How to Sell a House Without a Realtor

guys it is freezing here in Southeast Idaho like I'm trying to do everything that I can to grasp on to just that little last bit of summer but I know it's slipping away like I've I've got my slippers on if it'll focus maybe it won't focus anyway there we go focus I've got slippers on and I've tried to like add some greenery to the office to make it feel just like a little bit warmer but it's it's slipping away pretty quick but that is not what we're talking about today today we're actually talking about how to sell a house without a realtor it sounds really complicated it sounds really confusing but I promise it's not in 2018 my wife and I sold our very first house and being the numbers guy that I am I quickly pulled out my calculator I ran some numbers and I found that if we didn't use a realtor to sell the house we would save seven thousand dollars now I don't know about you but to me seven thousand dollars that's a lot of money but the other thing we had to decide was if $7000 was worth all the effort of doing all of the work involved with selling the house going into it we fully understood that we were gonna have to get market analysis completed we were gonna have to stage the house photograph it list it and market ourselves deal with Realtors schedule multiple showings keep the house spotless during all of this time we were going to have to negotiate various offers right counters offers deal with inspections and bank appraisals file legal documents work with the title company and a ton more now if all of this sounds intimidating it is and and selling the house for sale by owner or Fizbo as some people call it then that it may not be for you but here's the thing it's really not that bad if I've been able to keep your attention this long it probably means that you're ready to go down the Fizbo route so that's exactly what we're gonna do I'm gonna go step by step and talk about how to sell your house without a realtor this is going to be a very detailed video a very long detailed video and so if you want to skip certain parts down in the description below I'm gonna timestamp each individual section so you can skip all of my blabbering if you want and get just to the specific part that you want so without further ado let's get right into it too step number one which is fixing up the house you know that super long list of house projects that your wife has been bugging you about for the last six months now is the time to do all of those things on that list but as soon as possible we were so anxious to get our house up on the market but we realized it just wasn't in the best shape yet to be ready to sell it we spent almost every single night after work fixing up the house and oftentimes entire days on the weekends just doing all the different little things that we needed to do I mean we were replacing dented pieces of trim we were pulling weeds in the yard we were painting and puttying holes and all the walls I mean just a little Nicks and dings that were kind of an eyesore to other people if we want to make sure all of that got done now the key here when you're fixing everything up the the idea is not to go overboard here you want to fix the immediate little things that you know people are gonna notice right away when they walk into your house but you don't you don't need to go crazy here's here's something that I recommend if you don't feel that you can accurately tell what people are gonna find is kind of a negative or a con for your house so what I recommend is getting a friend and have them take a notepad and have them walk through your house and write down every little thing that they see and kind of catches their eye as an eyesore now I know this might be kind of hard for someone to go through your house and talk about everything bad with your house but I guarantee that when you're selling your house is really difficult to separate yourself emotionally and so if you can have somebody come in tell them to be brutally honest with you and marked out all the little things that they see then you're gonna have a lot better idea of what prospective buyers are going to be seeing at the same time step number two is to get something called a comparable market analysis or a CMA what this is is it's just a report that goes through and tells you what your house is worth compared to other house is in your area and typically it's a really small area like like the street that you live on and maybe two or three streets away just what the the home prices are doing in that specific area real estate prices are hyper local so we don't really care about what home prices are doing across town or what you know your your best friend a mile or two miles away sold their house for what we care about is the housing prices in your specific neighborhood because they do vary that widely all too often I see Fizbo sellers not do CMAs and they just list their house for whatever they think it's worth and not what it's actually worth see people get so attached to their homes like they're so emotionally invested in it that they list it super high and then it sits on the market forever and they wonder why their house doesn't sell and the longer the house sits on the market the more people think something's wrong with that house it's been sitting on the market for four months and it's not sold yet so CMAs are super important and they're totally free and they can be done by any real estate agent now you might be asking yourself ho hold on a second I thought we weren't using a realtor and you're right we're not but a CMA can be done by any realtor and they're happy to do it for you because they're hoping that eventually you'll change your mind and you'll actually list your house with them so what I want you to do is to call up several probably ten to twelve different realtors in your area and ask for a CMA and be very very clear and specific with them and tell them that you are not interested in listing with them you're only looking for a CMA the other thing we want to do is we want to make sure that we don't rely on a single CMA like I said when we listed our house we got 10 to 12 different quotes from different Realtors the very first CMA that came in was $15,000 lower than all of the other CMAs if we had just relied on that one CMA we would have left a ton of money on the table so make sure that you get multiple step number three is to stage the house now there is no way that I can cover all the aspects of staging a home in just a short video like this in fact would probably require a super-long entire video all by itself plus there are probably infinitely better videos that I could ever do talking about the subject of stage in your house but the point that I really want to get across is just to clear the clutter clear all of the crap out of your house you just want to get everything really minimal really clean and plain-jane so get rid of everything on kitchen counters just leave the bare essentials get rid of coffee pots move toasters off of the countertops get rid of your KitchenAid I mean if you need to put these things