In a perfect world, when you want to sell your house, you’d be able to simply put a sign in the

yard and run a classified ad in the paper and be flooded with buyers willing to pay all cash for

your asking price. Unfortunately, that’s not the way it works.. Selling a house in the real world

involves a lot of stress, frustration, hassle, and expense and good marketing.

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Well, if you’re like most people, you already have enough aggravation in your life.

In this report, you’ll learn about the newest, easiest, and most profitable ways to sell a house in

today’s market.

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In this page, you’ll learn….

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The ins and out of selling your property traditionally via a real estate agent or a For Sale By

Owner method.(FSBO)

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If you’ve ever tried to sell a house before, you probably learned it can be a very complicated,

time intensive, and expensive ordeal. In fact, buying or selling a house is generally the biggest

financial transaction most people make in their whole lives. It usually involves a lot of terms

and procedures that most people aren’t familiar with.

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And even a small mistake can cost thousands of dollars.

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Several factors determine how successful you’ll be in selling your house. So you need to carefully and honestly evaluate how your house (and your personal situation) stacks up to the competition.

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You need to ask yourself (and honestly answer) the following questions….

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• How much money you want (or need) to get out of your house? Is that a realistic goal?

• What’s the condition of your house?

• What’s the condition of your neighborhood?

• How much time do you have to sell?

• What terms are you willing to accept?

• How much (and what kind of) marketing will you do to find a buyer?

• How accessible can you make your house to potential buyers?

• How much money are you willing to spend to get your house sold (real estate commissions, bonuses, advertising, etc.)?

• How much inconvenience are you willing to put up with while your house is on the market?

 

There are lots of different ways to sell a house…

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You could have your home auctioned. Click here WHY SELL BY AUCTION?  for additional information. 

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Depending on your situation (and how you answered the previous questions), you may have several good options available to sell your house.

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• You could have your home auctioned. 

• You could use a real estate agent.

• You could sell your house by yourself (for sale by owner, or FSBO).

• You could sell to an investor buyer.

• You could sell your house for all cash.

• You could sell to someone who has to qualify (and wait) for conventional financing.

• You could sell your house on a lease/purchase plan.

• You could sell your house with owner financing.

 

Now, let’s take a best case scenario…

 

You’ve got a very pretty house, well decorated, with great “curb appeal,” in an extremely

desirable neighborhood where the houses normally sell in a week or less. And, you’re willing

to price it at the middle or lower end of the range in which other houses in the neighborhood

have already sold.

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And, you’ve got plenty of time it sell it. In other words, you aren’t facing a job transfer,

financial difficulties, or an immediate need for the proceeds of the sale. If that’s the case, you’d probably be best off selling it yourself or hiring a real estate agent. (Like us.)

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But, let’s look at the other end of the spectrum…

 

Your house isn’t one of the prettiest in the neighborhood, or the neighborhood isn’t the greatest, or your house needs some repairs, or you have very little equity, or you don’t have all the time in the world, or you’re struggling to make the monthly mortgage payments…

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Or, any one of a dozen other reasons…

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In a case like this, you’ve got a serious real estate problem; a problem that can easily turn into a terrible nightmare. But, don’t worry.

You’ll find solutions to just about any real estate problem in this report.

 

Now, let’s look at one of the most important issues regarding selling your house…the price!

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The first thing to remember is that the market, i.e., a ready, able and willing buyer,  determines the price — not you. And certainly not

a real estate agent or an appraiser as an appraisal is just an "opinion" of value. (Read the fine print.)

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In other words, your house is worth exactly what a ready, willing and able buyer will pay for it — not a penny more — not a penny less!

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If you price your house such that it’s a “steal,” it’ll sell faster. But, if you want to get more for your house than other people with similar houses are getting, it’s going to take a lot longer. You’d be surprised at how many people overprice their houses and then can’t understand why it won’t sell. In fact, if a house takes longer than a few weeks to sell, that’s often the reason

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But, the price factor doesn’t stand alone…

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It fluctuates considerably with the rest of the “deal.” For example, if you want an all cash sale, which closes quickly, you’ll generally get

less than if you’re willing to wait for someone to arrange a mortgage.

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If you’re willing to offer some owner financing, you’ll often get more for the house.

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If you want to sell quickly, you’ll generally get less for the house. But if you can wait for that “one in a million buyer,” you may get more.

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If you’re willing to invest the money to spruce up the house and make it the nicest one on the market, you’ll generally get more. If you

aren’t willing to do any repairs, you’ll generally get less.

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Don’t underestimate these price fluctuations?

