Looking to sell your house by owner in Miami?
In some cases, it makes sense to hire a real estate agent to help you sell your home, but there is a huge advantage to selling a house on your own – mainly you can avoid paying agent fees.
Agent fees can go up to 7% of the total value of your home. To put it in perspective, if you sell a home for $300,000, you could end up paying up to $21,000 in agent commissions.
In this guide, we will show you how to sell your house on your own in Miami so you can avoid paying an agent to do it for you.
Let’s get started.
The Easy Way – Find a Local Investor Buyer in Miami
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The easiest way to sell a house by owner is to just find an investor buyer. Who is an investor buyer? An investor buyer is a person or company that buys houses all the time to either keep them or flip them.
Unlike traditional buyers, investor buyers treat house buying like a business and can buy your house for cash. If you don’t want to put a lot of money and time into fixing your property you can reach out to an investor buyer, who can make you an offer on your Miami house.
This is where we recommend you start BEFORE listing it or trying to sell on your own. At Property Nation, we are investor buyers, so you may think we are a bit biased, but we see the benefits it all the time. A homeowner goes the traditional path only to come back and get an offer later from an investor buyer that could have saved them lots of time, money, and hassles.
We recommend to get an offer from us first and see if it makes sense. If you don’t like the offer, no problem, you can always continue the traditional route or sell on your own using the options below.
1. Study Your Property And Make a List of its Selling Points
Before you even tell any of your friends and family members that you’re selling your home, take the time to come up with a plan of attack. First of all, you can’t sell unless you know your inventory. What would make a buyer choose your home instead of someone else’s?
Write down all the basic information about your house such as lot size, construction size, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, location, and specific details about your house that would entice a buyer.
To get an idea of how experts advertise their properties, go on Realtors’ websites in your area, Zillow.com, and Realtor.com. Pay close attention to which aspects of their properties they highlight.
When you understand your property’s selling points and highlight them in your marketing process, you significantly increase your chances of success.
2. Check All Relevant Real Estate Laws in Florida
Before you’re stressed out in the in the middle of negotiations, marketing efforts and the general chaos of selling a home, take the time to research any applicable real estate laws in Florida. While you can find contract and agreement templates online, those are usually general and may need tweaking to apply to your specific transaction.
It’s always best to have a real estate attorney to help you review documents and contracts, and to assist you with any specific clauses related to your real estate transaction.
3. Price Your Property to Sell
The biggest mistake anyone selling a home can make is not pricing their property to sell. It’s a lot more common than you think because we are all biased about the value of our own homes. Even real estate professionals are not immune to it when they sell their own homes. That’s why you have to rely on hard, cold data when pricing your home.
When a real estate agent prices a home, first he or she goes on the location’s Multiple Listing Service (MLS) in order to find comparable properties that have sold recently, in order to get an idea what the market can bear. Aspects to compare include location, square feet, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, age of the property, time on the market, and above all, the amount it sold for. Real estate agents also compare properties that are listed right now, so they get an idea of who they’re competing against.
In your case, you may not have access to said database, but you can still go online and find comparable properties yourself on real estate agencies’ websites, Zillow.com, Realtor.com and even Craigslist.
Another option is to get a home evaluation or to hire a real estate agent to price your property for you. It is an additional cost, but it’s totally worth it if it means selling your home quicker.
4. Market Your Miami Property
Once you have done your research and have decided on your listing price, it’s time to market your property. The first thing is to create a “for sale” sign, and place it in your yard, or another visible area. Proper signage is extremely effective in selling your home. You can also create flyers and brochures detailing all of your property’s selling points and price, which you can hand out to anyone touring your home.
Take advantage of any free listing sites online as well as social media to promote your property. You can even create a home for sale website on your own using a ton of free website builders.
If you want to make your property stand out against comparable properties sold by real estate agents in your area, you should also consider hiring a professional photographer to do your photography, or even an interior decorator to stage your house to sell. Sure, all of these services can be costly, but they are still less than what you would pay a real estate agent.
See also: sell my house miami beach
5. List Your Property on the MLS
The MLS is the most detailed list of real estate for sale available, and it’s available to real estate agents, and in some locations, individual buyers. It’s possible to list your home on MLS by paying a flat fee of a few hundred dollars. Do a google search for “Flat Fee MLS” online in your area, and see what options you have available. It is an additional expense, but it will attract way more eyeballs.
If you have professional photography, a beautifully staged home, and the right price, your listing will stand out from your competition and you’ll start to get calls.
It’s also a good idea to decide ahead of time if you’re willing to work with a seller’s agent, and what percentage you would be willing to pay. Seller’s agents expect a commission for bringing a qualified buyer, and you the homeowner is the one who is expected to pay the commission.
6. Get Your Home Ready For Showings
If possible, empty your home and remove any personal items that tie the house to you, such as photos, child drawings and other items that tie your house to you as an owner. Your goal should be to make it easy for potential buyers to see themselves living in your property, not feel like they’re visiting someone else’s home.
Remember that you will have to answer a lot of phone calls and learn to screen buyers. Not everyone will be qualified, and the last thing you want is to take your house off the market for someone who isn’t even approved for a mortgage. If you decided to work with seller’s agents, you will need to add a lock box so that agents can take their clients to see it.
7. Negotiate With Your Buyer
Once you start getting offers, you will go through a round of counteroffers until you both agree to price.
Keep in mind that for lots of real estate agents and their clients, a For Sale By Owner (FSBO) is usually a potential bargain to them, because they know they are dealing with someone not used to negotiations, and in many cases, FSBO’s are desperate to sell house fast miami.
Expect tough negotiation tactics but don’t let them intimidate you. If you have the data to back up your arguments, don’t be afraid to use it to your advantage.
Final Step – Completing the Sale
The last step is to complete the sale of the home.
In the majority of states including Florida, there are standard contracts for real estate transactions, so you won’t have to craft one yourself. However, it’s a good idea to study it with the help of a real estate attorney to make sure you understand all aspects of it.
You also want to make sure you complete the transaction at a reputable title company who can complete all the proper paperwork for you, file state taxes, and deal with any other issues that may arise.
Final Advice on Selling a House By Owner in Miami
Deciding to sell your home on your own is an incredibly personal decision, but before you decide to go for it, it pays to be well informed about some of the caveats.
Selling as an owner will mean that every step of the process will have a learning curve. Figuring out how to effectively market your home, price it to sell and how to negotiate with buyers are topics that take hundreds of hours of research and trial and error to master.
Most homeowners end up giving up after a couple of months and decide to hire a real estate agent or sell to an investor. Those that successfully sell a home on their own or to an investor typically get to keep a lot more money in their pocket.
Again, we recommend getting an offer from us first, deciding if it’s fair to you and then proceeding with the harder route of trying it on your own. We buy your house as-is, so you don’t have to put any money or time into repairs, marketing, listing, or any of the other hassles mentioned. There are no obligations or hassles either.
