Real Estate Properties for Sale by Owner

Whether you’re looking to buy or sell a home or other real estate, one thing you don’t want to miss out on are the homes for sale by owner market.

Buying For-Sale-by-Owner Properties and Homes

There are advantages to selling without a real estate agent, the biggest one being that you don’t end up paying an agent three percent (or more) of the selling price of your home. Three percent may not seem like much, but on a moderately priced $250,000 home that turns out to be $7,500.

Because of the money to be saved, and that the Internet today makes getting your home exposed to a buying market so easy, many home owners are choosing to sell their homes on their own.

Savvy home buyers are turning more and more to the Internet to search home properties that are for sale by owner.  There are many sites that specialize in for-sale-by-owner real estate listings. Simply search for “for sale by owner homes” in addition to the name of the town you want to buy in at your favorite search engine.

When searching homes for-sale-by-owner, be sure to compare prices against other similar home listings to ensure that you are getting a fair price.

Home owners that choose to sell on their own may discount the home price a little due to the expected savings of selling without a real estate agent, but many home sellers also over estimate the value of their home as well as the market’s willingness or ability to pay. In the case of the latter, you may end up paying more than the home is worth if you don’t do your homework.

Selling a Home without a Real Estate Agent

If you want to give a shot at selling your home without a real estate agent, then success will reap you many rewards, namely in the thousands of dollars you’ll save by not pay a commission.

By saving a three percent commission on a home that sells for $250,000, you’ll pocket $7,500 dollars more which can go towards the down payment on a new home, or to simply save away for a rainy day.

But if you have properties or homes for sale, and want to try out the for-sale-by-owner market, how exactly do you expose your home to potential home buyers?

Places to list your home for sale without a real estate agent:

§         List your home on eBay – eBay has thousands upon thousands of real estate searchers that browse eBay’s real estate listings. A nominal flat fee gets your home listed for a full 30 days. However, there is no guarantee of purchase.

§         List your home on Craig’s List – Listing homes for sale on Craig’s List are completely free in most markets, and will expose your home to dozens, possibly hundreds of interested home buyers.

§         List on for-sale-by-owner website – Many sites have a “list until sold” option that keeps your listing active until your home has sold. Charging anywhere from a couple hundred to a few hundred dollars for this service, it may take longer sometimes, but you would save thousands of dollars versus hiring a real estate agent. Search for “for sale by owner” at your favorite search engine to find these type of websites.

§         List in the local classified ads – This doesn’t have the same draw as it used to – recent surveys show that about 75 percent of home buyers use the Internet to search for homes – but is still a viable home-listing solution.