Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Texas > Houston
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
 
Old 12-13-2007, 09:54 PM
 
18 posts, read 72,444 times
Reputation: 20

Advertisements

Do you know of any GOOD options on selling houses besides having a realtor?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 12-14-2007, 08:41 AM
 
3,555 posts, read 7,824,294 times
Reputation: 2346
I've bought and sold more than 50 houses and I've only used a Realtor on a few of them. The things that I think are important:

Understand the contract, you are an adult you are making a commitment when you sign it, if you don't understand every word on it you have no business signing it.

Advertise, advertise, advertise. Unless folks know it's for sale they can't come look at it. That means newspapers, online (Craigslist does work), sign in yard.

Price it right! If people aren't looking, that means it's priced too high to attract offers.

If people are looking but not making offers it's probably not the asking price but something else.

Buyers looking for FSBOs expect they'll save the 6% commission. Sellers expect they'll save the 6% commission. They can't both save it.

Take a hard look at your house. Drive down your street and park across the street. Look at your house for 30 minutes. What is uninviting about it? Chipped flaking paiint? Gutters hanging? Trees and shrubs need trimming? Dead patches of lawn? Fix those things.

Go through every room and closet. If you're like most Americans you should yard sale or throw out (my recommendations) between 1/3 and 1/2 of the stuff in your house. Barring that rent a storage units, possibly the dumbest invention of all time IMO.

Look at all the walls, floors, ceilings, light fixtures, door knobs and handles, and everything else. Fix, paint, replace etc.

Get a good competitive market analysis. Realtors offer this all the time in the hopes that you'll list with them. Some Realtors will try to "buy" the listing by telling you that your $150,000 house will sell for $175,000. That's why you need several price "comps".

Part of the analysis is when those houses sold, last week? last month? last year? Are you in a declining market? Appreciating market or flat market?

The last part of the market analysis is the days on market (DOM). How long does it take the average house to sell in your market?

Visit a lawyer to learn about contracts.

Visit a home decorator to learn about "staging" your house for showing.

Last but not least, do you know how to SELL? Actually very few Realtors that I've met can sell either. That's why the "average" Realtor earns less than $20,000 a year and is out of the busines with a couple of years. The ones that can sell earn several hundred thousand a year and are (if it's possible to underpay a commission only salesperson) underpaid.

golfgod
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-14-2007, 09:42 AM
 
Location: Austin & Houston, TX
1,461 posts, read 5,578,357 times
Reputation: 425
Very good points I would have to say. Curb appeal is the number one killer when trying to sell a home in my opinion.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-14-2007, 10:47 AM
 
58 posts, read 263,150 times
Reputation: 32
I have a friend in Denver, CO that was having problems selling his house and he tried this method: They followed guidelines set in the book "How to Sell Your Home in 5 Days," by Bill Effros Check it out it might work for you. This is the article in the Rocky Mountain News.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/real_estate/article/0,1299,DRMN_414_5730672,00.html (broken link)

Good luck
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Settings
X
Data:
Loading data...
Based on 2000-2020 data
Loading data...

123
Hide US histogram


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Texas > Houston
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top