Well, I guess we haven’t actually sold our house by owner yet. That’ll happen at closing in mid December (fingers crossed). But here’s how we got an offer.
We’re hardly real estate experts, so this post is just a roundup of things that happened to work for us. Here’s hoping they help anyone else attempting to DIY their house sale too. The cool thing is that the people buying our house aren’t blog readers (they’d never heard about us or YHL- but we disclosed the blog to them to ensure that they were cool with images of the house with our furniture remaining on the site). Anyway, we thought it would encourage other FSBO peeps to know that you don’t need a blog to sell your house. But it was interesting for us to learn that our blog had nothing to do with attracting the people who are buying our house. Anyway, here are our tips:
Tip #1: Pick the right asking price. This is paramount. And we didn’t do this at first. We priced the house too high and we only had two showings in the first two weeks. Then we finally got real with ourselves, dropped things by about 25K, and priced our house to sell in this less-than-ideal market based on what similar homes in our area were going for. Wouldn’t you know we had fourteen showings within two weeks of the price drop – and an offer within two days of it. Really can’t stress this step enough.
Tip #2: Clean and declutter your house within an inch of its life. Now is not the time to leave a pile of socks in the laundry room or a stack of bills in the kitchen. And dust bunnies have no place in your house when it’s on the market. Oh and make sure the house doesn’t smell funny while you’re at it. Sure you’d hope prospective buyers can look beyond any lapses in cleanliness, but those dirty spots can signal to the buyer that the house isn’t cared for in other areas either. Here are a few posts about what else we did to get things ready for sale-age (here, here, here, and here).
Tip #3: Market the heck out of it. The amazing thing about using a realtor (which we definitely would have done if we couldn’t get this done on our own after a months or two of trying) is the fact that they can draw a ton of potential buyers to your house thanks to clients, connections, and widespread publicity on sites like MLS. To offset this advantage you’ll have to do a heckova lot of legwork yourself. The FSBO route isn’t easy by any means. We paid to put ads in the paper, re-listed our house on craigslist every few days, bought a for-sale sign and made countless fliers for the front yard, and eventually spent $295 to put it on MLS ourselves (using this service – although in the time since we used it we have heard this complaint, so perhaps it’s not as nice as it used to be). All told we spent about $500 marketing our house- but it certainly beats the $12k that we would have spent on a typical 6% realtor fee.
Tip #4: Learn how to show the home in a way that appeals to buyers. We learned that keeping Clara, Burger, and myself out of the house (we went on nice long walks) while potential buyers were led on a quick tour by John was the most professional and crowd-pleasing way to conduct showings. After John’s speedy walk-through he would step outside and let people poke around on their own just to see how they liked the feel of the house without anyone hovering. And if it was raining sometimes Burgs, the bean, and I would hang out in the car since walks were out of the question.
Tip #5: Make a strong argument for why your house is worth buying. Your flier (and the things you mention when you show the home) really can make all the difference. We learned that pointing out that many items would convey with the sale really helped people see added value (we tossed in all of our appliances, window treatments, light fixtures, dining room shelving, and even the master bedroom built-ins & our bed frame). We also pointed out things like the size of our large .75 acre lot and our two-car garage, which are both rarities that most other homes on the market in our price point don’t offer. And of course mentioning perks like the newly remodeled kitchen and baths, the new roof, the refinished hardwood floors, the new windows, and the other upgrades that we put into our home seemed to really set us apart from some of the other un-updated brick ranches on the market.
Tip #6: Figure out what to do if you get an offer. The whole purpose of selling your house is to get an offer, but if you don’t know what to do when you get there, you’re kind of sinking your own battleship. You’ll definitely want to bone up on your negotiation skills and learn how to trust smart people. Sure we were selling our home by owner, but we didn’t do it on our own. Not even close. We even asked the buyers agent that we used to purchase our new house a few questions along the way- and we definitely relied heavily on help from the closing attorney and lending agent that we hired for the transaction (they were both people that we’ve used before, so we really appreciated their opinions). When it came to ratifying the contract and getting through all the finer points like inspection negotiations and closing date determinations they really were our sounding board. Hiring a closing attorney is only a few hundred bucks, and you actually have to pay for a closing attorney whether you FSBO or do things through a realtor, so it was a no-brainer to rely on ours for all the help we could get.
