[M02/S02] Reasons to Sell Your Home By Owner

\What are the reasons to sell your home by owner? I’m glad you asked! Let’s dive into them.

The #1 reason that most people decide to sell their home without using an agent is that they already have a buyer in mind. In fact, the buyer and seller will probably have already casually negotiated a lot of the deal themselves – like the price, terms, financing, and all the rest. The buyer is probably already familiar with the property, and doesn’t feel like they need to do a lot of due diligence.

If you have already identified the buyer for your home, a lot of the content on this website is not going to be useful for you (although some of it will, especially the parts about disclosure requirements and the closing process). I suggest getting a copy of the NOLO press book about selling your home by owner to make sure you take care of your legal obligations – or perhaps splurge and spend a few hundred dollars on a lawyer.

If that’s not you – that is, if you don’t already have a buyer lined up for your property – the #2 reason that owners decide to sell on their own is, of course, to save the commission. And commissions can be substantial – tens of thousands of dollars in most cases. If you can save that money when selling your house, why not try?

There are reasons why not to try to sel by owner, but for now, let’s talk about reason #3 why home owners decide to sell on their own.

The third reason home owners decide to sell on their own is that they figure there literally is not enough equity in their homes to cover the commission – that if they need to pay an agent, they would be forced into doing a short sale. And that, unfortunately, is a fact for many home owners, and it is a good reason to at least try selling a home without an agent.

So what’s the fourth reason? It turns out – there is no reason #4. There may be an odd case now and again why, aside from the commission, someone decides to sell a home on their own. But in virtually all cases, it’s simply the reasonable desire to net the most money possible when they go to sell a home.

Take all your equity when you move