Author Topic: Try to 'private sell' our house or not?  (Read 1108 times)

Freedom2016

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Try to 'private sell' our house or not?
« on: April 07, 2019, 06:26:29 PM »
We're selling our house and have reason to believe it will be a popular listing: it's one of the cheapest homes in one of the best school districts in our state; there is very little inventory at our price point; it's a gorgeous lot in a prime location; when people found out we were moving, literally four different neighbors said they had friends who might want to buy it. Beyond all that, realtors are itching to get our listing, virtually promising that we'll get multiple offers at well over asking price.

So I'm toying with putting the word out early and trying to make a private sale happen to save 2.5-5% in realtor fees (including but going beyond the 4 neighbors...). I'm thinking we may also be able to save 8-10k in improvements that would need to be made in order to fetch top dollar via the realtor (painting, landscaping cleanup, a few repairs).

However: I'm a little nervous that if I send the word out informally, that we might actually get overwhelmed with inquiries and/or get strangers driving by our house / sneaking onto our property.

Is this anything to be concerned about? I was thinking that I'd maybe set one afternoon for anybody who's interested to come by, and have offers due by X date.

Advice? We have a real estate attorney who could handle the paperwork but otherwise we don't really know what we're doing. The thought of saving $25-40k in fees & expenses is very appealing...

rubybeth

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Re: Try to 'private sell' our house or not?
« Reply #1 on: April 08, 2019, 07:01:48 AM »
The folks at the Young House Love blog/podcast have sold two houses themselves. They share many tips in a few blog posts and on podcasts. This is their most recent blog post on the topic: https://www.younghouselove.com/holy-cow-did-we-just-sell-our-house/ And here's a podcast episode where they answered a similar question: https://www.younghouselove.com/podcast-transcript-56/ and some tips they have on staging the house for sale: https://www.younghouselove.com/staging-tips-for-selling-your-house/

Basically, what you describe is unlikely to actually work. You'd just be doing the work of a seller's agent. Only you can decide if you can handle that.