Selling a home is no easy task and as a real estate professional, I typically advise against it since it is very time-consuming, requires years of experience and know-how. There are many things one must do from prepping, marketing, and completing legal documentation to get a home sold in Florida. If you’re someone who already has a lot on their plate, you should definitely hire a realtor and price the home favorably so the commissions and closing costs don’t eat into your net return. Now, if you want to give it a shot or would like to get the most money out of it then you can give it a shot but only if you will do everything properly just like an experienced real estate listing agent would. Luckily, we have put together a guide to share with you all the tips and tricks we utilize to sell a home fast in the competitive market of Florida and for the highest price. By following these steps, you’ll have a successful home sales campaign.
Pros and Cons of Selling by Owner
Selling a home by owner in the state of Florida can have its advantages and disadvantages. On the upside, you don’t have to pay the typical 6% commission that gets split between the buyer’s agent and listing agent. This can be quite a savings since it would equal $30,000 on a $500,000 home, for instance. The other benefit is that it can be a fun and engaging experience for you and your family to participate in, that will bring pride and personal satisfaction upon a successful sale. You also have the opportunity to possibly present the home in the best light since you know all about your home and all the little upgrades you’ve done over the years.
The downside is you don’t possess the experience and market knowledge of a veteran listing agent who has sold many homes. It is also a very detail-oriented process when it comes to the legal side and can cause a lot of pressure and stress if you’re new to the process of home selling. One little amendment in a contract and you can lose big on the deal. Besides pressure and stress, you also need to understand this will be a very time-consuming endeavor from setting up, to promoting, and then selling your home. So if you’re someone with a big amount of responsibility or a full-time job, then DIY home selling is not for you, especially in an active and competitive Florida Real Estate market.
Just like anything else, you have to compare both advantages and disadvantages of selling a house all on your own and make a decision from there.
Preparing Your Home for Sale
One of the most important steps is prepping your home for a sale, as much as many individuals like to think that selling a home is as simple as taking a few pics and listing it online; that is far from reality. You have to take some meticulous steps to ensure your home is first ready to ensure a smooth and fruitful transaction. So let’s break down all the most important steps to make this happen.
Paperwork
Before you put on your home interior designer hat, it is important to make sure all your legal docs and important paperwork are in order. Make sure all your HOA fees are paid and that you don’t have any liens or unpaid balances with the city or any companies; this can come up during the closing process and make a deal go sideways. You also want to ensure that if you’ve done any upgrades in the home you have permits for them and documents to show proof. If you got any unpermitted work done it is wise to hire a contractor or go down to the city hall yourself and get all the legal permits. You may also be well-advised to gather any warranties and receipts for any appliances or work done to the house like a new roof, extended lanai enclosure, or fencing so the potential buyer can see proof of work and get a warranty transferred after the sale. If you make sure there are no liens, all permits are clear, and you have all your paperwork in order, you’ll avoid a huge issue in the end.
Home Inspection and Repairs
You might have heard before that a home inspection is typically done after a sales contract is executed and is paid for by the buyer. But if you want to have a smooth transaction and reduce the loss of any money during the process, we advise taking a preemptive step and doing it beforehand. By doing the inspection prior to any deal being on the table, you’ll know exactly what is wrong with your home and can get it fixed or replaced. That way when buyers do their inspection there will be nothing to find to ask for credit for and they are more likely to stay in the contract during the allowed inspection period. It also helps getting all the small mishaps fixed for showing the home as well since potential buyers will see the property is well kept. The more your home is in move-in ready condition the higher the chance of you getting it sold faster and keeping more money in your pocket.
Complete a Seller’s Disclosure
Seller’s disclosure is a legal document that you as a seller check off and fill out all known facts about your home accurately and honestly. You’ll list if there was any large damage repairs in the past, mold issues or lead in the home plus the condition of everything inside the home. Typically, it will be a checklist that you can go through and be able to provide additional information in the notes section. This protects you from any future lawsuits and also lets the buyer know the current condition of the property. Although you’re not required to do so in the state of Florida, we here at Chance Realty, highly recommend doing so to protect yourself.
Home Presentation
When it comes to selling your home and marketing your home, presentation is absolutely key. You want to make sure that your home looks very presentable and welcoming to potential buyers. Most home sellers don’t realize how many things can be off-putting to potential buyers during a showing and even photos of the home online or on marketing materials. Having your home properly set up and staged before listing it and showing it to potential buyers is one of the most important steps to a home sales process, especially in the ultra-competitive market of South Florida, where there are many beautiful listings. As a DIY home seller, you have to remove any emotion from your home and really look at it from a business perspective lens. I recommend you take some photos of your home and really analyze as a potential buyer what you think of your own home. Once this is done, you can follow these steps to make sure your home stands out from the rest to attract the most qualified buyers in the Florida market.
