“Home Staging” is a term used for describing the act of preparing a home for resale and has been proven over the years to be one of the best ways to get you the price you want in the time frame you require. The presentation process is all about enhancing your home to its fullest potential, which will in turn; make a significant difference in the buyer’s eyes. Staging does not mean transforming a house by giving it a sterile and lifeless environment. It means creating a feeling of warmth and hominess so that the buyer gets a sense of “Home Sweet Home”. This is because “staging” sets the scene throughout the house to initiate immediate excitement and curiosity. Staging is what you do after you have eliminated clutter, organized closets, painted, rearranged or eliminated extra furniture giving the look of openness, made necessary repairs and accessorized. De-personalizing your home is also important factor to consider. It allows the buyer to see past articles similar to knickknacks, photos or diplomas that may distract them. In setting the atmosphere you may also want to consider having the proper lighting in each room. Lighting is instrumental in creating pleasant, emotional reactions in the buyer’s mind. “Home Staging” has been proven time and time again to be one of the best ways to get the most desirable offer. Many times it makes the difference between a sale and a no sale. The following simple steps are some that you may never have dreamed of and don’t necessarily have to cost a lot of money. You may have many of these items already. If you don’t, they can be purchased at any home decorating store, Target or Wal-Mart.

Mirrors
Plants / Silk Flowers
Nicely Scented Candles and Candle Holders
Artwork
Area and Throw Rugs
Throw Pillows
Quilts
Baskets
Tables & Chairs
Fancy Bath soaps and Spa supplies
Decorative Towels in the Baths
USE YOUR IMAGINATION AND SHOW IT OFF!

For more information on how you can become a successful For Sale By Owner seller visit our website at FSBOHomeMarketplace.com or call (888) 445-2850 today.

The Pride of Ownership you’ve taken in your home is noticed from the moment someone drives up. The buyer will know if they like what they see within the first 8 seconds. If the outside of your home is a mess, then the buyer will naturally wonder how you’ve taken care of the inside. REMEMBER, YOU ONLY HAVE ONE CHANCE TO MAKE A FIRST IMPRESSION.

The more inviting your home looks, the more qualified buyers you will attract. Start out by maintaining a well-manicured front yard. Focus on neatly trimmed bushes and free of weeds. All flowerbeds should appear well kept and attractive. Make sure that any shrubs and bushes are also trimmed. Examine the outside of the house and decide whether or not it can be spot-washed, power-washed, or if it needs a new coat of paint. Check that your windows and screens are free of cracks and tears and replace them if needed. Be sure that the windows are sparkling clean and remove any chipped paint.

Your front door and entrance way should be in immaculate condition. Consider a coat of fresh paint. It gives the home a flawless appearance. Make sure the entryway light and doorbell are in working condition. To increase “curb” appeal, you may also want to plant flowers around the sides of the home.

Thoroughly clean-up your home. Wash all the walls to make sure they look fresh and vibrant. If you have wallpaper, check for tears and loose pieces and repair as soon as possible. Shampoo the rugs, mop and/or wax the floors, and dust everything. Mop any hardwood floors and wax them until they shine. Don’t underestimate the impact a clean home can have. Next, remove all unnecessary clutter. This will help your buyer better visualize how they will redecorate your home to suit their taste. Oil all hinges and tighten all your doorknobs. This would be a good time to take care anything that squeaks.

Cleanliness of the kitchen and baths are extremely important to a home buyer. Make sure that all your bathrooms are spotless. People immediately notice their condition. Take care to ensure they remain fresh and clean. If necessary, replace any leaky faucets and re-caulk tiles. Clean your kitchen! Attack and remove any grease on the stove and walls. Oil and/or wipe down all the cabinet doors, and clean off the refrigerator. Run a lemon or orange through the garbage disposal to give your kitchen a clean and fresh smell. Try not to cook offensive smelling foods prior to any scheduled appointments. You have grown accustomed to the imperfections in your home and have been willing to live with them but prospective buyers notice everything and it will make a difference when finalizing their decision. By taking the time to make these small improvements, you automatically make your home more attractive to your buyer and in turn can improve your chances of getting a higher offer. If you find it financially difficult to paint, purchase new carpeting or update odds and ends, then you may want to consider offering your buyer an allowance for those things. Buyers sometimes like to decide what color of carpeting to install or what color paint to choose.

