For sale by owner tips
Even with the help of a seasoned real estate professional, the process of selling a home can be truly overwhelming, and the amount of information online with advice for home sellers is staggering. This concise, practical tutorial aims to provide owners selling their own home with powerful tools to prepare their homes and their minds, then price, market, protect and ultimately sell their property. If you’re having difficulty understanding or executing any of the suggestions below, or just have questions, please contact us. We’re happy to give some guidance.
1-Repairs
Identify what repairs are needed, whether cosmetic (for best appeal) or functional/structural (for best performance and to make sure home can be financed). Many find hiring a professional inspector at this point a good investment. If you decide against that expense, please at least recruit the help of an objective friend in assessing needed repairs.
In making repairs, focus on those necessary to ensure the home can be financed, then on those cosmetic in nature with the highest return on investment (ROI). Typically, money invested in the kitchen, bathrooms and master bedroom is going to have a higher ROI. Have a good look at your paint colors: Will they appeal to most people? Remove worn carpet laid over hardwood floors, especially in high traffic areas (re-finish hardwood if needed). On the exterior, pressure cleaning driveways and walkways and manicuring lawns, trees and gardens will have the highest impact and ROI.
2-Staging
No matter what your style, staging is more about getting proper proportions in each room, using items to accentuate the positives of your floor plan and colors that don’t challenge a buyer’s personal taste. It helps to thin furniture out by removing 1 or 2 pieces of furniture per room, packing up personal items and really distinct conversation pieces that could distract people from focusing on your home. Repaint dingy walls (interior and exterior) and hide bold colors. Remove half the contents in all closets. Store it all off-site. Layer rooms with clean, properly proportionate rugs. Hang light and airy floor to ceiling curtains. Use mirrors to open up tight areas or where a window would have been nice. Switch shower curtains, towels and all bedding to white. Choose hardy, low light loving plants to say “living things love it here”. For curb appeal, paint the front door and surrounding trim. Frame your entrance with potted plants, buy a new welcome mat, replace house numbers and line paths with bricks and/or solar lights
3-Pricing
You want to net as much as possible, as quickly as possible, from your home sale. However, nothing will be netted if the house doesn’t sell because it was priced too high. You have ONE chance to make a great first impression with the homebuyers you can currently reach. Every week your home remains unsold gives the buyer leverage against you. For most, the biggest challenge is objectivity. What you value about your home might not be what others are willing to pay for it. What you paid for certain home improvements may not be what others value. The actual value (price) of your home is what most able buyers are willing to pay. Do not be emotional about your price, nobody else will be. Weigh in factors like the design and condition of the structure, lot size and setting, surrounding homes, and sales price data on recently sold comparable homes nearby.
Online estimators, like those offered by Zillow and Redfin are a convenient place to start in researching your home’s value. Their accuracy, however, is limited by the data available to them. So, do not base your asking price exclusively on your home’s Zestimate, rather find recent sales (no more than 6 months old) of comparable homes and price yours within that range. In determining what homes are comparable ask for help from an objective friend. Also, be sure to do a search for current active listings in your area to find your nearest competitors and weigh their asking price and price history seriously before deciding on your price. Please read this article on pricing.
Tutorial: How to find comparables on zillow
You can easily find sales price, sales price per sq ft, price history, features and amenities for homes recently sold in your area that are comparable to yours. Please watch this one minute video to learn how.
4-Pictures and Video
In this age of amazing phone cameras, you can actually use most recent upper end phones to take great pics and video.
Lighting is usually the biggest challenge for indoor photography. A great way to make the natural light work for you and not against you is to put it to your back as much as possible, that is, it’s usually best to not point the camera directly towards a window with with curtains/blinds open, and believe us, you want all curtains and blinds open! Be sure to keep the orientation of your camera or phone in the same direction (ie, portrait or landscape) for the whole photo shoot. Landscape is generally more useful for media layout. Turn all the lights on in the home and try to pick a nice bright sunny day for pictures. Experiment with angles. Try not to take all your pics from a static point of view.
One of the most flattering shots to try to grab of the outside of your home is the fabulous “Dusk Shot”. Turn all interior and exterior lights on and catch your home glowing as the day turns to dusk. Remember to move all vehicles out of the shot.
When editing your images, we recommend free apps such as PhotoGrid, Facetune2, and Photoblend which are great for editing and getting the image sharp, bright and airy.
