selling my house by owner. any internet links that can help me

[wotan]

going to try to sell my house "by owner" for about a month before listing it with a realtor. any internet sites where you can list your house, or any sites that you found were helpful. sold my last 2 houses myself by simply having lots of open houses, any other ideas. thanks

[CowboyAndIndian]

fsbo.com is one.

Here are some more suggestions for an FSBO (for sale by owner)

• FSBO  is much easier if it is a sellers market.
• Get Great pictures (splurge for a professional), since pictures help to sell.
• Remove personal pictures, let your house be a blank canvas which buyers can see themselves
• Declutter
• Get a friend to walk thru the house and point out negatives. Since you live there, you do not notice it.
• Curb appeal is critical. Go outside and look at your house as if you are new there. Fix any problems. Improve landscaping

[Roots&Wings]

Well, you can list for free by owner on zillow and trulia (probably others) last I checked. In my area, I am astonished at the number of fsbo's that I see driving around that no one bothers to post online. As a potential buyer, posting online seems more legit/professional in my opinion.

Good luck selling your home yourself!

[Norrie]

We are selling our house for sale by owner right now, and are under contract.

The absolute best site that I found is zillow.com . It's super user-friendly, you can post as many photos as you'd like for free, you can very easily update it to note an open house, and we had plenty of calls/traffic at our open houses just from using it.

Things that we found to be key:

* clean the living fuck out of your house. Purge, empty closets (this may be the one time that I'd advocate for getting a storage unit short-term), clean baseboards, etc. Paint is probably the easiest way to really freshen up a house. Go above and beyond on cleaning, especially if you have pets.

* don't take crappy photos on your phone. Look at other houses in your price range on Zillow, and see the difference between nice and bright photos that some people post vs. crappy cell phone photos that other people post. The difference is night and day. If you don't have a good camera, ask a friend to come over and get some good shots.

* have an open house every single weekend. If you're selling it yourself, this is basically the only real marketing that you can do. Get your ass over there from 1-4pm every Sunday. We baked chocolate chip cookies and had water available, because our house has been sitting empty and has that empty smell. We made sure that all of the curtains were open, lights on, and bought nice new towels for both bathrooms.

* once you get your Zillow post up, post the link on Facebook and ask friends to share it. Re-post it about once a month. We got several calls from doing that.

* buy some cheap open house signs and put them on the main streets leading into your neighborhood. We had lots of people drop in because they saw the signs. (Ours were actually old garage sale signs that we re-purposed.)

* make a quicky flier to have in your house with a photo (people who go to many open houses need a reference for which one is yours), a detailed listing, school district, etc. We also noted the average utility bills for the past few years, as that's a real selling point in our old house.

That's about all I've got. Zillow, house/yard in ship shape, good photos, frequent open houses.

[wotan]

thanks for all the great info. only problem i have with curb appeal is the driveway, having it replaced, but they can't do the work until july. should i just seal it to look a little better?

[Norrie]

thanks for all the great info. only problem i have with curb appeal is the driveway, having it replaced, but they can't do the work until july. should i just seal it to look a little better?

I don't know if I'd bother. I think that I'd just note in the Zillow listing that a new driveway will be installed in July.

[Roots&Wings]

^ Agree, might be best to do nothing unless sealing will offer dramatically better curb appeal and avoid the need for more costly work. If you decide to replace, you could mention that the driveway will be replaced in July or a credit offered in case the buyer wants to settle sooner (or do their own driveway).

Also, depending on your area, it might be good exposure to post on Craigslist also. As a potential buyer, I regularly check zillow, trulia, craigslist, and redfin which all have fsbo listings. No one in my area uses fsbo.com, but your area might be different and could be worthwhile browsing several sites.