1.Declutter
One of the biggest issues I see as a real estate agent when I first come to a listing appointment is there is too many things occupying the home space such as too much furniture, an influx of wall fixtures, and to top it off a layer of personal items throughout. Key with declutter is to come from a minimalist approach and leave most beautiful and key items in the home and remove everything that is unnecessary. The idea is to show the potential buyers what each space can be used for while keeping the least amount of items around. This will make each room look bigger and less distracting. You can pack up all the clutter items and store them in the garage or public storage space.
2. Depersonalize
Another potential obstacle to your home presentation is having too many personal items such as sports memorabilia all over the home, religious or political art, and of course family photos. It is best to remove everything to allow the home to be viewed almost as if were a demo home. If you’d like to have some art or accessories you can do so but keep it neutral and tasteful. It is shocking to many home sellers that having too much personal items can off-put potential buyers even if the home itself is amazing. Remember anytime you want to sell a home you need to have it where the potential buyers can picture themselves living in it.
3. Update or Renovate
Depending on the condition of your home and your financial position, it is always recommended to renovate and update your home prior to a sale. You’ll always net more than you put in in an active market plus the home will have a line of buyers fighting over it with oftentimes resulting in above-asking price offers. If you have an outdated home, it is best to focus your budget on the kitchen, bathrooms, full repaint, and flooring. If you want to take it a step further you can install hurricane impact windows, upgrade back and front yards with landscaping, and do some cosmetic exterior work. Now, if you’re on a fixed budget, you can paint the home with a fresh neutral modern color along with baseboards, deep clean floors, and change some handles and electrical switches. This will cost you a few hundred bucks if you do the work yourself but your home will have a fresh look. In the case you have a newer home or recently did renovations, just do a quick walkthrough and make sure everything is in great shape.
4. Clean
Once you have completed everything above, you want to hire a professional company or do it yourself to get the home cleaned from every corner. A clean home always shows better and sells faster, not only is it appealing to the eye but it will also have a fresh move-in ready smell. If you don’t do anything else, make sure you do a deep cleaning because it is a huge green flag in the showing process.
Pricing Your Home
The second big stage after you have done prepping your home is pricing it correctly. Now this doesn’t mean go to Zillow and look at the latest Zestimate they have for your property. These estimates are rarely accurate and don’t consider all the various factors in different listings. Oftentimes they may bring you to underlist or overprice your home with one resulting in a quick sale but with leaving money on the
table and with other resulting in you not selling your home at all. Pricing a home correctly is, believe it or not, an art; one must look at data for the last 3 to 6 months of similar sold listings in the community to get an idea of what the home is worth and what the buyers will be actually willing to pay for it. A correctly priced home will result in a quick sale and positive net profits for you as a home seller in the state of Florida.
So once you gather data of all recently sold, active, and pending listings, the next step is to compare their condition, upgrades, view, location, and many other factors to make necessary adjustments. For example, if you see a similar home to yours sold for $750k but it is fully renovated with a pool and yours is not, then you’re most likely going to get offers in the mid $600’s. There are many factors that must be analyzed when comparing the homes so make sure you do that so you can price competitively.
In addition to pricing, you can also have some incentives to sweeten the deal by offering closing credit to buyers, leaving furniture for the next owners, or prepaying future community fees. You can also add buyer agent commissions to have realtors bring potential buyers. Selling a home is a very creative process contrary to what most people believe, there are many ways to get a home sold and to structure a deal. So make sure to do your research and give it some thought on what makes your home unique, price it correctly, and provide additional motivation to stand out from the rest of the sellers.
If you are really interested in selling your home completely by yourself, prepare to do major research for both market and off-market sales that occurred in your area. You can also hire a realtor or an appraiser to complete a Broker Price Opinion or a full appraisal. This will cost you about $300 to $500 depending on the professional but will result in very accurate results.
Pricing is one of the main pillars of the home selling process and can make or break your home sales experience. That’s why we advise you take your time with it or get the assistance of a professional.