When shooting video use the ‘Walk like a ninja’ technique to minimize shakiness and consider investing around $100-$150 in a stabilizer or gimbal for your phone or DSLR camera. Do you have a friend who owns a drone? Just sayin’… aerial shots are becoming standard for most listings and should be included if possible. We recommend NOT trying to catch any audio while videoing the tour. It complicates the skill level required to keep the video engaging. Instead, use one of the hundreds of free music tracks on the video editing apps. For editing your video we like the apps KineMaster and IMovie. Remember, Instagram allows a 59 second video to be uploaded to your feed. Consider scheduling a Live Story if you have a large following on any social media platform.
For professional promo images for Instagram and Faceboook campagins use the free versions of the apps Over or Canva.
5-Update your home's online presence
Update your pics and home facts on Zillow, Redfin and Realtor.com (No direct link available for Realtor.com but go to their site and search your property address. You’ll find the “Edit Facts” button under and to the right of your home pic. Since Zillow and Trulia are partners, there’s no need to visit Trulia if you update Zillow). Each site will require that you create an account and provide them some information, including your email address. Believe it or not the facts posted on these sites about your home are often absolutely inaccurate. Be sure to review the data on each site, correct any errors, and add any and all relevant information. Put real effort into an appealing description of your home that highlights what you enjoy most about it. Once you’ve created an account on each site and updated your pics and home facts, post your home for sale by owner on Zillow, which will also work for their partner Trulia. Redfin and Realtor.com do not currently offer a for sale by owner platform. Zillow’s mobile app will allow you to record and post a two minute video tour of your home. The Zillow 3D Home App is finally available in St Augustine! Dowload it to your iPhone 6 or later to create and upload a Virtual Reality Tour of your home to Zillow.
6-Marketing
At this point you’ve put tremendous effort into staging your home, taking terrific pictures and video, identifying your favorite features of the home and writing an appealing description of it. It’s time to put it all out there for the world to see! Post all of it on every social media account you have. Consider creating a business page to pay to boost posts to custom audiences on Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for a free mailchimp account. You can hold up to 2,000 contacts and send out up to 12,000 emails per month for free through mailchimp. Place every contact you’ve ever had an email address for in there and email all, once a week, something new about the house, with links to your for sale by owner Zillow or Trulia page. Offer a referral bonus to anyone that brings a buyer. Place free ads on Craigslist, Offer Up and Letgo. Use Zillow’s open house feature at least once a month and offer refreshments, food, even live music, and advertise it on every medium mentioned above (don’t forget your neighbors, all of them. They may have friends or family that may be looking for a home). Invest in a nice for sale by owner sign (check with local government and homeowner’s association restrictions on signs first), and buy solar lights to keep it lit at night. Be sure it says: “Shown by appointment only”
7-Protect your FAMILY AND YOUR TIME
It is essential to be wary of becoming a victim of many new, sophisticated cons that prey on people trying to sell their own homes. To do this, obtain a full name, phone number and email address from EVERY caller interested. Tactful but direct questions will save you time and headaches. “May I ask you a few questions?” “Are you a homeowner now?” “Is your house for sale?” “When are you hoping to move?” “What part of town do you live in now?” “Are you planning to pay cash?” If not, “What type of financing will you be using? Conventional? FHA? VA?” “How old is your pre-approval letter?” Keep a log with contact info and notes for each caller. Listen to your gut, if you feel the caller is a legitimate buyer, and feel safe showing the house to them, make an appointment. Some choose to not make any appointments after dark. Do not show the house alone. Store any portable valuables off-site (the last 2 measures definitely apply to open houses also). Keep all curtains and blinds open during the showing. Do not post any pictures online with personal information showing (ie kids names on walls, family calendars, license plates on cars etc.) Do not accept an offer to buy without a proof of funds letter or a pre-approval letter.
8-cLOSING THE DEAL
Consider obtaining a transferrable one year home warranty, it could save you lots of headaches since systems and appliances do tend to break at the worst times. If you do not generate enough activity (showings, offers), research sold properties in your area for average time from listing to close. If you are beyond 50% of the average time, determine how motivated you are to sell, you may need to consider a price reduction. Try not to be discouraged, even if you have fairly priced your home, you have no control over the state of health of the market around you at that exact time. Remember, even for agents that sell homes every day, this is a labor intensive process that is relatively unpredictable. Please read this article on timing for considering a price adjustment. Without the assistance of a Realtor, do not attempt to engage in negotiations upon offer submission without active coaching from your real estate attorney.
