Selling your house is something you’ll have to do maybe just a few times in your life. And unless you know a local Phoenix real estate agent who will sell your house for free or a hugely discounted commission… it can be a real pain and an expensive process for you as well.
Honestly, as human beings, most of us would rather just watch Netflix and let someone else deal with the headaches. Am I right?
So… you’ve landed on this page about selling your house by yourself in Phoenix AZ for one of a few of these reasons I’m guessing…
- You have very little or no equity in your house so you can’t afford to pay a real estate agents commissions
- You have equity, but want to try to save money by selling the house yourself before you resort to hiring an agent
- You’re in foreclosure (or heading that way) and just need to sell fast without incurring thousands in agent commissions
- You can’t wait the months and months it sometimes takes to sell a house in the Phoenix market so you want to explore options to sell it more quickly
Whatever bucket you land in… there are ways to sell your house yourself here in the Phoenix market.
Since 2013, the housing sector has been experiencing a major recovery. Selling your house at this time can be profitable if you do it right. In most cases, this is about using smart marketing strategies and being realistic about your expectations of what you want to achieve with this sale.
This article will provide some guidelines to help you sell your Phoenix area house yourself.
How To Sell Your House By Yourself In Phoenix AZ – Let’s Dive In
Know The Phoenix Real Estate Market Well
The first and most important step is doing market research for your neighborhood. This step usually involves visiting various home marketing sites (Zillow, Eppraisal the Chase home value estimator, etc), calling a real estate agent or two to see what your home is worth, or reading about the various market pricing techniques. It’s strongly recommended that you take two things into account when using the aforementioned sites.
- Be sure you are focusing on “like properties” when looking for comparisons. A lot of realtors do not like when clients take information from these sites as gospel because they aren’t a great resource for making sure your stuccoed custom home is teased out from the block house with a pool 2 miles away.
- They don’t account for the locality or desirability of a neighborhood. The personality of an area can change drastically from one neighborhood to the next; Sometimes only being divided by a street.
- These tools are great for learning what has SOLD in an area, but they have some very real limitations on determining actual values of properties going to market. Here’s where sellers using these tools typically draw the most ire from professional agents and house buyers alike. These sites often don’t take into account the comparisons between remodeled/updated homes and those that need a refresh. And sometimes sellers use “for sale” properties as a basis for their comps when these should be excluded because they haven’t actually sold for the amounts someone simply hopes to get. So what next?
Homework will enable you “right price” your house and also helps you to avoid making certain selling mistakes. But it comes with the risk of death by a thousand papercuts; A leading cause of death amongst new realtors and DIYers without the proper equipment. Plus, price per square foot is generally a good guide, but that breaks down on larger or higher end homes with unique features. All parcels of land are unique. It can be a chore! I made up the dangerous part
Anyway, if you don’t want to hassle with trying to come up with a home value yourself… give us a call at (602) 888-3205 and we’ll give you an honest and fair valuation of what your house is worth on the retail market (if you’re going to wait the 3-6+ months to find the perfect retail buyer PLUS the avg. of 45 days to close). And if you want to… we’ll make you a fair all-cash offer on your house to give you the option of selling quickly (we can close in as little as 5 days )if you want to.
Assess the Market
This step is similar to conducting your market research, only here you restricting your comp pool to your neighborhood. Evaluate. Are there lots of houses for sale in your neighborhood? If so, what is the average price (per sq ft) that they are listing for? How big is your house? Remember price per square starts to be less reliable an indicator the further you deviate from your property. Are there lots of foreclosures in your neighborhood? That competition may (most likely will) drag your house price down.
Assess the House
As a seller, your house should be in top condition to command a good retail price. Turn-key, or ready to move in homes are the most desirable to the majority of buyers for reasons that are obvious. Moving is a chore. WHO wants to move into a place and spend weeks or months and thousands of dollars improving their space after they get there? It can be daunting. Turn-key means updating areas that are dated but still in otherwise good condition as well. Also, identify unique characteristics about your house and highlight them during your marketing. For example, in the Phoenix metro, a house with a basement may be more attractive to buyers who are transplants who come from an area where basements are standard- certainly not the case here.