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Often, the selling price of similar houses can vary by up to 20 or 30 percent based on the above factors. And, the time it takes to find a willing buyer can vary tremendously, too. In fact, the time it takes to sell similar houses in the same neighborhood could vary by several months (even as much as a year or more) based on the above factors.

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OK, now let’s examine some of the different ways of selling your house…

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First, we’ll look at selling through a real estate agent.

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If you’ve got a very pretty house in a great neighborhood that you’re willing to price very competitively, and you’ve got plenty of time to sell, you might want to use an agent.

But, if you’ve only been in your house for a couple of years, and you bought it with a low down payment mortgage, you may not have enough equity in it to pay all the closing costs and a real estate agent’s commission.

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The biggest advantage of using a real estate agent is that he or she will put your house in the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). This is a computer database that almost all licensed real estate agents subscribe to, and consult, when looking for houses on the market.

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When your house is listed in MLS, any agent looking for a house in your area and price range can find it. And, if that agent happens to

have a buyer looking for a house just like yours, he or she can show (and maybe even sell) it to them.

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A real estate agent will also usually put a “For Sale” sign in your yard.. He or she may hold an open house or two in your home, and may even place some small ads in the local paper or real estate magazines.

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A real estate agent will also handle the negotiations between potential buyers and you, and take care of the paperwork and closing process

if he or she gets your house sold.

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And they do it all for a fee of about 6 to 7% of the selling price of your house. If your house sells for $200,000, the first $12,000 to

$14,000 goes right to the real estate agent. This is shared if another agent brings in a buyer. Sure, that sounds like a lot, but if your house

sells quickly, it’s actually a great deal, because you won’t be making several months of mortgage payments on a house you don’t want.

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Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

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But, if the real estate agent takes several months to sell your house, it’s not such a great deal because you’ll still have to pay that big commission on top of the thousands of dollars of additional mortgage payments. Time is of the essence.

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Unfortunately, most real estate agents are woefully unqualified to really sell houses. Sure, they’re licensed by the state, but their training consists mostly of how to comply with all the regulations regarding helping someone sell real property for a fee. They learn about what

they can and can’t say, and what they can and can’t do…

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But they don’t learn much about advertising and marketing.

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Don’t get us wrong. We’re not talking about all real estate agents. There are a lot of very qualified agents out there who work extremely

hard for their clients and do a great job. It’s just that those real estate agents are really in a minority.

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An agent can list ten or twenty houses at a time, and none of them get enough of the agent’s personal attention. Some agents never even

see some of their client’s houses again after they’ve listed them. Often, an agent lists a property, gets it into the MLS, puts a sign in the

yard and waits for something to happen (while he or she is out hustling up some more listings).

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Sometimes they place an ad or two, and sometimes they run an open house, but generally they just wait — and wait — and wait. And if you’ve got a pretty nice house at a hot price, you may get a few people to come see it in the first couple of weeks.

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But get this… your agent doesn’t even show your house most of the time.

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Other agents who you’ve never even met and who know little or nothing about your house do most of the showing. In fact, most of the

time, these other agents show your house to prospective buyers without having ever seen it themselves.

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So, how much “selling” do you think they can do? How can they point out the special things about your house to buyers if they’re not even aware of them? And to top it all off, many of the “buyers” agents run through your house aren’t even serious prospects.

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Often, agents will run several poorly qualified (or even disinterested) “buyers” through a house just to create the illusion that they’re doing something. Add to that all the people who love to look at houses for a hobby, or to get remodeling or decorating ideas. They contact local

real estate agents and pose as “buyers” just to make the agent show them a bunch of houses.

 

Talk about a pain in the neck!

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From the day you list your house with an agent, you’ve got to keep it neat-as-a-pin every moment. You can hardly live in it, because you never know when an agent will call and ask to show it on a moment’s notice. And every time an agent wants to show your house, you’ve

got to get out of the house. They don’t want you present when they show it.

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So, if an agent does manage to arrange a bunch of showings of your house, you have to tolerate dozens of total (and sometimes frightening) strangers tramping through your home and poking through your closets.

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Perhaps the worst part of it is that they all silently pass judgment on you, your life-style, the way you keep house, and every other aspect of your life. And most of them aren’t even seriously considering buying your house.

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No wonder most of the houses listed by real estate agents seem to take forever to sell while the owners are stuck making huge mortgage payments month after month!

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Well, that’s the good and the bad of using a real estate agent.

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If you’ve got a fabulous house with great “curb appeal,” that will practically sell itself, and you’re willing to price it very competitively,

you may be able to get it sold quickly through a real estate agent. In that case, this may be your best option.

