Dear Home Owner:

When selling your home yourself as an unrepresented seller (For Sale by Owner), here are some issues to prepare for….or think about.

1. As a potential seller, there are many advantages to selling your own home:
1. Most importantly, there’s the obvious financial benefit. By assuming the role of realtor, you can pocket the 6% real estate commission.
2. Another advantage to selling your own home is the flexibility to lower the asking price quickly if needed. The buyers will feel that they have clearly made a good deal.
3. Greater control over the selling process. You can decide how much to spend in advertising your home, or scheduling the Open House events or marketing your home’s worth on the Internet.
4. Who knows your home better than you?

2. Steps in Preparing to be a ‘For Sale by Owner’ seller.
1. Just because you’ve decided to sell your home on your own doesn’t mean you won’t need help. Even without enlisting the help of a real estate agent/broker, you simple can’t do everything by yourself! You will need 2 or 3 key people to assist you:

1. Your mortgage banker or lender
1. Purpose is to ‘prequalify’ your buyers for you.
2. A real estate attorney
1. Purpose is to help draft your disclosure documents for your protection
3. A title company
1. Purpose is to meet state guidelines, title searches, order pre-lims, transaction management of cash and document recording.

It will be your primary responsibility to market your house, find a buyer, negotiate the terms of the sales contract and very important in California, accurately prepare all of the required property disclosure statements for your potential buyer to review and acknowledge.

3. Timing is everything – one of the most important questions to ask yourself at this point is ‘How much time do I have to market and sell this house?’

4. Pricing your home. The biggest mistake sellers tend to make is to overprice their home, purely hoping for a large return. By asking for a price that is considerably higher than the market, potential buyers will be discouraged from making an offer. Buyers are fully aware that selling your home yourself eliminates the broker’s commission (which average between 4.5 -6%) and therefore expect somewhat of a better deal.

5. Marketing to & luring prospective buyers can be a challenging task and very expensive if not prepared, or experienced in writing ads, flyers & materials.

1. Signs if front of the property
2. Flyers
3. Advertising in local newspapers
4. Advertising in local home magazines
5. The Internet and Virtual tours
6. Open House events and advertising the open house times

Here is what we can do to help you:

We are the creators of The Affordable Listing™ system for home sellers. We can help you sell your house, and in return, you give us referrals and the names of buyers that are not prospects for your property. As we initiate the marketing process and attempt to secure a qualified and approved buyers’ contract, you will be informed of its progress every two days, taking the stress out of the anticipation of this process of selling your house.

Let me remind you that if you should find the right buyer, without the aid of an agent/Broker, and you determine that this direct buyer’s offer is acceptable, then with a simple phone call or fax to me, notifying us in writing of your decision, you may cancel our contract and prepare to close on the sale independently, without paying the agents’ commission fees.

This system is simple and can work for you.

Considerable activities are involved when selling real estate….

Here is an abbreviated list of some of the documents you would need to include in your For Sale By Owner disclosures/ Documents:

-           A Generic Purchase Agreement
-           Escrow, Settlement, or Closing Instructions
-           Title Insurance Policy
-           Settlement or Closing Statement
-           General Warranty Deed
-           Special Warranty Deed
-           Bargain and Sale Deed
-           Lead-based paint Seller Disclosure
-           A list of other documents they’ll need

If you allow us, we can help you sell your home for TOP DOLLAR and possibly save you thousands of dollars in the process.

You can still work to sell your home yourself by holding Open House events, using our signs, and contacting friends and others to find a direct buyer for your house. You can promote to friends, work associates or anyone else, and if during the process of selling your home yourself, you find a direct buyer, with No agent or broker representation, then you can call us, send us an email or letter and cancel our listing contract.

If you wish….

1. You can still try to sell your home yourself under our program.
2. Hold your own Open House events (using RE/MAX signs for free)
3. Find a buyer (with no Broker/ agent representation)
4. Save a lot of Commission dollars

You CAN do All of the above, AND have the largest real estate agency network representing your home with NO COST to you.

If you list your home with us, we will…

1. Advertise your home every week Until Sold
2. Hold Open House events with your approval
3. Advertise on the Internet, MLS, Realtor.com & the RE/MAX Valley Properties sites
4. Mail Postcards & letters to targeted potential buyers & investors who may be interested parties
5. Manage the transaction process with the Title Company, buyers & any agent involved.

YOU CAN’T LOSE!......If you list your home with us, we’ll do our best to sell your home at TOP DOLLAR and, if you find a buyer with no Realtor before we sell your home, the you can cancel the agreement with no charge. Period.

Like we said, YOU CAN’T LOSE!  And neither can WE. We will most likely pick up additional clients/ properties in this process. This works for us when you given a chance to sell your home, at your approved price and at the same time, increase the possibility of gaining new referrals and new names of buyers that may not be the right prospects for your property.

If you believe you can still sell your home with our marketing help & experience, then maybe we can help each other.

I hope to hear from you soon to discuss this NO LOSE DEAL.

Respectfully,

Frank Leonardi
Broker Associate, RE/MAX Valley Properties
License # 01360945

Phone – 408-529-5777
EMail – FrankL@remax.net