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How To Sell Your Home On Your Own?
By Sameer S Panjwani
ChoiceOfHomes.com

In days of booming real estate, you would think that selling a home shouldn’t be too much of a task. And if it’s going to be that easy then why not do it on your own and save yourself on thousands of dollars in commissions. Well, you would be right in thinking so! Selling a home on your own has become much easier these days compared to earlier and it's something that has been done successfully in the recent past by many homeowners. Nevertheless, you cannot totally eliminate the ‘option’ of considering the services of a real estate agent. It’s worth a try selling your home on your own but if things don’t seem to work out then it’s best to go back and rely on the services of a trusted agent you know.

So how should you go about selling your home on your own? Outlined below is a useful checklist of how you can go about selling your home on your own and points you'll need to keep in mind while you go about the home selling process.

• First things first. Before putting your home on the market, make sure your home is ready to sell. You don’t want buyers coming to your home and walking back without a trace of interest for reasons you could very well avoid. Spruce up your interiors, have your entry way done up, improve the curb appeal of your home, … Basically, do everything that you think would impress you if you were a buyer for your home. Refer to “Prepare Your House For A Successful Sale” for some ideas. If you choose to make improvements to your home, do consider whether the cost of such improvements can be justified by a hike in the price of your home or in selling your home faster.
   
• Next, you’ll need to set an asking price for your home. You may ask an agent to give you a comparative market analysis of homes in your area, you may look up data on how much homes in your neighbourhood have sold for in recent times or look around your neighbourhood for homes on sale and compare their prices. Make sure you don’t over-price your home. (You may get a free home appraisal done here.)
   
• Importantly, put a ‘For Sale’ sign outside your home. The implications of this are quite obvious - it would tell your neighbours and passers-by that your house is for sale and the word will spread.
   
• Compose a flyer for your home with picture and details of your home. You could put these flyers in a transparent folder on your ‘For Sale’ sign for interested buyers to take home with them to look through. Distributing these flyers in supermarkets and other stores will also help in increasing the chances of a quick sale.
   
• Get a set of real estate contracts and disclosure forms. You may find these in some stores or you may also get them from the Internet (click here for access to these forms online).
   
• Plan your advertising budget and the mediums you choose to adopt for advertising your home. You may choose from TV advertising, Newspaper Classifieds, Real Estate Magazines and Internet Ads. With a number of people using the Internet these days to begin their search for a home, advertising on the Internet proves to be a cost-effective medium. Some popular websites on this front are ChoiceOfHomes.com and FSBO.com
   
• Plan and execute an ‘Open House’ for buyers to come and inspect your home. Effectively, Saturday and Sundays would be ideal for such purpose.
   
• Finally, you’ll need to rope in a real estate attorney to handle the closing, when you’ve got a buyer who’s presented you with a signed offer that’s perfectly acceptable to you.

Selling your home on your own will require some patience and perseverance on your part. It’s not something you can do if you’re too busy to be able to show your home to buyers or to be able to effectively market your home. Selling your home on your own though will save you a lot of money in real estate commissions and is something definitely worth the effort and time you put in. So, following the outlined points above should get you through most of the home selling process. And once your home’s sold, celebrate!