Home For Sale By Owner – Setting Your Price
Jul 11th, 2009 by master
Correctly pricing a property is one of the most difficult aspects of selling your home yourself.
You obviously want to maximize your profits but you also don’t want to price too high because then you will find yourself with little interest in your house.
For homes for sale by owner, this task can seem even more daunting since there is no realtor to help. However, there is much you can do in finding the proper price for your home.
The best thing to do when pricing an FSBO home is to compare it with comparable properties on the market. The key here, of course, is to try to find homes which are as similar as possible to yours which have recently sold or are currently on the market. You will want to make sure, of course, that homes are in the same, or at least in a similar, neighborhood, before you even look at anything else.
Getting Facts on Other Houses on the Market
When putting up a house for sale by owner, make sure you get relevant information for home pricing. There are several ways to go about getting information on homes. For example, you can simply look through the classifieds, or the real estate listings distributed by agents. You can even check out FSBO web sites and other locations for homes in your area which are currently on the market.
In many areas, you can also find information on recent real estate transactions at City Hall. This can be a good way to find out about homes sold in your area. If you are willing to spend a bit of money, you can even hire a real estate estimator, however most private real estate sellers choose to determine pricing on their own.
Comparing Properties
When comparing houses to yours, there are a few things you will want to check. First off is the square footage. You should look at the area not only of the home itself, but of the entire lot.
Then factor in the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Once again, you should look at the square footage of these rooms. If the houses are similar in overall size, however, the size of individual bedrooms and bathrooms should be similar.
Have you done any extensions to your kitchen or bathrooms? Compare this to other houses that are selling. If you have upgraded your kitchen or the bathrooms, you will need to take that into account for homes that have not, since that will allow you to boost your price to some extent.
To finish you should look at the overall condition of the home. Is it in good repair? What is the state of the landscaping? How much curb appeal does it have?
The more homes similar to yours you can look at, the better. That will allow you to make an informed decision about the asking price for your home. Get the facts about competing homes for sale in your area – then set your price accordingly. Even if you can’t find homes similar to yours, you can still determine whether you ought to go higher or lower based on what you see.
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