How We Sold Our House For the Full Asking Price

For those of you who are tired of reading old house posts, FEAR NOT! We’re almost done, I promise. The thing about this blog is that it is a chronicle, of sorts, about our life. A diary, if you will, of all of our adventures and experiences; things we’ve tried and failed at, things that have worked, things that we want to remember (like “where were we on Christmas of 2014?”), and things we think others could benefit from (like “how to install board and batten going upstairs” or “how we visited Harry Potter world in one day”).

Selling our house, buying a new one, and moving is a big chapter in our lives and one that I hope we someday get to look back on and remember well. Plus, there was a lot that we learned by doing it ourselves and would love other people who opt to go that route to be able to read what worked and did not work for us. SO, we press on with the few more posts related to selling, showing, and moving. Eventually, we’ll get to the point where we get to show you some of the things that have been happening in the NEW house (can’t wait!). But a story is a story and every part of it matters. 🙂

We were fortunate enough to have a very successful house-selling experience, especially given that we went the “For Sale By Owner” route and did so in the dead of the winter. I kid you not, we listed the house at the end of November, showed it all through the snowy and cold (and notoriously “slow” in real estate) months of December/January/February, accepted an offer in February, and closed in March. I say all of that because it is a really important part to the next piece of information I’m about to give you. Despite all of the tricky variables, we were able to accept a full-asking offer on the house. Many people told us that it would not be possible, especially during such challenging sale months, but I’m here to tell you that you can do it! It just takes some hard work and smart decision making. Here are a few things that we found that helped us in our situation…

PRICE APPROPRIATELY. You’ll need to do your research… find out what other comparable houses are being listed for (or have recently been sold for) in surrounding neighborhoods and come up with a price that fits within the “norm” for that area. Take into consideration the “pros” and “cons” of your property. This is the time to be brutally honest about your house. If it is in disrepair and has not been maintained or updated, chances are you will not be able to sell it for the same amount as the house down the street that just put in a $10,000 kitchen renovation. A two bedroom house will not be as much as a three bedroom house, but your meticulous and updated two bedroom might go for more than the dilapidated three bedroom with stained carpeting. See? It’s helpful to get a ballpark, but you can’t compare apples to oranges.

SHOW WELL. We talked all about this in a previous post (you can see it here), so I won’t go into much detail in this one. Bottom line? If your house does not show well, you are going to have a hard time getting that full asking offer you’re hoping for. Again, we found a few things that really worked for us and shared them for those of you interested, plus a video home tour of what our house looked like in “show condition” (see that here).

MAKE A FLIER. This is how your guests and potential home buyers will remember which house is yours, what it looked like, and which perks stood out to them. We made sure that our flier was full of bright, colorful pictures so that visitors could look back and remember the rooms they had personally walked through on their visit. We also had a website with the house information and pictures, but don’t think that that actually did very much for us… however, I could be wrong so maybe give the website thing a shot too!

BE ACCESSIBLE. Make sure that your contact info is easy to see on all listings and publications. We used my personal cell phone number so that realtors and potential buyers could contact us directly via phone call or text to set up a showing. Be efficient and responsive when they do get in contact; having to wait to hear back to schedule a showing can deter people, especially because they are probably trying to schedule a whole grouping of showings in that same location, around that same time frame. The other major piece of this is that you’ll have to be ready to show pretty much all of the time. We hardly ever turned down a showing and usually tried to agree to the time frame that they wanted to come because we knew that if we didn’t get people in the door, we weren’t going to make the sale. Sometimes this meant having only a short amount of time (as little as 30 minutes) to get the house tidied up before visitors came!

INCLUDE THE PERKS. I think this is a big one because so many people that we talked to brightened right up when we mentioned things like “the washer and dryer are included” or “yes, the microwave and fridge will stay”. Figure out the things that will come with the house when someone purchases it and figure them out ahead of time. This is definitely a lesson that we learned along the way. It doesn’t look good to be deciding on the spot if the drapes or a particular piece of decor will come with the sale of the house. By the way- a word to the wise and something I learned- bathrooms should come with mirrors, as my mom says. 🙂 Once you figure out what will “come with the house”, be sure to highlight it! Mentioning that “appliances are included” will make a buyer who is looking to just move right in and start living even more interested in your home.

CLOSE THE SALE. Another lesson we learned along the way. My dad is in sales and knows the business inside and out. At first, I thought that it was best to keep our distance during a showing and not even make an appearance until after the visitors had left. What we learned is that we were completely missing the opportunity to make a personal connection with potential buyers. Yes, there is definitely a balance to being “too present”, but don’t be afraid to introduce yourself beforehand and make a connection afterward. By the end of our showing experience, here is what we we found to be the best combination for us…

1. Introduce ourselves to both the realtor AND their client (after all, it’s the client that will be buying your house!) when they first arrived.
2. Ask if they have any initial questions or if they’d like you to take them around before “getting out of their way” so they can really look. Be sure to make it clear that you will also be leaving them alone to look at their own pace! There is nothing worse than having the buyer hover over your shoulder while you tour a house. It makes it awkward to really look, open closets and cabinets, take pictures, etc.
3. Let them know you’ll be leaving, but close by for when they are finished and they can text or call when they leave to let you know. Toward the end, we just waited outside in our car.
4. This is the important one: INTERCEPT THEM on their way out! This is the one I was so afraid of because it felt a little pushy. Granted, there is an appropriate way to do it. We found that if we “just happened to be getting out of our car as they were leaving the house”, we could then say hello again and ask if they had any additional questions. It was also here that we were able to gauge what their thoughts were in the process.

The personal connection on both ends is really important because personal connections lead to sales. Touching base at the end of the showing allowed us to get an idea of where they were and how their tour went. From there, we were often able to tell if they were totally uninterested, semi-interested but not ready to be making any further steps, or really interested and excited. Being able to gauge that was helpful because we could then suggest some further steps.

CREATE URGENCY. Not falsely, mind you. We’re not into lying. But we were definitely up front with the buyers that seemed really excited about the house and honest about where we were in the process. We let them know that we’d had multiple showings that week, a few people were looking into finances, etc. This is important because if someone is seriously interested, reminding them that timeliness could be critical often results in next steps being made sooner rather than later.

MOVE IT ALONG. Don’t be afraid to suggest the next steps (which you should be able to appropriately gauge from the last two points). It’s totally okay to say things like:

• Are there any additional questions I can answer for you?
• Is there any other information I can find for you and call you with answers?
• Depending on your level of interest, we’d be happy to send along the Sellers Disclosure…
• Or even, Can you give us an idea of where you’re at in your search process so we can keep you in the loop on our end if this house is a potential for you?

Bottom line is this… when you are selling your house by yourself, you have to wear all of the hats and adopt all of the roles. Advertising, presenting, and eventually, making the sale and closing the deal.  When all of those things align, you’ll find yourself in the running for accepting an offer that is fair and worth the energy and effort that you put into your home.

Good luck to all of you other FSBO friends and we hope this helps as you work toward selling your house!