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Sell Your Own House

101 Tips for selling your own home ... without resorting to property managers or real estate agents!

articles and information about real estate and property investment.

Below are the topics covered in this article

Selling Your Own House - An Introduction
Knowledge is Power When Selling Your Own Home
Know Your Area/Community
Know Your Home
Your Motives for Selling your Own House
Getting Serious and Getting Ready To Sell Your Own House
Letting the Word Out: “I’m Selling my House!”
Showing Your Home To Prospective House Buyers
Selling Houses: Negotiations, Settlement and Contract 63
Selling Your Own House - Conclusion

Selling Your Own House - An Introduction

So….you’d like to sell your house? Great! Everyone’s doing it. But this is your first time and you’ll be doing the sale yourself. Nervous? Of course!

The fact is, it’s only unnerving because you haven’t got a clue about the dynamics of selling a house – your house. It’s the one asset you have where you’ve plunked down your lifetime savings. Now you want it all back!

That equity you were slowly building over these years will come back to you a hundredfold because you’ve thought about it long enough to realize that there is a handsome profit waiting to be made.

Don’t worry! This episode in your life doesn’t need to be a drama of horrors. In this article series, we’ve collected important tips for you – the first timer - all 101 of them, in fact.

And when that check finally lands on your hands and the last box has been shipped out of your house to make way for the new owners, it will be exhilarating – more exhilarating than you’ve ever imagined it to be.

Study the tips. Some you already know, no doubt. But even with 101 or 1001 tips, you’d still need professional advice – you managed to eliminate the real estate agent, but you’ll still need your lawyer (or notary) and your accountant.

You need to consult with other professionals as well – like the professional house inspector who can dish out valuable advice about repairs and maintenance.

These tips can help you map out a selling strategy for your house, and when you turn the lock for the last time, you’ll come out of the experience wiser. And yes, wealthier, too.

The confidence you gain by getting your feet wet the first time could – who knows? – make you want to do it the second time, and then a third time…and more!

Selling Real Estate - The Buyer Pool

Knowing the types of buyers in the market will help your position as a seller!

The phrase “buyer pool” refers to those people who are interested in buying a certain piece of property in a certain location at a certain price. This is the group that you, as a seller, should focus on. The buyer pool is different from the bunch of mere onlookers or “prowlers” who like to spend Sunday afternoons looking into the homes of other people.

As you gain experience in this field, you’ll almost instantly be able to tell the genuine buyers from the speculators (or the people who are just bored and like looking at real estate…and yes, there are some of them out there).

Bill Effros, in his great book How to Sell Your Home in 5 Days, says the profile of a buyer pool will change constantly. Some buyers may decide eventually to purchase a home elsewhere, some get frustrated and leave the pool; still others decide they want to buy and therefore stay in the pool.

The buyer pool is made up of different types of buyers – bear in mind that some buyers are looking for homes NOT to live in, but to invest in.

You will typically encounter a mix of the following types of buyers:

End buyers: buyers who will live in the home.
Professional buyers – these include real estate brokers, builders who want to develop real estate in your location, speculators (quick cash wheelers and dealers) and developers looking to buy strictly for the land value. Effros says not to be afraid of professional buyers. If circumstances warrant, they could offer the best price for your house, given their cash reserves.
Cash buyers – this is the group to whom you can consider giving a discount because you do away with the lending and mortgage nitty gritty that could take weeks, even months. Cash is king, so flexibility in negotiating price is not a bad idea.
Mortgage buyers – since majority of people can’t buy homes for cash, they borrow the funds to acquire possession of a piece of property. They fall into two groups:

the pre-qualified ones (those who have started the process and have discussed preliminary details with the bank);
pre-approved mortgage buyers (the bank has made a commitment to lend them a specific amount of money under certain terms and conditions).

Source: Bill Effros. How to Sell Your Home in 5 Days. Workman Publishing, New York, 1998.

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