For Sale By Owner
During a survey by Marin County Newspaper, more than 55% of the home owners expressed an interest in selling their own home. The obvious motivation to consider a for sale by owner is commission savings. But selling your own home requires significant amount of planning and preparation which most home owners under estimate.
Below are our Top 5 recommendations for home owners who are planning to sell their own home:
1) Order Inspection: Every buyer in California has the right to require inspections prior to purchasing your home. Having done an inspection ahead of time, should expatiate the process and also offer your buyers a 3rd party confirmation about the condition of your home. Depending on the type of inspection, they costs anywhere from $200-$600 but they are well worth the investment since majority of your buyers can opt to accept them.
2) Remove Clutter: Like kryptonite to Superman, clutter is to home buyers since it prevents them from imaging the best use of the living space. If there are too many toys and bulky furniture, get them out to either storage or sell them. You might have to organize 3 weekends of Garage Sale before you are ready to show your home, but it’s time well spent.
3) Staging: If your home is not a fixer upper and you anticipate the home will sell within 30 days, it might be wise to consider staging. Staging can cost as little as $1,000 per month to much higher depending on the size of your home and number of bedrooms you need to stage.
4) Marketing: Develop a plan on how you will market your property for maximum exposure. Since you plan to sell your own home, your will not have access to MLS which generates huge amount of broker/agent traffic to your home. Your alternatives are local newspapers, CraigsList or your own website. You can also use FSBO site which cater to home owners who want to sell their own home.
5) Disclosures: Disclosures are the biggest source of challenges to real estate transactions. If you neglect to disclose material information to a potential buyer, they a right to remedy the situation up to 5 years. And that’s a long time to have sleepless night. So, if you have a leaky roof, cracked walls, mold, rats in the attic, crazy neighbor…..etc it’s wise to disclose them to your potential buyer than to exclude them.
Most home owners are un-aware of what is considered Material Information by California Civil code and neglect disclosing critical information to buyers.
Feel free to Contact Us if we can help.
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