Ronny & Daniela Santana : COLDWELL BANKER : (408) 823-4000

Selling your home requires an extensive commitment of time, effort to market, qualify buyers, negotiate well, and be objective with potential buyers.

If you can do all that read on:

Set your price by researching the internet, looking at other home prices in your area, and visiting the country tax records office to see what the homes actually sold for.
Attend several For Sale By Owner seminars and make sure your home is in the best shape inside and out.
You might want to invest in read a few books and videos to support your efforts.
Set your advertising budget. Somewhere between $1,000 and $2,000.
Design and print several hundred color brochures for advertising, including a photo and information about your home.
Purchase and place a professional FOR SALE sign in the yard.
Display your brochure in supermarkets, and at high visibility locations.
Run ads everyday in the real estate section of your local newspaper.
Send letters to all real estate companies in a 20 mile radius.
Create a web site and list the web site with all the search engines; Yahoo, Google, etc... (web sites usually take 3-6 weeks to appear on search engines)
Return all calls to interested buyers promptly.
Make appointments to see them as quickly as possible. Because if they're looking at your house, they're also looking at others.
Take time off from work and spend your personal leisure time showing the house.
Be available days, nights and weekends to meet with all buyers.
Constantly monitor the market and be ready to adjust to the trends.
For your own safety and security, try to pre-qualify buyers before you invite them into your home. Ask questions, including:

Selling on your own is tempting. But saving that commission can ultimately cost you more than you think you saved, Why..?

First,
It's an interruption of your personal and business lives. What does that ALONE cost you?

Second,
You have to spend a substantial amount to advertise. Successful Realtors allocate a minium of 10% to advertising. You should be prepared to spend between a minimum of $1.000 to $2,000 on newspaper ads, brochures, signs, postage and your internet presence.

Third,
Most people who try to sell their homes themselves will put "Brokers Welcome" in their ads. This means these sellers give a licensed Realtor their 3% commission when they bring the buyer, which is most likely where a qualified buyer will come from. Add that to what you spend in selling the home yourself and your savings are hardly worth the effort.

Fourth,
Real Estate agent listed homes have selling prices higher than For Sale By Owner homes. The median sale price of an agent-assisted home was:

+9% higher than the sale price of a For Sale By Owner Home...

Final selling price of home

For Sale By Owner................................ $925,000
Real Estate agent listed....................... $1,008,250
________________________________________

Difference.............................................. - $83,250
Percentage difference......................... -9%

* Source: The National Association of Realtors profile of Home Buyers and Sellers

Fifth,
You can be SUED! ...enough said.
Licensed Realtors are pros at what they do.
Could someone watch a video about YOUR job and succeed in what you do every day? Absolutely not. Good Realtors are home buying and selling professionals with a complex combination of skills and experience, including:

   - Marketing
   - Sales
   - Negotiating
   - Qualifying buyers
   - Staging the home
   - Handling objections
   - Developing strategies and plans
   - Managing your contract
   - Getting you to the closing table

Plus, licensed Realtors have resources available to them that the public can't touch, mainly the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) not the consumer version on the internet. Without the use of this mass marketing tool, your home won't even be on the radar of the thousands of people looking to buy in your area. Studies show the more people the home is advertise to the higher the selling price.

But, if you're willing to invest your time and effort, market it yourself and see how it goes. Give yourself 3 weeks. Research shows if a home isn't sold within 21 days, you won't sell it on your own without drastically reducing the price below what you originally wanted after your home is "stale" on the market.

* Lastly, if selling your home yourself really did save money EVERYONE would do it and there would be no such thing as real estate companies. Just like Mom & Dad said; "If it sounds too good to be true, it is !"