5 Tips for FSBO Homeowners Still Trying to Sell Their Homes

Selling your home by yourself can be a difficult endeavor to undertake, and it isn't one that many people opt to do the majority of the time. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR) only 13% of homeowners opt to go the FSBO route annually in the U.S. By cutting out the realtor you can save a lot of money, but selling your home by yourself will have a lot of work involved! The following tips really can make a huge difference in selling your home by yourself. 

1. Hold Open Houses with Refreshments 

Selling your home by yourself always involves interacting with lots of strangers, so you might as well try to consolidate the social expenditure by holding open houses frequently. Offering beverages (preferably clear liquids) and small snacks like cookies, help people associate a positive memory with your home.   

2. Let Everyone Know Your are Selling Your Home by Yourself 

According the NAR around 45% of FSBO sales were between two parties that knew each other. If you are selling your home let everyone around you know. Put up statuses on social media, post fliers at work, and tell everyone you run into to make sure if anyone is in the market for home, they may consider buying your home.  

3. De-clutter the House with Self Storage 

One of the best things you can do is keep your house as empty and clean as possible when you are selling your home by yourself. This allows the buyers to envision what they could do with the space. You can utilize self storage to stow away anything you don't need at the moment. Also, throw away, donate or sell any items that you don't plan on moving to your next home before potential buyers start seeing your home. 

4. Professional Photos 

If you look at online home listing sites like realtor.com, you'll notice that a lot of pictures are of low quality, if there is even a picture at all. Modern media has made it so people are very used to accessing images to what they want to see, when they want to see it. Even in the olden days of real estate, it was common to at least have on picture of homes for sale. 

Hiring a professional photographer to get high quality images to put on our fliers and online listings really can make a huge difference when it comes to selling your home by yourself. A picture taken with an iPhone looks a lot less appealing than a picture taken by a professional photographer. Usually this service will run for only around 50-100 dollars, so consider making the investment for your FSBO process. 

5. Make all Minor Repairs 

Loose knobs, hanging cabinets, broken screens, burnt out light bulbs and tiny little repairs really can be an eye sore. What is worse is that they can knock off thousands of dollars when your buyer makes an offer. Make sure that before you show your home you make any minor repairs that you can. People tend to remember more readily what was wrong with a place rather than what they like about it, so make sure they don't remember your home for something like the light bulb being burnt out in the basement.