Marketing Your Home
If you have done the previous few steps successfully, you’re on your way to selling your home successfully. Bringing your home to a presentable condition with attractive pricing will make you already ahead of 90% of for sale by owner listings. Now is the time to get as many eyes on your beautiful home as possible through both traditional and digital marketing efforts. Let’s review some of the best ways to promote your home:
Photos and Videos
Although not exactly a marketing category, I’d like to stress the importance of having absolutely the best professionally taken photos and videos for your property which can cost you around $200 for photos and $300 for a short video by a professional. By having great media your home will shine in all the marketing efforts we will get into below. If you have some skills with the camera, you can do it as long as you feel the quality is up to par to top listings in the area.
MLS
Multiple Listing Service is where real estate brokers and agents both access and list all their inventory. It is also where all the top real estate websites get their data from like Zillow, Realtor.com, Trulia, and many others. MLS is by far the biggest and most efficient way to get your property in front of potential buyers and their agents. By listing it on MLS you’ll have your listing syndicated to 100’s of other websites both nationally and internationally. Of course, this is something you’ll typically only get if you actually work with an agent but there is a workaround. Some real estate brokerages have programs where you can list for a flat fee or very small commission percentage your home on MLS. Of course, you’ll take all the calls and manage all the showings yourself. Just MLS alone is usually enough to get a home sold in a fairly active market but you can take it up a notch with other methods we will discuss.
Digital Marketing
You can do this alone or combine it with other methods to get your listing in front of local buyers. You can use paid promotion via Facebook, Instagram, and Google Display ad network to target specific buyers in a small or large radius. By doing this you’ll have your home pop up on ads and users’ feeds to show them a video or photos with a small message. As an agency, we do this for our listings to get quite positive results since we are reaching out to people who are not on the MLS searching. It is also important to mention that there are many other platforms where you can reach an audience digitally like TikTok and Youtube which focus on more video content which happens to be a great way to market real estate. You can launch a campaign yourself by making an ad or you can hire a company to do it for you. Whichever route you choose make sure to remember to track and review your metrics so you can allocate marketing dollars to the best ROI. Oh, and not to forget, remember to list your home on all the For Sale by Owner sites for additional exposure.
Traditional Marketing
Everyone is buzzing about all the new digital marketing but traditional marketing methods are still true and prove ways to get a home sold. Traditional marketing for a home sale would be a yard sign, direct mailers, magazine ads, and open houses. A nicely designed yard sign will attract attention from neighbors and pass-through traffic to let others know a home is for sale. Postcards can be sent to 1000’s of locals around to let them know your home just hit the market and you can expect about 1% to 2% conversion rate from that campaign. Local magazine ads are another good way to get the word out about your home but probably not the best so if the budget is tight, focus on the most effective marketing strategies. One that we love in my agency is open houses every weekend, this is completely free and allows you to meet people face to face and show your home to a few dozen people every weekend. This will also allow you to get feedback on the likeliness of your home and pricing so you can make necessary adjustments if need be.
There are many ways to market a property but you have to pick and choose what you’ll feel is best for you and your type of home to get great results. For example, you don’t want to advertise your home in a golfing magazine if your home is not in a country club or with close proximity to a golf course. Just use your common sense and most importantly make adjustments during your marketing campaign.
Managing Showings, Negotiating and Bringing Deal to Close
Once you have completed all the Big Three steps to getting your home sold, it is time to bring it to the final stage which involves showing it to potential buyers and bringing the deal to a close. So let’s focus on the final steps and see what each of them involves:
1. Prepare the Space
Of course, you have done all the fixing, decluttering, and decorating of your home in the prepping stage but if you’re like most home sellers you’re living in your home and things can get messy over time. So before bringing any buyers to your home make sure it is always clean and smelling fresh. It is also advisable to remove pets and have everyone living there step out for a bit while the home is being shown.
2. Conduct Showings
Showing a home is not just letting prospective buyers in, you must have some print materials about the home you can hand out and provide important information but at the same time don’t hover over them so they can have time to walk through your home. That way you allow them to really get a feel if this is a place they want to be theirs. Lots of homeowners overshare unnecessary information or don’t allow enough space for buyers to really view a home properly.