Be honest about needed repairs that fresh eyes might spot right away. You may be used to the faded paint that you see every day and see it through the eyes of someone who remembers what it used to look like. Invite a friend over and ask for their feedback. We’re attached to our houses and see “character” where someone else would see a scuff. Do they believe it needs to be repainted inside or out? What is the condition of the roof? Is the landscaping in good shape? Plumbing? Slanted walls? Again, is the house outdated? (You know, those popcorn ceilings ;-). All of these things can make the house more attractive or less attractive depending on the buyer… So go for the broad appeal to increase the price buyers are willing to pay.
After all of this… come up with an asking price for your home that is fair… It shouldn’t be so high that it’ll take you 12 months to sell… You’ll know very quickly if you are priced too high. You should have considerable interest in viewings in the first couple of weeks, assuming the property is in a desirable location.
Use Photos or Videos
Phoenix and Scottsdale buyers are obsessed with media. Taking walk-through videos of the house and using them to advertise will enable you to engage a broader market segment. In fact, these videos are considered more illuminating than photos. Professional videos and photos work best. Even the high-quality photo and video capabilities of today’s smartphones have limitations when capturing the feeling of real estate spaces. If a video isn’t a good option, you can still get high-quality, pro photos for under $100. It’s worth the spend.
Take a picture of every room in the house from angles that show it off. Take pictures of the house from the outside and from a few different angles with good lighting. People want to see the house before they ever drive to see it… Especially in the Arizona summer! Having great pictures of your house online could be the difference between getting the right buyer quickly… and waiting months to sell.
Get Your House “Listed” On The Local Phoenix MLS And Market It
You can find no or low fee real estate brokers these days who will charge you a few hundred bucks to put your house on the local Phoenix MLS as a FSBO (For Sale By Owner). The price will change according to market. This gets your house in front of real estate agents quickly and is a hundred times better than simply placing a sign in your yard. Only your neighbors will see that. And they already live there! Lastly, be prepared to pay those buyers’ agents a 3% broker’s fee if you plan to have their support in helping you find a buyer.
As a complement to those efforts, place ads in the local newspaper and hold an open house. Be prepared to keep your house orderly and neat as well.
All Of This Sound Like A Lot Of Work To Sell Your Phoenix House Fast Yourself?
It can be.
And in the end, many Phoenix sellers think they’re saving money and time by marketing the house themselves. Usually, it costs them more money to go that route.
When you sell your own house here are some things you need to consider…
- If you’re not a good marketer or aren’t ready to spend a bunch of time marketing your house right… selling it yourself may not be your best bet.
- If you don’t do a good job preparing the house and the marketing materials… and working with buyers to really build the value of your house in their minds… you may actually sell the house for 3-8% less than you may get for the same house an experienced person marketed the house for you.
- Too many sellers never think about holding costs or opportunity costs… Every month that your house doesn’t sell means another mortgage payment, tax payment, insurance, utilities, etc. If your mortgage payment is $1,500/mo… and $1,300 of that is interest… if it takes you 7 months to sell your house… that costs you an extra $9,100 (not to mention taxes and insurance you paid during that time). So, if you were able to sell that house more quickly would it make sense for you to provide a buyer a discounted price today so you can close quickly and move on? Something to think about.
If you’d rather not put up with all the hassle of trying to sell your house yourself and would rather sell it fast, for a fair price and without paying any commissions or fees, consider us.
At Property Cartwheel we buy houses all over AZ.
If selling your house fast appeals to you, we’d love to make you a fair, NO OBLIGATION and NO HASSLE cash offer on your house.
We can close quickly (in as little as 5 days)… which may save you thousands of dollars vs. trying to sell the house yourself.
Also, when we buy local houses, we fund all repairs that are needed so you don’t have to worry about that either.
If you want to see what we can pay for your house, give us a call today at (602) 888-3205 or just fill out the quick simple form through the link below.