Selling Your Home Yourself

There are both good and bad things about selling your own home.  Of course--done right--you stand to save quite a bit of money when it comes down to it.
 

But to be an effective home seller, you will need to have as much knowledge as possible about the process and what to do to make sure it happens. 

Here are some things to think about:

The Disadvantages

Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first.  Here are some of the disadvantages of selling your home yourself.

• You don’t have a lot of feedback about how long it will take your home to sell, how much it will sell for, or what will work the very best at making your home sell.  You have only your instincts to go with and what you can learn.
  
  
• You will need to invest in selling a home.  You will need to market and advertise your home.  There are some excellent helpful solutions offered on the web to help you, but you still need to put in a few dollars to insure people know your home is for sale.

• You will not have your home listed in the MLS (Multiple Listing Service), which is a tool that allows agents and buyers to know that your home is for sale.  It is generally the location that people go to find out which homes are out there.  However, you can pay to have your home included here, if you would like to.
  
• Did you price it right?  While many believe their home is worth more than it is, you may not know what to really charge for your home.  There are resources to help you offered on the web, but you’ll need to do your own leg work here.

Here's a good article on the disadvantages of selling a home yourself ,and the advantages of selling thru a licensed realtor. (Of course, it's probably a little biased towards using a realtor because a real estate agent wrote the article! :-) 

The Advantages

• You don’t have to pay anyone 4, 5,  6, 7% or more to sell your home.
  
  
• You get to make all the calls and are in complete control of the situation.
  
  
• You get to determine when showings are, when people can come to see the home and you will be able to show your home yourself.  (You can tell some happy stories of your time living there and some good "hidden" features that only you may know.  This can put a warm feeling about the house into your prospects' minds.)  
  
  
• There are many services out there now to help you sell your own home.  These services range from a downloadable checklist for about $50 to $450 for a listing in your local MLS--including yard signs and other helpful things--to services that are "For Sale With Owner."

The "For Sale With Owner" services still handle most of the work for you for only about 3% of the list price instead of 5% - 7%.  "HelpUSell" is a service that has locations in many states that provides these services. 

It is becoming easier and easer to list and sell your home yourself.  There are many online resources set up just for helping you.  If you are the type of person who has enthusiastically tackled doing your own taxes before, then maybe you are a good candidate to tackle selling your home yourself. 

Determine if selling your own home is right for you.  Weigh these options carefully to make the right choice.