excess of $1000 but we think you as the homeowner should be able to do what you chose at an affordable price. If you don't want the Real Estate agent to do much work and want to do things as cheaply as possible we get it and will step away. One thing you do need to know is that you will need to pay a buyer's agent at least 2.5% if they end up representing the buyer that buys your house. This saves you approximately 3.0+% from the total home sale which equates to many thousands of dollars. In Oregon, the homes that are on the multiple listing service all offer a buyer's agent a prenegotiated commission for their sale. The commissions range from 2.5% - 4%. The higher the commission you pay the more agents you will attract and more agents will at least look at your home online. The more agents you have looking at your home the more opportunities you will have to sell the home. You definitely want to be "Realtor friendly" if you want to sell your home. If you live in Oregon we would be happy to do it for you. Click here for more information about our flat fee listing service.

4. Hard Work. There are so many other things you can do to help you sell your home. Marketing like creating a website, doing a virtual tour, color flyers, putting a sign in the yard, open houses, mailers to the neighbors, keeping your home show ready and on and on. The more work you put into it the quicker payoff you'll receive. Feel free to call us if you have any questions about trying to sell the home on your own. We also offer consulting fees too.

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