Starting a new chapter or ending one in your life can sometimes mean relocating elsewhere. When leaving your hometown or moving to an entirely new country, you would have to sell your house. However, all the steps you have to take and the extra cost can make you wonder, can I sell my home by myself?
Yes, you can! But It doesn’t come easy and requires a lot of time and effort to sell your house fast. There are several factors to consider if you plan on selling your house, and some of these include a little more than just putting a “For Sale” sign upfront.
What to Know About Selling Your Home
You can avoid paying a real estate commission
With a consistent fluctuation in the real estate market, second-guessing your decision to sell your home happens. However, keep in mind that you can avoid paying a real estate commission if you pull off a DIY sale.
In the US housing market, a 6% commission of the sale price you set your home at is given to an agent if you hire one. This actively illustrates that selling your home is simply a matter of cost. When you sell your house, you avoid taking out money from your home equity.
Trusted real estate sites can help you get an estimate for free
While you continue to ponder to yourself, “can I sell my home?” make it a point to streamline your research before determining your house’s market value. Check online if you can get at least an estimate of your property’s worth.
More often than not, many valuation calculators are free and give you a rough idea of how much you can leverage before staging your home. Some promising sites include Zillow or Trulia for a quick valuation.
Digital marketing tools can help get the word out
When you use social media and other networking sites to sell your home, it can help generate clout and receive queries from interested buyers. But the “For Sale” sign method still works, especially for significant properties.
According to Market Watch, the most effective way to sell your home by yourself is through yard sale signs at 35%, while classified ads on social media or real estate sites are effective by 11%.
Setting a neutral tone for the staging process
Although decluttering your entire home includes several rounds of replacing and repairing, there is still a need to strike a balance in the space. According to the National Association of Realtors’ 2017 staging report, the value of your home increases by 6% to 10% when the house is staged correctly. Real estate buyers often lean on the neutral interiors and minimalist touch of the space.
Going neutral in terms of the re-painting process can boost your chances of selling your home. Bright and bold colors may come off quite distracting. It also gives off a personalized touch and if you’re trying to create a balance of lived-in and clean, then neutral is the best way to go. Stick to colors like gray, white, cream white, and taupe to highlight a room’s potential.
Selling your home to a direct buyer can be a smart transaction
If you’re in a rush and busy accommodating a move to a new state or country, you tend to ask yourself, “where can I sell my home fast?” An option to consider is to sell your home via a reputable real estate buyer. These are usually medium to big companies that could buy your house for cash.
This type of exchange is usually done to fix or flip the space to sell to their clientele. Home cash buyers take houses “as-is,” which means you wouldn’t have to repair, stage, or show your home. This simple transaction translates to a cash offer that could benefit home sellers who are in a rush or detriment.
Housing Market Trends on For Sale By Owner (FSBO) in the US
49% of FSBO sellers are motivated by the money they would save than selling their home through an agent
FSBO sellers are the demographic of people who prefer to sell their own home without an agent’s help. They believe that they spend more money when availing of a real estate broker’s services. Most of these people surveyed were also willing to give up a substantial amount of their time to do the work to sell their own home.
Finishing the paperwork is an issue for people who sell their homes
One of FSBO sellers’ significant issues is gathering and submitting all the proper paperwork to make a sale. This is usually delayed by the process of finding the right home valuation. Selling your home can take time when you’re trying to make an objective pricing decision. Unfortunately, this leaves you with long hours of processing and sorting through paperwork.
You may have found a home buyer, but that means putting in a lot of time finalizing the sale through written contracts and getting the right permits to do so. Legally binding documents make the process even more tricky to handle because there will be delays that could extend or mess with your time frame of actually selling the property.
Homelight says that 18% of folks who have chosen to sell their homes have “insufficient knowledge of the paperwork.” This means that the most technical and trickiest part of closing a sale is often overlooked. Thus the 8% of FSBO seller rate for 2019 only rose by 1% compared to the previous year.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people sell their homes because there wasn’t enough room
According to recent statistics, selling behavior in US real estate massively switched due to the global pandemic. Before March 2020, when nationwide lockdown commenced in various parts of the US and the world, people sell houses due to a desire for proximity to their loved ones. After March of the same year, those who sell homes reported that 46% of the sellers deemed the reason to be urgent and claimed that their house was too small.
Homeowners were keener on selling homes on their own, using technology as a marketing tool. The boom of virtual tours populated the best real estate websites and posed an 11% increase in open houses in contrast to those who knew of the tactic before April 2020.
Strategize your Sale with Seeb Homes
If you’re up for it and would like to sell your home fast, then a great option is Seeb Homes. Finding the right buyer for your home can be done in four simple steps. Selling your home with Seeb Homes is quick, easy, and hassle-free, making the initial step a breeze.
We go through every factor that is looked into when selling or buying a home and if your house meets the criteria, expecting an appointment is the next step. All you have to do is wait for 24 hours! Seeb Homes is made up of real estate professionals who will help you streamline your home’s evaluation with a no-obligation cash offer. If we struck a deal, expect the cash in less than seven days; a win-win solution indeed!
Get Smart, Go Solo
Selling your home by yourself is completely doable, but it’s important to remember that a mentality that says “when I sell my home, I will save more money” is not always true. There are many loopholes and shortcuts that you cannot exactly take when you wish to sell your house. It’s a process that requires time, research, and proper strategizing that you can do with less hassle.
Besides, at the end of the day, buying a house is still one of the biggest investments we make in a lifetime. It’s best to do it right and play it smart.