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Pricing a Home for Sale by Owner

By Wes Fernley

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 24Oct2008 Word count: 517 Viewed: 325 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Properly pricing a property is one of the most difficult but important parts of selling a home. You want to maximize your profits but you also don't want to price too high because then you will find yourself with little interest in your house. For homes for sale by owner, this task can seem even more daunting since there is no real estate agent to help. However, there is much you can do in finding the proper price for your home.

The best thing to do when pricing an FSBO home is to compare it with similar houses on the market. The key here, of course, is to try to find homes which are as similar as possible to yours which have recently sold or are currently on the market. You will want to make sure, of course, that houses are in the same, or at least in a similar, neighborhood, before you even look at anything else.

Getting Data on Other Homes on the Market

When putting up a house for sale by owner, it is up to you to find out relevant information for home pricing. There are many ways to go about finding information on homes. For example, you can simply look through the classifieds, or the real estate listings put out by agents. You can even check out FSBO web sites and other locations for homes in your area which are currently on the market.

In many localities, you can also find information on recent real estate transactions at City Hall. This can be a good way to find out about homes sold in your area. If you are willing to spend a bit of money, you can even hire a real estate estimator, however most private real estate sellers prefer to determine pricing on their own.

Comparing Homes

When comparing homes to yours, there are a few things you will want to look at. First off is the square footage. You should look at the area not only of the house itself, but of the entire lot.

Next, look at the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Once again, you should look at the square footage of these rooms. If the houses are similar in overall size, however, the size of individual bedrooms and bathrooms should be similar.

If you have done any upgrading to your kitchen or bathrooms, look for this in comparison homes. If you have not upgraded kitchen or bathrooms, you will want to take that into account for homes that have, since that will increase the price somewhat.

Lastly you should look at the overall condition of the home. Is it in good repair? What is the state of the landscaping? How much curb appeal does it have?

The more homes similar to yours you can look at, the better. The more data points you have, the better estimates you can make on what the price for your house should be. Even if you can't find homes similar to yours, you can still determine whether you ought to go higher or lower based on what you see.

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