For more information on how you can become a successful For Sale By Owner seller visit our website at FSBOHomeMarketplace.com or call (888) 445-2850 today.

It may be trite but it’s oh so true, “Pictures are worth a thousand words.” FSBO Home Marketplace can’t emphasize enough that photos of your property are paramount. . Let’s make this very clear, when it comes to the success of marketing your home they are imperative. Studies have shown time and again that property advertisements without pictures are often times passed over by potential buyers. Even one picture is better than none, but as we have mentioned before, when it comes to marketing your home, “do not skimp.” Buyers are visual, but they are also skeptical. If you’re not showing your home with numerous beautiful pictures, they wonder what it is that you are not disclosing. When it comes to photos…the payoff is high, so you have no excuse for not spending the money for photographs that show the buyers exactly what they want and need to see.

If you have poor quality photos, don’t expect buyers to beat down your door. They are going to look at that blurry photo and come to some derogatory conclusions about your home’s worth. If you don’t think the home is worth showing with as many photos as possible, then why should they think it’s worth the price?

Pictures are a two-dimensional walkthrough. They can be staged, just as homes can be, to accentuate the positives and eliminate the negatives. Try to see your home as a buyer. FSBO Home Marketplace takes pictures of the features that you, as a buyer, would be interested in seeing. We photograph the rooms with as much natural light as possible, to give the impression of an air of openness. When possible we try to photograph the home in bright daylight. There are many tutorials on how to stage your home so as to get the best pictures. A good set of photos can encourage people to actually come and see your home

Pictures can make or break your marketing campaign. Use them wisely, use them a lot and make sure they showcase the highlights of your home while minimizing its imperfections.

For more information on how you can become a successful For Sale By Owner seller visit our website at FSBOHomeMarketplace.com or call (888) 445-2850 today.

Pricing your home effectively is the key to success when selling. If you get this step wrong, all of the advertising in the world won’t help you. You must price your home properly in order to attract buyers and progress towards the sale, although your home is really worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Visit our resource center where several widgets are available to help you price your home. Listed below are a few of the major websites that can help you in determining your home’s value.
zillow.com
domania.com
homegain.com
eppraisal.com
realestate.yahoo.com

For more information on how you can become a successful For Sale By Owner seller visit our website at FSBOHomeMarketplace.com or call (888) 445-2850 today.

So what is your home worth?

Not to sound flippant, but our first answer is, “whatever anyone is willing to pay for it.” There are many tools now available on the internet to help you in deciding what to ask for your home. The “Heat Map” featured on www.trulia.com is one tool that can help in estimating how home values in your neighborhood compare with the overall real estate market in your city. A word of caution though: Trulia’s data for current homes for sale, is a small sample of the overall market because they get data only from real estate agents that have taken the extra time to give it to them. So it is not representative of all the listings or sales activity in a given market.

Secondly, you can take advantage of Internet websites that offer free home automated valuation models. While these are the least accurate estimates of house value because they are computer-generated, they are based on public data about recently sold properties and they are free. Using several sites such as www.zillow.com, www.realestateabc.com or www.reply.com, you will be able to get several computer-generated estimates that can help you establish a range of value for your home. HomePoint.com also offers a free house value report.

For more information on how you can become a successful For Sale By Owner seller visit our website at FSBOHomeMarketplace.com or call (888) 445-2850 today.

We don’t see any benefit to hiring an agent. You are just paying your agent a whole lot of money for very little work. Honestly, since they’re paid on commission, more times than not, they are working for themselves. They want the deal to be made, so that they can get paid and go home. They counsel the buyer to offer less than the asking price and they convince you to lower your asking price because that closes the deal quickly. The truth be told, for every $10,000 you lower the asking price, your agent loses only $150 in commission.

