DH and I are preparing to put our house on the market in the very near future. We are not in a position where we must sell. Family circumstances dictate that an out of state move would be beneficial for everybody. We would very much like to sell on our own and will post informational flyers & signs, along with a couple of web listings.

We have the following statement on the information flyers:

"Prequalified buyers please call for an appointment."

With the mortgage mess this country is in, we don't want to waste our time or the time of anybody else who
isn't able to provide documentation proving they can afford the loan. We realize there is potential to offend people with that statement, but we want somebody who can come in, do the deal and allow us to go.

Any suggestions on the do's and don'ts of selling on your own would be greatly appreciated.

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I want to keep ALL of my paycheck and eliminate the pyramid scheme known as Social Security (there is no lockbox ). Do you want the same thing? www.fairtax.org

Once you have a buyer, make sure you have a written contract "sold as is" and there is "no warranty". My DH and I sold our first house and we spoke to a realtor friend and she told us to do this. That way, should something go wrong-the ceiling leak, the air/heat breaks down, etc-you are not liable. You have it in writing that the buyer bought it "as is" and there is no warranty on any part of the house.

As for selling it--it took us awhile to sell it and it was a seller's market then! It was a pain organizing the showings. We just ran an ad in the paper and set up times. A couple of people couldn't get loan approval so the prequalified buyer requirement is an excellent idea! It's alot easier with a realtor but so much more expensive! Good luck and hope you get a buyer soon!

