Tips for Selling Your Home With or Without a Realtor

Ours is truly a country divided when it comes to real estate. There are sections of this country with streets full of empty houses and foreclosure sales by the dozens. There are still other places in this country where real estate is still selling quickly and for a premium price. I have sold several homes in both climates and I will offer some tried and true tips for you to consider.

If you are lucky enough to live in one of the areas where real estate is still at a premium, you might consider selling your home without a Realtor. We were living in Connecticut several years ago when my husband decided he wanted to retire. We had 20 acres of vacant land in another state that we wished to build on so we decided to put our home on the market and see what happened. The real estate market was pretty intense at the time so we decided to try and sell our home ourselves. We did enlist the aid of a real estate company that listed our home on MLS (Multiple Listing Service) for a flat fee, enabling Realtors with pre-approved clients to see our home more readily. We set our price by viewing what was available in our neighborhood and priced our home accordingly. We also had the advantage of being able to list it for less because we were not paying nearly $20,000 in Realtor fees. I chose the option of showing my house myself and we were able to sell it in 24 hours. The Realtor that brought the buyer to view the house prepared the contract and all I had to do was have my attorney look it over before I signed it. It was a clean, quick closing and we moved within 8 weeks.