Selling Your Home on Your Own

Selling Your Home on Your Own

Selling your home may seem like an overwhelming task. You might think it easier to enlist the help of a real estate professional to help sell your house, but doing so will cost you extra. If you want to get the most out of the sale of your property, selling it yourself makes more sense. A real estate agent acts as an intermediary between you and the buyer, but their services aren’t cheap. By cutting out the middleman, you’ll save yourself a great deal of money, and maybe even move the selling/buying process along faster. However, before you jump in with both feet, it’s important that you understand that selling your house yourself requires a considerable time commitment and knowledge of the process. You will need to plan and research, and essentially take on the role of realtor.

Don’t stress, though. With these tips and help from Propertybytext.com, you can sell your house on your own!

Interior and Exterior Checklist

Before you put your house on the market, you need to get it ready for the marketplace. Potential buyers will envision your house as their new home, but in order for them to do that, you’ll have to put aside your own decorating ideas and essentially make your house a “blank canvas.”

• Depersonalize – Don’t have an overabundance of your own personal, sentimental items. 
• Get rid of clutter – Clear countertops, closets, storage spaces, and get rid of any “extra” furniture that may make a room appear small. 
• Plumbing and Fixtures – Polish sink fixtures so they sparkle, and fix or replace leaky faucets. 
• Kitchen and Bathroom – Scrub away mildew and shine all tiled surfaces. Put out your best towels and replace the shower curtain. In the kitchen, degrease the walls and stove hood and wipe down appliances and cabinets. 
• Carpeting and flooring – Shampoo or replace carpeting and refinish hard wood floors. 
• Ceilings and walls – Apply a fresh coat of light, neutral-colored paint to ceilings and walls 
• Windows and doors – Repair broken glass and oil any squeaks. Make sure all open and close easily. 
• Odors – Get rid of smoke or pet odors by using a neutralizing air freshening spray, and smoke outdoors while the house is on the market. 
• Landscaping – update landscaping to match surrounding neighbors. 
• Windows – Wash them inside and out and keep curtains/shades open to brighten rooms. 
• Front door and entryway – Make a great first impression by painting and polishing the front entrance. 
• Paint and siding – apply a fresh coat of paint or fix broken/missing siding on the exterior of the house. 
• Yard work – keep grass mowed, flowerbeds weeded, and pools or Jacuzzis maintained.

Getting the Right Picture Taken

Making a good first impression is the first step in attracting a buyer for your house. Before a potential buyer ever sets foot in your home, they will probably see pictures of it first. Use these tips to make sure your home is picture perfect!

• Stand in front of your home and make a visual assessment. Remove yard decorations, mow the grass and remove any toys or sports equipment. 
• Wait for a sunny day to take outside pictures. 
• If you include interior pictures, make sure the rooms are tidy and well lit. Take pictures from several angles and choose the best ones. 
• Choose photos that show off the house’s best features. 
• Use a high-quality camera that takes clear, crisp pictures because quality counts! 
• ·Don’t use a Polaroid camera or a cell phone camera to take photos of your home.

Once you have some quality pictures, don’t forget to visit Propertybytext.com to create your property listing. With Propertybytext, your listing includes detailed information like address, price, number of rooms, property description, photos and more!

Getting the Right Yard Sign in Place

The type of sign you choose to place in your yard makes a difference. As many as ten to twenty percent of the calls from buyers could come from just seeing your sign, so a good sign is important. The For Sale sign in your yard is a potential source of word-of-mouth advertising from neighbors and passersby – make sure it doesn’t convey “cheap” or make people wonder what else you’ve skimped on in an effort to sell your home.

A quality For Sale sign should include as much information as possible for the buyer. Propertybytext.com listings come with a keyword and text code that you can place on your sign for buyers to gain more information about your property.

In addition to the text code, another option is to place a brochure box on the sign for printed flyers. You can print flyers from your Propertybytext property listing to place in this box, giving buyers a color look at all your home has to offer. The yard sign and brochures are a good place to add the QR codes provided by Propertybytext, as well. These allow buyers to scan the code with a smartphone and gain access to a wealth of information about your property.

A good For Sale sign in your yard that contains all these ways to gain information about the property, gives the buyer everything he needs to know before he ever picks up the phone to talk with you. 

Getting Professional Advice

Selling your house on your own doesn’t mean you have to do everything on your own. There is a lot of paperwork and legalities involved in selling property, and depending on where you live, the number of key professionals you’ll need help from varies. Some people you may need to enlist to help you sell your home may include:

• A mortgage lender 
• A real estate attorney 
• A title company

Because you’re selling your home yourself, your primary responsibility is to market your house, with the help of Propertybytext.com, of course, find a buyer and negotiate the terms of the sales contract. In addition to these responsibilities, it is up to you to build a team of qualified professionals that can help the selling process run smoothly.

Market Research

One of the most important factors in selling your home is understanding the marketplace. How are similar homes currently on the market selling? What sets your neighborhood apart from others? What makes your house special or unique?

Seek the advice of others who have knowledge of important factors that could affect the sale of your home. Real estate agents are a good place to start and are a wealth of information. They are usually good about discussing the general climate of the current marketplace and will have good advice to offer free.

Advertising

If you want to sell your home quickly, the Internet is the place to be. With roughly seventy-seven percent of homebuyers searching online for new homes, the Internet is a very cost effective way to reach many buyers fast.

In addition to using the Internet, you must utilize the technology that almost everyone has in their hand: mobile phones. These two together give you the potential to sell your home faster than ever before and Propertybytext brings both worlds together for you in one convenient place.

Let’s talk about the ways you can advertise your house.

• Your yard sign – This tells everyone your house is for sale. Everyone that passes by will know, and have access to, the key features that makes your home fabulous. With the addition of Propertybytext’s keyword and text code or QR codes, you give buyers everything they need before they ever pick up the phone to call you. You won’t waste time answering phone calls or repeating yourself about the features of your home. You only speak with truly interested buyers. 
• Printed flyers – Full color printed flyers placed in a brochure box on the yard sign give buyers a peek inside your home with photos and information on what they can expect. Propertybytext makes it easy to print your flyers right from their website! 
• Open house – Showcase your home and really let buyers envision the possibilities by holding an open house. Place a sign-in sheet close to the entryway to keep track of the people who come in so you can get in contact with them later, and make sure to have plenty of your flyers from Propertybytext on hand. Provide snacks for an extra “homey” feel. 
• Let everyone you meet throughout the normal course of your day know that you’re selling your home. The people you speak with may not be in the market for a new home, but they may know someone who is! 
• Don’t forget about traditional ways to advertise – Place classified ads in the newspaper that include the unique text code and keyword from Propertybytext. Place ads in local real estate magazines or direct mail circulars. Although these types of advertising cost more, they do reach a huge audience and therefore increase your chances of selling your house. Don’t forget to include the text code and keyword and QR codes in these ads, too. The more information your potential buyers receive conveniently, the better your chances of selling your house quickly.