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Sure, you’ll pay a 6 to7% commission, but if your house sells quickly, it’s worth not making a bunch of extra mortgage payments,

insurance. or worrying about maintenance.

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If your house isn’t the showplace of the neighborhood, you could still sell your house through an agent. But the longer it takes, and the

more people the agent runs through your house without getting it sold, the more money it’ll cost you in the long run — and the more aggravation you’ll have to put up with.

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And remember, if you don’t have enough equity in your house to pay the closing costs and real estate commission, you could have to come to closing with a big fat check. In other words, you’ll be paying even more money just to get someone to take your house off your hands!

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Another option would be to try to sell your house For Sale By Owner (FSBO)…

 

There are some advantages to selling yourself over using an agent For example…

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• You won’t have to pay that whopping commission.

• You maintain a much higher degree of control when you sell it yourself.

• You can easily structure some of the more creative kinds of deals.

• You can lower the price and still net about the same amount of money.

• You know more about your house than anyone else, so you can point out the good things about it better than an agent could.

 

Of course, there are several disadvantages, too…

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How many houses have you bought and sold in your life? One? Two? Maybe three? You haven’t had to solve even a fraction of the typical problems that always seem to pop up — right before closing. Do you really want to risk having a potential buyer slip through your fingers, just because you’re not used to dealing with (and solving) every little detail of a real estate transaction?

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Plus, how good are you at negotiating big deals? (We aren't Donald Trump either.) Unless you do it for a living, you may end up costing yourself thousands of dollars.

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Remember, buying a house is a big decision for most people and it’s easy for them to get “spooked.” At the first sign of a complication or small problem (like a lien, necessary repair, or one of the other typical closing glitches), they’ll run like a scared jackrabbit.

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Then you have to start all over again at square one — it’s a frustrating experience.

Plus, when you try to sell yourself, you still have to put up with dozens of strangers trampling through your home — only now you’ll have

to be there yourself. And with some of the nuts walking the streets today, that’s a scary thought. You never know if they’re really interested in buying your house, or if they’re just “casing you out” for a late night return visit.

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If your house is one of the prettiest houses in a really hot neighborhood, you might be able to just put up a “For Sale By Owner” sign in

the front yard, run a simple classified ad in the paper, and sell your house in a week.

 

But, frankly, it rarely happens that way..

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In fact, FSBO houses generally take a lot longer to sell than those listed by real estate agents. Remember, they have the MLS, you don’t.

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So, if your house isn’t in an area where potential buyers are driving around looking for houses, you just won’t get the exposure you need

to find the right buyer.

 

And finally, if your house has any problems at all (needed repairs, poor location, or even colors or carpet that buyers don’t like), it could

take months, maybe even a year or more to sell.

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So, the bottom line with respect to going the FSBO route is that it can often prove to be penny wise and pound foolish.

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So what is the best way to sell your house?

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If any of the following factors fit into your situation, you’ve got a much more difficult real estate problem which may require a more

creative solution than the typical real estate agent or FSBO route.

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• You don’t have a lot of time to sell your house because…

       You just got a job transfer…

• A loss of a job is resulting in financial difficulties…

• You’re anxious to move and don’t want to face the headaches of an extended selling period…

• You are getting (or recently got) a divorce, and you want to sell the house fast so you can get on with your life…

• You inherited the house and want to liquidate it for fast cash…

• You’re struggling to make your payments and want to save your credit name…

• You’re facing foreclosure and don’t want to be forced into bankruptcy…

• The neighborhood isn’t in much demand because of either location, or condition of the surrounding houses…

• Your house needs a lot of repairs. This could be anything from painting, bad driveway, windows, carpet, etc….

• The decor or layout of your house is unique. Most buyers prefer subdued, neutral colors and a traditional floor plan…

• Your house is competing with brand new construction at around the same price…

• Your house is of an age when people are worried about major problems cropping up (new roof, new furnace, air conditioning, etc.)

• Your house is on a very busy street. People want to get away from noise and traffic when they go home. Plus, a busy street scares

• parents with small children.

• Your house is too close to an undesirable or commercial site (water treatment plant, factory, shopping center, etc.)

• Your house is in a lousy school system. This is critical to parents.

 

You’ve got to look at your house with a critical eye.

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If any of the above conditions exist, you’ve got a double problem. First, the above conditions by themselves generally reduce the price a buyer might be willing to pay for your house — sometimes quite significantly! Secondly, any of these problems (even with a big price reduction) causes your house to take a lot longer to sell. And if you’ve already got a time deadline, you’ve got an even bigger problem!

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So, what can you do about it?

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The best thing you can do is to call us at 919-939-9678 so we can sit down with you to discuss your options. 

 

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