Oh and thanks to the fact that most buyers will present you with an offer on paper, you just have to tweak that and “respond” to it (instead of drafting anything up from scratch). But you’ll definitely want to have the legally necessary papers on hand (like a lead paint disclosure form and a residential property disclosure form- both things that we googled and found online). Your closing attorney should be able to help you with those if you can’t track them down. I guess the key here is that a good closing attorney can really be an amazing resource- especially so you’re sure that everything you’re doing is 100% legit. Gotta protect yourself!
Tip #7: Rest assured that realtors won’t boycott an FSBO house. At least that wasn’t our experience. AT ALL. Nearly all of the showings that we attracted were to people with a buyers agent at their side (the agents were actually the ones calling us to schedule each showing). In fact, the people buying our house came through a realtor (so of course we owe a small percentage to that realtor since she’s acting as their agent) but we definitely appreciated not having to shell out close to 7K to a sellers agent as well (since we took on the marketing and the showings ourselves and did all the paperwork directly with a closing attorney as opposed to using a sellers agent for those items).
So that’s what we did to get ‘er done. Again – we definitely would have used a realtor if we didn’t have much luck in the first few months, but we’re just such DIYers that it felt fitting to give the whole for-sale-by-owner thing a shot and share our experiences with you guys. Is there anyone else out there who sold their house by owner? Feel free to chime in with more tips and tricks. We’re certain there are at least a few things we forgot to mention and probably a ton of things that we didn’t even think of. It’s amazing what a learning curve the whole experience can be. Now we’ll just be holding our breath for a quick and painless closing in around a month’s time. Is it December yet?
sheila says
I ran across your blog and noticed this post. First, I want to say congrats on getting your home under contract. Second, as a successful Realtor, I always say if someone can sell their home and keep more of their hard earned equity money, good for them! However, I must add that it’s not ALWAYS as easy as some have commented. If it was, I would be out of a job. Eight out of ten FSBO’s do not sell their own homes and end up listing with an agent. Why? For one, most buyers want representation. Many times when I’m showing homes and we drive-by a FSBO, the buyer will usually comment they are not interested in dealing with a FSBO. I would also like to add this: seller’s want to sell themselves to save a commission…however most buyer’s will want the savings. Their reasoning is, since the seller doesn’t have to pay a commission they can come off the price. Therefore the seller usually sells for less and gives the buyer what money they would have saved, plus pay for marketing and do all the work themselves. I also want to warn about safety issues. I love the idea you wanted the people to “discover” the home themselves, but please do not ever leave people in your home without supervision. You would be shocked to hear just some of the stories of what happens. People will even use their children to do the stealing. Realtors screen buyers and make sure they have been pre-approved before taking them into peoples homes.
Lastly, we Realtors always say that the hardest part of our job is from contract to closing and that’s when we really earn our money. We are trained to deal with loan, appraisal, or inspection problems and buyer’s remorse.
To help you get this deal closed, I suggest you stay on top of every detail of the contract that needs to be fulfilled, have your attorney check on the loan process and make sure no problems have come up.
Congrats again!!! I hope this helps and all goes well so you can pay that extra money down on your new home. Good Luck! :)
sheila says
I just got through looking at more of your site. I love it! I really like the home tour…I love before and afters and yours are some of the best I’ve seen. Very talented and creative! HGTV should give you your own show!
Sherri says
Quick question (since we’re planning on selling soon ourselves). You say you dropped the price and had 14 showings after doing so, and an offer within 2 days of it. Within 2 days of the price drop, or the showing to the buyers? Sorry – just confused and was curious.
Thanks!
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Sherri,
Sorry for the confusion. Two days after the price drop we showed it to the buyers who eventually made the offer (though the offer itself didn’t come until they saw it a second time a few more days later). Hope that clears things up!
-John
Sherri says
It does! Thanks John!
Stephanie says
I loved hearing your success story!! I am a strong believer that you can do most anything you put your mind to; however, we have not had the same luck w/ FSBO. We listed the house on zillow.com–which is a GREAT site w/ a neat app that allows you to see all of the info on the house you are driving by!! You can see our home on zillow.com 12 S. Treasure Dr-33609 We have not tried craigslist yet–I agree that every tiny space has to be clean–I even used our car trunk to store misc. office clutter–that is basically the only space they do not look in! Thanks for sharing your experience…it makes me hopeful!
Jodie says
Not sure if you covered this elsewhere, but considering the current market I thought I’d ask if were you able to recoup for all you put into the place?
