For a new seller selling a house as a FSBO, setting a fair and just price on your home to sell quickly and without hassle is the most important, and most often failed at, part of selling your home. FSBO sellers often overprice their homes, leaving them with dealing with potential buyers for months when all they wanted was a quick sale. Often times, this is what causes a FSBO seller to go to a real estate agent, who will suggest that they reduce the price. So now on top of the fact that the real estate agent gave you advice you could have thought of yourself, now you have to pay the agent's fees on top of that.
In order to avoid that situation, and to save you money, you need to make an informed decision on just how much your home can sell for by doing your homework. Buyers who are looking for FSBO houses is because they already don't want to deal with a real estate agent, and they're under the impression that they'll get a better deal on a home that way. It's your job to show that difference to the potential buyers, which will give you a quicker sale, and make both the buyer and the FSBO seller happy.
In pricing your home for sale, there are many different ways that you can go about making sure that your price is competitive and worth taking a look at. First off, most people base their price on comparable home sales in your specific area. Obtaining a list of houses that were sold in the last six months in your area gives you a good starting point in pricing your home. You can compare the features of your home, location, age and condition of your home to others that sold, and figure out just where your home lies in comparison.
Doing a little comparison shopping on your own helps out as well. Take some weeks to go around your immediate area and check out the open houses for houses that compare directly to yours. See how much their homes are going for, and check out the features of their homes. Keep notes on each, and then after visiting a few of them, compare notes on them all. This will give you another side to competitive pricing in that you can see just how much homes are currently selling for, even if they haven't sold yet. You might be able to fluctuate your prices more evenly when comparing them to what's currently selling.
Another way to set your price is by getting a desk appraisal done. A desk appraisal is done by a certified agency, and they pull comparable houses who have closed sales in your area and figure out the value of your home from there. The desk appraisal usually will set you back around $60, but you'll get a certified document stating the fair market value so you have something in writing to show off to potential buyers.
If you're not getting the results you want from those choices, you can choose to have a formal appraisal done by a licensed appraiser. They will come to your home and run a multitude of checks on it, including measuring the correct home and lot size, inspect the house, take pictures of various items they find in the house, all to be able to delegate an actual market value. The cost of this can range from $300 to around $600, but this will give you a deeper assessment of your home's fair market value, and will also supply you with a document stating what that is in detail.
One final way to assess your home's current market value is to go to a real estate agent in your area and have them do a Comparative Market Analysis for you. FSBO sellers will definitely want to use this as a last resort because even though you'll get accurate information, you'll definitely feel pressured to sell through a real estate agent. But if you're not happy with the value assessments that you received from the other options, having an agent do a CMA is a way to go.
Even after getting your range of values, you still need to set your fair market asking price. In a fast market where houses are selling within 2 months, you can expect to get around what your asking price is. But in general, when the market is stagnant, you'll probably get around 10% of your fair market asking price. So be sure to set your price on the high end of your house's market value if your house is deemed in great condition compared to houses in your area for sale, but on the other side, you want to set your price on the low end of the fair market value if some parts of your house needs work, doesn't show as well as the other houses in your immediate area, or if you know that the housing market is slow. This way, you'll be able to maximize your profits, and sell your house as quick as possible, all still without needing a real estate agent.
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