3. Review Offers
Typically after a few showings, you should start getting some offers which can come in the form of a contract with all the terms and conditions along with the price buyer is willing to pay. You may get offers that are very low and in some cases above asking. You may also be in a multiple offer situation which means you need to really research all parties to see who has the best offer but also the highest probability of closing. It is a good idea to ask for a credit score, prequalification letter from a bank, or proof of funds from buyers along with the offer. This will ensure you don’t waste your time by having a deal fall through and having to put the home back on the market. Regardless of the offer make sure you don’t forget to counter offer exactly what you want while at the same time making sure you get what you want from it. Very important as well is to make sure you review the entire contract with a fine comb since there are many terms and wording that can make you pay heavily for not being attentive. In real estate deals, every small detail can turn into a huge dispute and sometimes
4. Work with a Title Company or Real Estate Attorney
With an executed contract in hand, it is time to pick a legal entity to make sure the transfer of ownership is done right. To get this complete, you will need an experienced real estate attorney or a title company to make sure everything is done correctly. They will do a title lien search, request estoppel for any community fees, get title insurance, and make sure all the taxes are paid. They will also deal with the lender or buyer to hold the escrow deposit and receive final wires to write you a check for a sale minus any fees, concessions, or commissions involved. No matter how experienced you may be as a real estate professional or real estate investor you still need legal help so make sure to get it. If possible pick a title company that has an active real estate attorney who can make custom adjustments to your contract and who can advise you on the best legal options available in the case of a dispute or buyers default on the terms. The key is to find a great company to work with the rest will be taken care of by them so you can have peace of mind.
If you follow all the steps we discussed above you’ll be giving the keys to the new owner and getting a check payable to you so you can buy your next dream home or retire in your dream haven.
Common Mistakes Made by For Sale by Owners
Before wrapping up, let’s quickly cover some of the biggest mistakes most home sellers make when trying to sell their home in Florida. I know this has been a long blog post but this will be quick:
– Clutter: Lots of people get used to having many of their families and their own personal items all over the place but this will turn away many buyers by making your home look messy and also much smaller than it is. So be sure to declutter and if possible exchange large furniture items for smaller ones.
– Personalization: Like most Florida Families your home is full of home sports team memorabilia, religious wall decor, and family photos, which is perfectly fine for you but a big no for a home selling process. During the sale of your home remove all of such items and store them in a safe place.
– Overpricing: A home is a special place for everyone and holds an emotional connection which can cause many home sellers to think their home is one of the kind and should be worth a lot more. But this is a big mistake since you should price your home based on what the market will pay for it and not what you think is worth. Overpricing a home will discourage many people from wanting to see the home let alone make an offer. Now you may think I can adjust the pricing later on but with real estate listings, the longer the property is on the market the less interest it has and less likely it will sell. So pricing home correctly right from the bat is crucial.
– Listing it and Crossing Fingers: Many for sale by owners in Florida will wonder why their home is not selling after they put it on FSBO websites. Well, that’s because you have to remember those are not high traffic sites and you should be listing your home on Zillow, Realtor.com, Trulia, and many others. Plus you should be spending some money on both digital and print marketing to promote your home.
– Bad Photos: Horrible pictures are a sure way to not get your home sold so be sure to avoid this by watching a tutorial on how to take home photos or hiring a pro.
Why an Agent Might Be a Better Option
If you read all the steps above and still want to continue I applaud you since it takes a very driven, detail-oriented, and hard-working individual to get a home sale done properly. It also requires one to have a lot of time and energy as well. Now if you feel overwhelmed just by reading the necessary steps involved in successfully selling your home or simply don’t have time then hiring an experienced agent might be the best option. An experienced realtor will take care of all the steps for you and provide expert guidance throughout the entire sale. You’ll also avoid a ton of mistakes with contracts, get better negotiations and overall peace of mind. You can simply sip a cold drink on a beautiful beach while your realtor deals with all the headaches of selling a home.
Many for sale by owners I speak to would love to work with a realtor once they realize it is no easy task to sell a home. However, what holds them back is typical realtor commissions which can range from a total of 4% to 6%. If this is your issue as well, it is possible for you to speak with your realtor to get a better commission agreement and in some cases get more for your home so the commissions can be covered.
Although this is definitely biased advice considering I’m in the business of helping people buy and sell homes but I always advise to work with a realtor whenever possible. No matter how hard you try, you can’t accumulate as much experience and connections as a professional who does it for a living. And as you can see, it’s always a possibility to come up with solutions about compensation.
Conclusion
When it comes to selling your home you can do everything on your own, pick a few services for a real estate professional to do or just say completely outsource it, the choice is yours. Just remember to get your home prepped by removing unnecessary items, depersonalizing, making renovations, and getting it cleaned. Then complete a thorough price analysis to price the home correctly and bring it all to the finish line with proper legal contacts and title or attorney company. Home selling can be fun, challenging, and very rewarding if you’re up to the task. Many homeowners have successfully sold their homes by following tips from real estate professionals and you can too. Now if you decided this is all a bit much for you then feel free to give us a call and we will work with you to come up with a solution that works. Here at Chance Realty, we take pride in putting our clients’ needs first by providing transparency, excellent service, and decades of real estate experience. Call or email us today so we can help!
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