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Jodie,
We’re definitely planning a post about that soon!
xo,
s
Clara says
Hi guys, I just found HeyCraig, a website (in beta stage), where you enter an item you are interested in purchasing, your email, and location and HeyCraig will email you when items you want are available. Sounds pretty sweet. The url is http://heycraigapp.com.
I don’t endorse HeyCraig, just thought you could find it useful.
Clara
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks for the heads up Clara!
xo,
s
Crystal says
Hey guys!
You mentioned a few advertising methods that you used for your house, and I was wondering which ended up being the most successful? Like, how did the people who came and looked at your house find it? (not just the actual buyers, but the other people as well) Like was it through MLS, craigslist, the paper…? I’ve had my home listed now for 6 months with no one to even come and look at it, so I am certainly up for any and all advice!!
Thanks!!
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Crystal,
We wholeheartedly believe that the only reason we sold our house was because it was on MLS. Our buyer (and any and all other truly interested parties) came through MLS. It’s costly but it’s effective! As we mentioned in the post, we only had two showings before we listed it there, and over a dozen within a week or two of getting onto MLS. Good luck!
xo,
s
Laura says
I was wondering what was your first step? Hire the closing attorney? Did the attorney charge a flat fee?
Thanks
Laura
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Laura,
Yes, we hired the closing attorney pretty early on. He did charge a flat fee (whether someone was selling by owner or using a realtor, he still charges the same fee) and he gave us a great deal since we used him for the purchase of our new house and the closing of our old one. You always have lawyer fees worked in there at closing, but he helped us a ton so this time we really felt like they were money well spent!
xo,
s
Rachel says
Hey there! I just wanted to let you guys know that my husband and I just sold our home for sale by owner. We tried it without the MLS for a short period of time and after reading this post I purchased a local MLS listing from http://www.mlsmyhome.com.
We are in TN and the local company that took care of our listing was GREAT! However, now that the home is sold our agent has informed us the mlsmyhome.com has never paid them for our listing along with 3 others that were contracted out to their company.
We highly recommend using the MLS to list your home that you are selling yourself, seeing as ours sold almost immediately after that. However, next time I might use another source.
Just wanted to let you all know.
Thanks for all you guys do! I love the blog!
YoungHouseLove says
Woah that’s crazy! So glad your house sold and thanks for that info about your experience with mlsmyhome.com! Congrats on the sale though, that’s amazing!
xo,
s
kathy says
Can you explain a bit more how you kept your address private when listing your house for sale? What was the wording like on different sites? Would you recommend this route if you had to do it again?
Thanks so much!!
YoungHouseLove says
We obviously had a big “For Sale” sign in front of our house with fliers with our address since people who drove by already knew where we lived, but for most online listings we didn’t share our address (like craigslist or forsalebyowner.com for example) and just shared pics and info (square footage, etc) and said something like “house address will be provided after receiving a pre-approval letter” which kept people from just wanting a tour of our house who weren’t serious buyers (getting pre-approval usually means someone is actively searching and very interested). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Ashley K says
I know this is an old post, but we’re selling our house by owner and I took your advice and listed on MLSmyhome.com! I’m confused, though… did your listing automatically post to your local MLS or did you have to do something else? I entered everything in and then it dropped me off at what looked like an MLSmyhome website, but didn’t give any other instructions. Just wondered if I’m missing something! Thanks so much for an incredibly helpful (and entertaining) blog!
YoungHouseLove says
I remember that John called the number on the site with any questions and they were really helpful. Hope that works for you! And good luck with everything!
xo,
s
Hannah says
What steps do you take after finding the buyer and agreeing on a price? What costs are associated in closing for a FSBO seller?
Thanks!
YoungHouseLove says
You just have to pay a closing attorney (a fee you pay anyway on top of a realtor fee). And they can help you with a contract that you and the buyer sign to seal the deal. You can check out your local regulations and fees in your area though (they differ by location). Good luck!
xo,
s
Monica says
I’ve been dragging my feet for months on the sale of our house, but now I’m in mode, I can’t wait any longer. This article really helped me get off my butt, repriortize, and work on getting our house sold. Hope you don’t mind that I featured it on our blog.
http://decoratinginsanity.com/2011/07/08/selling-your-house-for-sale-by-owner/
xo,
mONICa
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Monica- off to check it out!
xo,
s
Suzy says
I also live in VA and I’m planning on selling my house by owner. Did you offer the buyer’s agent the full 3%?
