Sell Your Home Without A Broker Insider's Advice To Selling Smart, Fast And For Top Dollar

Determine Your Home's Market Value Excerpted from Sell Your Home Without a Broker by Joseph P. DiBlasi ©2005 One common problem affecting FSBO sellers is their inability to objectively view their home and price it fairly. Many believe that their home is unique or extra-special, and consequently attempt to sell it at an unreasonable price. People in the home-buying market are not impulsive buyers. They take their time-an average of seven to eight weeks according to www.realtor.org-to compare an average of ten homes before buying one. Therefore, they are somewhat sophisticated and will be able to sense when a home is overpriced. A home that is overpriced will sit. A home that sits for a while will become stale and lose the appeal of being new to the market. Unlike new-to-the-market or just-listed homes, stale homes do not entice interested buyers to quickly make an offer before the home is snatched by someone else. Instead, the perception with buyers is that they have plenty of time to compare other homes before seriously considering yours. Similarly, I have encountered some people who have completely undervalued their home and sold it for much less than what they could have gotten using a broker. Typically, this occurs with elderly people who have not bought or sold a home in many years and who are not in tune with the market. I recently had an older gentleman in my office whose wife had recently died. He was contemplating selling his home and told me that he thought he could get $200,000 for it. Being familiar with his town and his street, I was happy to advise him that he could sell it for nearly double that price. Unless you are a keen observer of the local real estate market, you will not know the fair market value of your home. Indeed, many professional real estate agents who use comparison methods to estimate the fair market value of a home are often off considerably and are surprised by the actual selling price. Real estate is not a commodity. It is, almost by definition, unique. Consequently, the comparison process only provides a very superficial basis for price estimation. There are many characteristics of a home to compare, such as: - age; - style; - size of the house; - size of the lot; - size of the rooms; - location within the town; - location of the house on the street; - location of the house on the lot; - exterior view; - vicinity of services and conveniences; - reputation of the town or city and the school system; - number of bedrooms; - number of bathrooms; - number of levels; - quality of construction; - reputation of the builder; - condition of home; - beauty of the landscaping; - architectural layout; - size of driveway; - exterior of home; - interior design; - special interior features (such as central air-conditioning and alarm system); - special outside amenities (such as pool, sprinkler system, deck, and shed); and, - topography of the lot (usable flat lot or steeply sloped). Fair Market Value Fair market value is defined as the price a willing buyer pays to a willing seller. The fair market value of your home is a function of many variables. Most of the characteristics of your home as set forth in the preceding section are variables that are beyond your control. For example, you cannot change the location of your home or the topography of the land. Therefore, if the location of your home becomes more desirable (for example, as a result of its vicinity to a development of newer and more expensive homes), with all else being unchanged, the value of your home will increase. Some variables that affect your home's price are beyond your control, but have little or nothing to do with your home. The condition of the local economy, the level of interest rates, and the amount of similar homes on the market are all good examples of this type of vaDi Blasi, Joseph P. is the author of 'Sell Your Home Without A Broker Insider's Advice To Selling Smart, Fast And For Top Dollar', published 2005 under ISBN 9781572485297 and ISBN 1572485299.