in the pantry or even take them off-site temporarily if you have to in bathrooms you want to make sure that you get everything off the cameras as well get rid of toiletries get rid of hair dryers and toothbrushes just clear the counter so they're super super clear it really opens up the space when people walk in and they don't see all this clutter it really makes a world of difference the other thing that I want to say is make sure that you get rid of all of the really personalized decorations in your house like you take down any huge family portraits sitting on your wall or remove any you know really it's really popular right now those big signs will look like you're your family's last name on the wall get rid of all of that stuff when people walk into your home they want to envision themselves living there and it's really hard to do that when your family photo is staring them in the face whenever you can try and really brighten up the rooms try and lighten them up as much as you can so pull back the shades pull back the blinds turn on all of the lights whenever people are there make sure that you add lamps if there's any like corners of the house that seem really dark because the the darker the space the the tinier and the smaller it feels again you don't have to go crazy here just the general rule is to clear the clutter remove a lot of decorations if you can just make it the bare essentials and you'll be just fine step number four is photography now I cannot stress this heavily enough to you but you cannot under any circumstances use your cell phone to take your own photos I realize that the whole point we're trying to sell our homes by ourselves is to save money but the photography is not the place to do that so take take a look at these photos right here just a quick 30 second search on Zillow and and I'll show you exactly what I mean as I'm looking at these pictures there is a dead giveaway that one of these some of these pictures were taken just by somebody with their cell phone and it's it's this guy right here like the first thing that pops up is a picture of their stairs cool your house has stairs I got really sets itself apart and I mean as I as I look through these pictures I just can't help but think like they're super grainy it's super closed off they're super dark and then I get to this picture you own a fish tank maybe that comes with the house I don't know I I think you probably get the idea of what I'm getting at right here like do not use your cell phone even if you're good at taking pictures I don't I don't care hire a professional to pay for some really good pictures you could easily be in the three to four hundred dollar range but like I said this is the best money that you will ever spend pay the money and you won't regret it step number five is to finally list your home we are finally to the fun part we get to list the house now is the time to get your house out to as many listing websites as possible that means Zillow Facebook Craigslist any anything that you can think of just to get the house out there onto the market the first thing that you'll need to do is get a property description so start combing through Zillow just to kind of get an idea of what people are saying about their houses you want to go through and you want to list all the unique things about your house that that really sets it apart do you have do you have a deck on the back or do you have vaulted ceilings in the living room whatever it is that really makes sure how stand out be sure to mention those in the description but even more important than the description itself are two things that I'm gonna highlight on the screen you'll see a copy of the exact description that we use when we sold our house but that's not the most important thing pay attention to the very first two lines of the description so first we want to specifically clarify in our listing that buyers agents are welcome whoa whoa over there Bryce I thought we weren't using Realtors you're right we are not but 95% of the buyers out there will be using Realtors whenever you're a buyer you actually don't pay the the realtor Commission's all of the Commission's for the realtor how they get paid is when the property itself sells the seller will pay the Commission's for both your Realtor and their realtor if they use one if we don't offer some sort of compensation for the buyer's realtor they'll actually shy their client away from showing your house even if it would be perfect for them because they're not gonna get paid why why would they do work if they're not gonna get paid the the second thing that you'll want to note is actually your phone number make sure that that's in the description itself I mean yeah you want you want people to know how to get a hold of you but this actually helps you in more ways than one look look at look at this Fizbo listing so in this listing the people forgot to put their phone number in the description if if we scroll all the way down all the way down till oh we'll put the homeowner's phone number as the very last contact on the listing the very last one they put all of these other phone numbers in here then make it look like they're the people representing the house but they're they're not these these are actually paid advertisements from real estate brokers in the area to be listed in in that slot and the sad thing is that it works yours is the very very last phone number here and so obviously it's going to get looked over once we finally list a house we've got the property description we've got your contact information you're ready to go your listing is finally officially out there step number six is to be dealing with realtors within two to three days or maybe even less you're gonna start getting phone calls from realtors but sadly these are not the phone calls that you're looking for these aren't the droids you're looking for these are gonna be realtors who are hoping that they can list your home with them so that they can earn a commission when we listed our house we probably had half a dozen Realtors call us and they tried to use all these scare tactics that said hey did you know that nine hundred and forty two percent of all real estate lawsuits begin with for sale by owners right like I said it's just a scare tactic all these agents want is a commission just politely tell them that you're fine you're gonna try and sell it yourself and that if for some reason you can't sell it yourself then maybe you'll consider listing with them sooner rather than later you will finally start to get phone calls trickling in with people who actually want to show your house to their clients set up a time with them where they can bring their client over to your house show them the property but make sure that you do it within 24 hours or so if you can anything longer than 36 hours and it's likely that the buyers will move on to a different property they you know you want to get them in the front door as fast as you can so that they don't move on to other listings when you show your home it is common practice for you as the homeowner not to be there during