The FSBO Playbook - Step by Step

Selling as a For Sale By Owner? GREAT! Where do I start? Let's start at the beginning. When you sell your home on your home, you'll reap the benefits of skipping the Realtor and can keep that 5-6-7% commission. This is often a 5 figure number, and is not worth it, right? This is just a brief 'playbook' of some of the things you'll have to do on your own, search for, ask about, and still stay compliant of all local and federal laws.

So this is what you'll see as a FSBO:

You'll probably miss calls off a sign in your yard, so make the number one you can be reached at 27-7-365 days a year. You'll be answering the door to strangers and not know if they are even qualified to owning your home. You'll also have to have them fill out some sort of information form, which could be asking illegal questions.

The ones who do come talk about offers lower than you imagined, and leave you disappointed. Maybe more flyers will help. They seem to disappear a lot- jealous neighbors, perhaps?

Open houses work, but work to make a list of buyers not interested in yours. Those nice lawn signs pointing to your home will work, until the city takes it down for cluttering up the landscape. More wasted money, right?

On average it takes about 43 people to come through your home, probably more if you're looking like an average home. They'll see everything you have as if they were "casing the joint".

Then, if they DO like it, and want to write an offer, which contract do you use?

What disclosures do you need to meet Federal guidelines?

Do they have financing? If not, what then?

They may have a Realtor of their own asking all sorts of nosy questions. How do you answer them? Does he have a down payment/escrow check that needs depositing? Those typically go in escrow accounts. Do you have one? Do you know deposit law on that? OK, then what's next? What about city inspections and insurances and the taxes? And who does all that? Who pays it? Who will you ask? Gotta Know.

Then what? What is that person's lender doing? What's taking so long? Without the proper paperwork, you'll only be able to guess. You'll have to do it yourself, right?

Your closing attorney will be charging you to do the work you can't. What has to happen to get the title, title search and plat of survey ready for closing and who's paying?

Suppose the buyer wants sell financing or to assume your assumable mortgage? Cash at closing? 5% sellers credit for closing costs? Do you know what to do to benefit yourself? You'll have to find out.

What about a home warranty to protect the new owner, AND YOU. Have that done? You'll still have all the utilities to call and wait on hold to cancel your service, but if you don't know HOW to close the accounts, you could ruin the closing.

And there's MORE...if there are ANY small glitches, you need to handle them in the moment or the closing gets farther away.