YoungHouseLove says
When we listed on MLS we had the choice to select the amount for the buyer’s agent (none, 1%, 2%, 3%), we opted to allot the 3% (standard rate in our area) because we didn’t want agents to avoid showing our house to their clients. Sixteen showings and an offer later, we were certain that choosing 3% helped (a ton of agents came though, which we heard wasn’t always what happens with FSBO) so it was the right call for us!
xo,
s
Megan says
Did you consider using a FSBO website like forsalebyowner.com? We are considering this and I wondered why you didn’t mention that. It seems to make things easier, but am I misled?
YoungHouseLove says
We did use that for as long as a free trial (with the purchase of our for sale signs from
Home Depot)l lasted, but MLS brought us a lot more interest than forsalebyowner did. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Anna says
J&S – thanks for this post! My husband and I are about to try the “FSBO” thing… I’m totally up for saving a few thousand dollars we can put straight towards our down payment on the next house!
YoungHouseLove says
Good luck!
xo,
s
Alexandra says
I read this post before, and we had been humming and hahing, but rereading it has convinced me to go for it. Thanks for the link about the mls listing service, I did a search and found an equivalent for Canada. Yeah! Now to see how it works ….
http://www.isellmyhome.ca
YoungHouseLove says
Good luck!
xo
s
Melanie says
Hey Guys! I listed my house for sale with the same service you used and it is taking them FOREVER to get back in touch with me. I have emailed them and left two voicemails and my house still isn’t on MLS yet. Did you have the same problem with them?
YoungHouseLove says
Ugh, that stinks! Ours went up right away (well, probably 8 hours later or something) and they called us back on a Saturday when we called with a question. Here’s hoping you hear from them soon!
xo,
s
Kristin says
Oh no! I wish I would have read this comment 2 hours ago. I just listed with them too. I hope we don’t have any problems. YIKES!
YoungHouseLove says
Let us know if you have those issues for sure!
xo,
s
Izabela says
Hi Sherry and John!
Thank you for the inspiration! I am considering selling my home and have a hard time deciding on which online agency to use. Sounds like you used MLSmyhome.com and had a positive experience. Why did you decide to use them over other companies?
Thank you again!
Izabela
ps I can’t believe how much you were able to see during your short stay in Portland! I live here and could not cover such a large teritory in a just a few days. Bravo!
YoungHouseLove says
We heard from a friend who used them with success, so we just followed suit. It seemed to do the trick!
xo,
s
Betsy says
Thanks so much for this article. I bookmarked it in my head so I’d know where to look when we were ready to sell our house. Now we are ready and we’d love to try fsbo. I have a few questions for you. 1) what exactly did John do while showing the house? I don’t recollect seller’s agents being around to do anything when we bought our house. 2) would you mind sharing the contact info for your attorney? We are in Midlothian and would like to use someone that is knowledgeable about Fsbo. The what to do if we get an offer/closing is the scariest part of all of this to me. 3) any other local resources you recommend?
Again, thanks so much. Now I’m off to clean the windows! :)
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Betsy,
1) John just showed people around the house like any realtor would – answering questions about how old the roof/furnace/windows were, how much the utilities were to run the house, etc. 2) We’ll email you his info – we loved our closing attorney. 3) Our best resource by far was google and our closing attorney. Any questions we had along the way, we googled them and also ran them by him. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Ash says
I just wanted to add my two cents about our mlsmyhome.com experience… It’s been terrible!
We listed with them over a year ago and were never contacted by anyone. It took multiple emails and phone calls, but we finally got a hold of some guy there who agreed to pull our listing and refund us our money in full. After about a week… no refund. When we tried to contact him again, we got no response. We had to file a PayPal dispute to get our money back. In the meantime, we decided to stay put and totally pulled our house off the market.
Over a year later, we googled our address (come on, we’re not the only weirdos that do this, right?!) and found… Our listing on mlsmyhome.com! Still listed as active with our contact info, photos, the whole deal. We contacted mlsmyhome asking them to take everything down, like we assumed they’d done over a year ago!! This was several weeks ago, and we’ve had no response – they seem to have pulled our main listing, but the photo pages and “email this listing to a friend” pages are still there, and when I emailed myself the listing, it all came through!
After no contact, we filed a BBB complaint. MLS My Home told the BBB they had no record of us, which is a total lie given that our contact information is still publicly available on their website!! The BBB closed our complaint for that reason, and we’re in the process of reopening it. We’ve also filed a complaint with our state’s attorney general’s office.
