How to sell your house privatelyA real-estate agent tried to sell our house for six months, without getting us a single offer. So we tried selling it ourselves, privately. We got an offer in just two weeks and for $35,000 more.Here's how: 1. We built a website with many photos and lots of straightforward information. And made it plain what else a buyer would get -- like good neighbours. The website is the main thing! Get this right. 2. Advertised the house and website in newspapers. This small, cheap ad:
Big House Architect's jarrah creation. $395K. Fine garden, trees, wide views, good neighbours. Private sale (saves you money). Photos, history, details: viacorp.com/binbrook.html Phone 9299 6687 3. Put up a little sign. It had the price on it. Real-estate agents don't usually do that. They consider it's all negotiable, which probably means they're confident they can get their client (the seller) to come down. But we told people who tried to haggle: "Look at the sign. That's the price. $395,000." And we got it. (Our real-estate agent had advertised for six months at $360,000 -- after telling us that we could expect to get from $325,000 to $355,000.) 4. We showed around people who asked to see the house. We listened to them closely and could explain how to use the house to suit what they wanted to do. ("To join the offices, you could punch through here. It's a single brick wall and there's already a cupboard door, ready to use.") And we didn't have to show around lukewarm swarms of people. Our website filtered those out. The people who phoned us were few, but nearly perfect: they liked what they'd seen on the website, they could raise the money or already had it, and they had a good reason for wanting this style of house. 5. In two weeks we got a verbal offer for the full price. The binding legal embrace took 30 minutes in our settlement agent's office. He filled out the Offer and Acceptance Form and we all signed. The buyers paid a deposit and the deal was done. 6. On settlement day, the rest of the money was paid into our bank account. By then, we'd already packed up. We moved out the next day. All done.
Cost to us: about $400 for newspaper ads and $650 for the settlement agent. Compared to $15,000 in fees for the real-estate agent... if the agent had eventually sold the house, even at the lower price.
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