As stated in one of the questions above, Realtors will not necessarily get you more money for your home; in fact, the opposite is more likely to occur. If you sell the home on your own, you are likely to pocket more money. In addition, they complicate negotiations as in the example above, costing you thousands of dollars while losing only a few hundred out of theirs. Realtors may be able to give you prices of comparable properties which have sold recently, but will they be able to tell you if those houses were really comparable to yours? When using only square footage, bedrooms, baths and past closed sales as a comparison, that leaves to question any upgrades and improvements you might have made in your home. Again, this tactic can cost you tens of thousands of dollars.

OK, in all honesty, there is one advantage. That is, if for some reason you can’t show your own home then you will need to have an agent show it. Unless, of course, you have family or trusted friends that can show it for you, then again we see no advantage.

For more information on how you can become a successful For Sale By Owner seller visit our website at FSBOHomeMarketplace.com or call (888) 445-2850 today.

Any competent real estate attorney and/or title company can handle most, if not all, of the paperwork for you. In most states a real estate attorney can be hired for less than $1,000, a fraction of the cost of an agent’s 6% commission. Once again, FSBO Home Marketplace and their Partner Network will get you in touch with all the experts you need to ensure a successful real estate transaction.

For more information on how you can become a successful For Sale By Owner seller visit our website at FSBOHomeMarketplace.com or call (888) 445-2850 today.

FSBO Home Marketplace knows this sounds repetitious but the answer is still NO. There are plenty of online pricing reports and professional appraisers that can price a home better than an agent can. Once again, FSBO Home Marketplace and their Partner Network will give you all the tools necessary to properly price your home.

Head on over to our website where we have a few options for pricing your home. FSBOHomeMarketplace.com/Services/Home_Valuation.html

For more information on how you can become a successful For Sale By Owner seller visit our website at FSBOHomeMarketplace.com or call (888) 445-2850 today.

Again, the answer is an emphatic “NO.” Even the agent’s own trade group—the National Association of Realtors—says that more than 87% of buyers go online to search for homes; that’s up from 2 percent in 1997. This tells us that sellers don’t need agents to market their homes but rather a quality Internet Marketing Broker to do the marketing work for them. FSBO Home Marketplace can get you in front of up to 36,000,000 unique visitors every month. That’s more than 44X’s more than our nearest FSBO competitor.

For more information on how you can become a successful For Sale By Owner seller visit our website at FSBOHomeMarketplace.com or call (888) 445-2850 today.

We don’t see any benefit to hiring an agent. You are just paying your agent a whole lot of money for very little work. Honestly, since they’re paid on commission, more times than not, they are working for themselves. They want the deal to be made, so that they can get paid and go home. They counsel the buyer to offer less than the asking price and they convince you to lower your asking price because that closes the deal quickly. The truth be told, for every $10,000 you lower the asking price, your agent loses only $150 in commission.

As stated in one of the questions above, Realtors will not necessarily get you more money for your home; in fact, the opposite is more likely to occur. If you sell the home on your own, you are likely to pocket more money. In addition, they complicate negotiations as in the example above, costing you thousands of dollars while losing only a few hundred out of theirs. Realtors may be able to give you prices of comparable properties which have sold recently, but will they be able to tell you if those houses were really comparable to yours? When using only square footage, bedrooms, baths and past closed sales as a comparison, that leaves to question any upgrades and improvements you might have made in your home. Again, this tactic can cost you tens of thousands of dollars.

OK, in all honesty, there is one advantage. That is, if for some reason you can’t show your own home then you will need to have an agent show it. Unless, of course, you have family or trusted friends that can show it for you, then again we see no advantage.

For more information on how you can become a successful For Sale By Owner seller visit our website at FSBOHomeMarketplace.com or call (888) 445-2850 today.