All of this just to get our information off their website (hello, privacy?!) and for them to stop marketing our house?! It’s crazy! I’m so sorry for how long this is, but I hope it helps someone else avoid this sort of customer service nightmare!!
YoungHouseLove says
Oh my! That’s insane! I’m sorry to hear you’ve had such a bad experience with them Ash!
-John
Brittany Hamby says
I tried this same mlsmyhome.com After paying then $278, I never had my home listed on the websites they advertise they will use. I contacted them the past 4 months and no resolution. They say it can not be fixed due to a portal error and refuse a refund then hung up on me. I filed a complain with the BBB. I love FSBO and would recommend to save money but would NEVER use this company again. Otherwise, I adore these reccomendations and followed them all with positive feedback on my house :)
YoungHouseLove says
Wow- that stinks! Thanks for the tip Brittany! We will update our page to link to your concern so everyone can see it- maybe they have since changed hands in the year and a half since we used them?!
xo,
s
heyruthie says
I loved this post when you posted it, and I’m coming back to it, because I am *finally* ready to FSBO my own house.
Question: how did you come up with your initial (and subsequent) asking price? Did you just pick out what you wanted to get? Did you use Zillow? Did you have any agents come over and give an opinion? Prices have fluctuated WILDLY here in Northern Virginia, and my house is a different model than the others in my neighborhood.
YoungHouseLove says
Great question! We looked up similar comps and did our best not to price it too high. We heard a million times that starting with too high a price extends the process and can even cause people to pass it up completely and then it can be months before you get a sale. By pricing it competitively it really helped it sell (it was the best looking house at that cost, which we believe is why we sold our house as quickly as we did). Good luck Heyruthie!
xo
s
heyruthie says
Thank you, $herdog. I’m so grateful for your tips. I’m also grateful that I haven’t had any dreams lately where John called you “Pancake” as I self-consciously house-crashed your pad.
YoungHouseLove says
Hahahahah!
xo
s
Katy says
I never thought that I would be thinking about FSBO, but luckily I remembered that you guys did it and posted about it – weird that it’s been more than two years already!!
Anyway, here’s a random/somewhat specific question that I’m not sure where to find the answer to, so I figure I’d ask you guys: the buyers that we have most likely lined up for our house are our current next-door neighbors (they are renting) and the husband is a real-estate agent. Would we still pay him a buyer’s agent fee? Any info as to how I would be able to solve this pickle? It kind of feels like we’d be paying him to buy our house, ya know?
YoungHouseLove says
If you have indicated that you’ll pay a 3% buyers agent fee (for example, in your flier or listing on forsalebyowner.com) you definitely owe that to him if he’s acting as the agent. But if he’s just acting as the buyer, or you haven’t outlined that, I’m not sure what the protocol is. Maybe ask a local person (your closing attorney) to see what they say?
xo
s
Katy says
Thanks! That definitely helps! And kind of coincidentally crazy that I commented on this post about you selling your first house on the eve that you post about buying your next house! Congrats! I’m definitely looking forward to your remodel, since me and hubby are about to be wearing similar shoes!
Rebecka says
Hello! Long time reader of your blog. I know you all are busy but i had some questions if you have time. How did you handle the legal aspects of selling your house? Making sure documents were signed correctly, handling the closing and such? My husband and I would like to list our house FSBO but don’t even know where to start. Thanks!
YoungHouseLove says
In VA you still have to hire a closing attorney so they help with all of that! Hope it helps.
xo
s
carlos says
thanks for your comment very precise I’m sailing my apartment in new York city and the market is different compared to Florida were I sold my house we out realtor and saving money a good layer will do all legal paper ans save money.
my question is I found this page in internet http://www.mlsmyhome.com they ask you for $249.99 to post your home in the MLS for one year I will be my realtor myself and answers all telephone call to show the apartment, I will appreciate your opinion about this company and thanks for your time.
YoungHouseLove says
That’s the same site that we used in 2010 and it was great, but we have heard complaints from people who used them more recently, so maybe check the reviews or the Better Business Bureau rankings?
xo
s
Susan says
My daughter shared your site. Thank you for the great ideas. We are older, were you ever worried about people just “casing” your house for burglary ?
YoungHouseLove says
We had an alarm system so that helped. We also made sure people were preapproved by their bank (we asked to see their preapproval letter before the showing) so only serious buyers were passing through. Hope it helps!
xo
s