the showing as long as they've got a realtor with them the realtor will walk through through the house and they'll feel a lot more comfortable without you there hovering over them they want to be able to do whatever they want they want to look at the house without feeling rushed or judged or what at you they want to be able to say whatever they want and just look at the house you know at their own leisure to make this process easier what we did was we went to Lowe's or Home Depot we bought a little lockbox and we put a spare key in there and then we put the lockbox on the front door whenever a realtor calls you to set up a showing and just give them the code to the lockbox set up a time and then be sure to be gone before they show up step number seven finally are the offers the offers will start to come in when you have a buyer that comes back two or even three times to look at the house you know that they're interested and you know that an offer is probably right around the corner looking over an offer is pretty straightforward a realtor will probably send you an email and in it will be the offer they'll send you the purchase price and any concessions which means anything that the buyers want included in in the sale of the house and typically that's things like appliances or maybe some decorations maybe there's a fancy clock on the wall that they really love you can group that into the contract if you want at this point you can choose to either accept or counter the offer and I would say that in almost every single case you should almost always counter their first initial offer the initial offer is just a good starting point and I'll probably take two to three counters back and forth to get things right back where you want to be and so that both parties are happy after both you and the buyers hash out all of the details and come to an agreement you will finally sign something called a purchase and sale agreement what this is is just a legal document that has the purchase price any of the contingencies and other things in that agreement and then that gets sent over to the title company the bank and anybody else who needs it to help with the transaction of the deal oh all right even even I'm getting tired we're so close to the end but step number eight is the inspection and the appraisal in most cases the buyer has 10 business days to schedule an inspection with a property inspector what they'll do is they'll set up a day and a time and inspector will come over to your house typically when you're not there look at everything in the property they're gonna make sure that the plumbing is in good you know in good shape the electrical is in good shape the roof doesn't have any problems the foundation isn't crumbling it's just a routine check of everything so that the buyers know that they're getting a good house in good condition and even if the house is in perfect condition you'll almost always get a couple inspection items come back I mean the inspector has to show that he's kind of done his job and just find at least a few things that he recommends to the buyers to potentially fix so just be aware of that know that you probably will have two to three things to fix and that's that's just to be expected during about the same time that the inspection is going on the bank will probably order an appraisal all this is is just a person - that comes out to the property they look at the house and they just want to make sure that the money that the bank is lending the buyers that the house is worth the amount of money that they're loaning to them so they don't want to loan two hundred thousand dollars to these buyers when the house is on they're worth a hundred and fifty thousand all it is is just a safeguard to the bank that says that the money that they're loaning it is worth the value of the house both of these expenses both the inspection and the appraisal they're covered by the buyer but it is just a slight inconvenience because you'll have to figure out a day at a time that works with your schedule for these guys to come over and look at the house step number nine is the title company typically if you have a buyer with a buyer's agent they take care of all of the title work for you but the title company is actually the most important part they're the one that actually facilitates the transaction of the deal and the moving of all the funds from you know all the different parties involved they also make sure that everything gets recorded properly everything gets filled out properly they make sure the deed to the property gets signed properly and they also make sure that all of the the county documents are signed properly and filled out and sent to the county recorders office to be stored there and recorded and finally step 10 the last step to all of this is the closing process typically about 30 days after you sign the purchase and sale agreement you'll set up a time to go and sign documents at the title company both you and the buyers typically different times but on the same day we'll go and you'll sign a bunch of papers both of you guys are going to leave with carpal tunnel after signing all these papers but you're gonna hand over the keys to the house and they're gonna and over a check for the sale of the house and then but that's it you're done once you have your check in hand and the documents are recorded at the county the house is no longer yours and you're good to go ooh okay I even I'm tired that is a long long process but I promise you it's not as daunting as it sounds there's a lot of steps involved but if you walk through these little by little it's really not as overwhelming as it sounds it's a really straightforward process and the fact that you can save thousands of dollars by doing this in my opinion is huge my parents right now are selling their house in Washington and it's gonna be somewhere in the high 300s I think for their their sale price and they're gonna be saving tens of thousands of dollars by selling it without a realtor anyway guys that is it for this video thanks so much for watching if you've got questions about any of the the processes of buying or selling a house please be sure to comment down below I bought and so lots of houses since I've done this very first house and I feel like I'm pretty good at the process so if you have any questions please let me know and I'd be happy to answer them below until then we'll see you guys next week thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: Bryce Matheson

Views: 98,798

Keywords: how to sell your house fast, sell house fast, sell my house fast, for sale by owner, real estate, real estate agent, flipping houses, real estate investing, investing in real estate, house, property, how to sell your house, how to sell your home, how to sell your own house, how to sell a house, for sale by owner real estate, fsbo, for sale by owner homes, for sale by owner tips, selling a house, selling a home, selling real estate, sell your own home, sell your own house

Id: tt4emZAamxc

Length: 21min 20sec (1280 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 11 2019