How To Sell Your Own Home

Selling one's house for the right price and in the given time is one of the most important things in most people's lives. This is usually accomplished by hiring a real estate agent. There are many supposed good reasons for this:

1. Most agents are good salesmen who can sell a given house for a slightly higher price than one suspects.

2. The agent handles most of the legal and administrative tasks making it more convenient and time-efficient for the home owner.

3. The agent has many different connections and can get the house sold quickly.

Most of this is nothing more than myths and misconceptions that people have. The actual truth is slightly different:

1. The salesmanship required to sell a house is often overstated. In reality, people buy after careful observations. The negotiating power on the others side often negates any advantage with an agent anyway.

2. The primary reason most people think that the administrative tasks of selling a house are huge is simply of ignorance. Most people have little knowledge of what is actually involved and the fear of the unknown is what often causes them to overestimate the amount of work required.

3. The fact that agents have pertinent connections used to be the only good reason to request the services of an agent. However thanks to the Internet, things have changed drastically in this area as well. Anyone who is looking to sell their house can now go on to sites such as Homeonsale.co.uk and list their property. Not only this, but people have even used Craigslist and other websites to sell their property.

There are numerous advantages of selling one's house themselves:

1. The obvious savings on the sale. One can save fairly large sums of money by selling their house themselves. Consider just the standard 7% commission. On a $100,000 house, that's $7000. That's a fairly large sum.

2. Taking your time and more personal choice. Selling one's house themselves allows the seller to select a buyer in a more personal manner. This is important if the house has some sentimental value attached to it.

3. It's a whole lot easier, more convenient, and everything happens as per your schedule!

The primary issue with selling the house yourself is generating enough interest in the house. Everything else just follows once you have sufficient number of buyers interested in it. So this should be one's primary goal when trying to sell the house.
First, the basics:

Get a 'For Sale' sign and put it in your yard in a busy and clearly visible location. Try to make it as professional as possible and put a number on there. It is better to not say 'For Sale By Owner' on the sign so as to not lose any possible interest. Put a phone number on there, and if possible, get a 3-4 letter email address and put it on there too (such as XXXX@gmail.com).

List your house for sale at prominent websites such as Homes on Sale. Some other places where you could advertise are Craigslist, USFreeads and some others.

Keep your house in a 'staged' state at all times (reference the video below for more information.)