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Mom to a beautiful 15 year old DD and my handsome little man who's 6!

~~~GO DALE JR!!~~~

Exposure will be the key to selling your home. Is there a FSBO site that offers multi-listing exposure so prospective buyers can view your home on the computer?

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I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!

We plan to use kijiji.com and a local free listing site, which will be available to online users. I'm really reluctant to put an ad on craigslist. A neighbor has successfully and safely bought/sold/traded lots of stuff from there, but with our luck, we'd get the next serial killer. Our house is located on a corner that gets a lot of neighborhood traffic which we hope will help, too.


pugsly1234.........excellent suggestion about no warranty/buy as is. We certainly don't want to deal with any legal issues when we move. I hadn't thought about that, so thank you!

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I want to keep ALL of my paycheck and eliminate the pyramid scheme known as Social Security (there is no lockbox ). Do you want the same thing? www.fairtax.org

we sold our first home ourselves -
the buyers were using a GI loan - We were stuck paying for parts of the closing - wished we would have known more - not sure I would sell to someone with that type of loan again

You might consider springing for a home inspection to show prospective buyers. They will want their own if they decide to buy, but this way they have two to compare and will perhaps feel better about the "as is" part of the deal. It will also give you a heads up to things that you can easily fix that you might not be aware of.

Craigs list can be great. My daugher has a house in Mesa and we are in St. Louis. When it came up for rent last time, we had many more responses from Craig's list than we did from the ad in the Arizona Republic. Something like only two out of ten responses were from the newspaper ad. It may not work as well on houses for sale but it can't hurt. Craigs list may also open it up to people who may be moving to your area from out of state. I set up an email address on yahoo and checked it several times a day. That way your regular email address is not posted anywhere and it keeps all the email about the house in one place.

Be sure and tell everyone you talk to about the house. Your dentist's receptionist or your hairdresser may have someone who is looking for something just like what you are selling. Carry fliers to give to those interested. Post them on bulletin boards at the grocery store etc. This happened to me when my brother was selling his house. The dentist's receptionist had someone who was interested and so did a friend of ours. They didn't end up buying but they did go look.

There use to be a FISBO listing site online so people could look at houses in the new area they were moving to.

I was watching Flip This House last night. The home on the show was brought off Craigs list.

Good luck on the sell of your home.

We've sold a coupla houses in the past 30 years by ourselves.
Biggest pita about this is the looky loos - unqualified buyers and folks just wanting to get a look at what you have on the market. Second biggest pita was answering and returning the phone calls. Third biggest pita was folks who made appts. to look at houses and never showed up.
Bite the bullet and get yourself an 800# for folks to call who are interested, and create an e-mail account just for the house sale.
Make sure you advertise for *only* pre-qualified buyers. And when they say they are, get the contact person w/their bank or mortgage co. to make sure they *are* pre-qualified.
MZ

FYI prequalified is not the same as preapproved. If I call the mortgage company and they ask me what is my income and assets and I give them numbers and they approve me based on that, I am prequalified. I am not preapproved until I submit all the supporting documentation.
Point being, just because someone is prequalified does not mean they will get the loan. It is a great filter, but if someone signs a contract I would get proof shortly thereafter that they are actually preapproved.

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Raising my baby RIGHT!!!!!!

All the cool babies are wearing cloth!

make sure you put it on the MLS. When DH and I were looking for homes, we just looked at the MLS ourselves. I think here it costs $500 to put it there. That way realtors AND individuals can see it. You don't want to limit yourself to just people looking without a realtor. Most people use one.

Good luck! Houses around here can sit on the market for a year or more WITH a realtor (and in a good area) so luck be with you!

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Proud to say I haven't shopped at a Wal-Mart since Sept 2003

Tessa67 posted:
>>>FYI prequalified is not the same as preapproved<<<

Absolutely! I stand corrected. Make sure your looky-loos are *pre-approved*, it'll save you a lot of headaches.
BTDT.
MZ

We sold our home 3 years ago by ourselves (well, I am the one that showed it, etc., so basically I guess I sold it). Truthfully, I don't think we will do that again. We sold it in a little over 2 weeks too. It was CRAZY to say the least. People would pull up outside and call, asking to come in to see the house, even though we had by appointment only on the flyers, etc. I even showed it one time to a couple that I'm pretty sure was only interested in what prescription drugs I had in the home and not the house itself (a realtor friend later told me that is a major problem they run into and if they suspect that a client is just looking to get a feel for the prescriptions they stick to them like glue--there is a huge oxycotin, etc. problem these days apparently). You have NO idea who is coming in and out of your home; I guess you can ask for id, but I don't know how that would go over with prospective buyers. Looking back, I would not show the house alone again at all. Make sure you only show it when you have another adult there, you just never know these days. You may even want to print up some extensive flyers and take them around to realty offices; I did that and it did bring in some realtors (actually a realtor is who purchased our home in the end). I would get a market analysis done by a couple realtors before you put it on the market though just to be sure you are in the right 'ballpark' pricewise. Here they will do that for free; you don't have to tell them you are considering FSBO. You can actually use this as a screening process for a good realtor down the road as a large majority of FSBO properties eventually become listed with a realtor. They will call you though, so that's a judgment call whether you want to do that or not. I would also pay for an appraisal right before you list it. You might even have your own home inspection done so you know if someone is trying to cheat you when that process comes. Before you list your home, make sure the county has the paperwork on your home correct. Make sure they have the square footage of the house correct for sure. We ran into a problem with that as the county had our house listed as about 200 sq. feet smaller than it was (the builder listed it wrong when he built our house). We saved all those years in taxes but it did hurt us when we sold somewhat.

All in all I don't really think we saved much not using a GREAT realtor. We might have even gotten a few thousand more for our house. Hard to say. It all may just have been because we were 'up against' a realtor that knew the ropes well, and we of course did not have that kind of knowledge. However, most buyers WILL bring a realtor as an agent for them, so you will be in the same situation FSBO unless of course you have the equal amount of knowledge as a realtor. I personally can now see the very reality that a realtor could easily take advantage of anyone selling FSBO. I can say that it was all a lot of stress. You are there when strange people are looking over your house, making comments about it, etc. Be prepared for the bad along with the good remarks and try not to take them personally. If you can update anything in your home at all, do it, even if it's just a light fixture or two. Paint the house, box up all personal items and store them along with clutter in a rented storage building. Sorry this is so long, I tried to list the more memorable moments. HTH.

The house has been completely painted; exterior and interior. The clutter and things we don't use right now have been boxed up and put in storage. I've been touching up the woodwork, washing/waxing cabinets, etc. I know it needs to sparkle and shine. We opted to leave everything off the walls after we painted inside. It doesn't give us a very lived in look, but thought interested parties might like the opportunity to start fresh and put their own nail holes wherever they wanted without having to patch/paint ours.

Our house is considered a starter home and the market for those in our area remains fairly solid. I don't expect to get asking price, but I don't think we'll struggle as much as folks who live in $200k+ homes. It will take time and we aren't opposed to the realtor idea down the road.

Thanks to everybody for the suggestions. Hadn't thought about some of those things and they are imperative to include in our gameplan.

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I want to keep ALL of my paycheck and eliminate the pyramid scheme known as Social Security (there is no lockbox ). Do you want the same thing? www.fairtax.org

I would also suggest taking one of those three hour courses on "how to sell a house" and "how to buy a house". I have bought and sold several houses over the years and I still learned some things. The courses I took were through the local jr college but I have seen others advertised by lenders. I think the course I took was also by a mortgage broker. It made some of the terms easier to understand. And, I do remember that they suggested having a home inspection ($100 - $300) on display along with pictures of the house and yard in different seasons. I had a friend who showed the house herself and I would definitely vote on having another adult with you who "just happens" to have a cell phone in his/her hand. Another idea I heard was if you are alone- answer the door with a phone in your hand. Tell the phone, "oh the next couple is here. PAUSE Oh, don't worry they look really nice. PAUSE OK, their license number is XXXXX". And, lastly, those flyers in a box in the front yard. I love those. I can tell by the floorplan whether I am interested or not. When you list give really detailed description. there is no sense wasting your time. And, lstly, strip the bathroom of anything more medicinal then toothpaste.

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Lyn Clarke