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Selling On Your Own
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People who knock on your door after noticing your For Sale By Owner sign should be told to phone you for an appointment and handed a marketing flyer. When you receive a call, ask for the caller’s own phone number “so I can call you back and confirm.” This provides a certain amount of identification ahead of time, for safety’s sake. You’ll want to ask several qualifying questions before making a decision to invite prospects over.
The advance appointment gives you time to prepare your home and to arrange for another adult to be in the house with you if you wish.
When you give prospects directions to your house, consider the most attractive approach. No law says that you must direct them past the town dump if the route through the park works just as well.
Right after your house goes on the market, watch out for bar¬gain hunters on the prowl for unsophisticated FSBOs. They will be less interested in the house itself than in finding out whether you will sell with no down payment and whether you will carry financing (discussed in Chapter 10). Such buyers often cannot qualify for bank loans because they have poor credit or insufficient income.
Before you place your first advertisement, you will have cal¬culated the amount of cash and income a buyer would need to qualify for a mortgage loan on your property (again, see Chapter 10). You will not, therefore, invite in everyone who inquires. Apply the same standards to every caller to make sure you observe human rights law. You have a right to ask name, phone number, and present address, and whether they rent or have another house to sell. You may also ask about employment and income. They may, of course, refuse to answer. Then you’ll have to play it by ear.
It’s not a bad idea to have a local mortgage loan consultant make up a financing flyer for your home, giving sample loan scenarios based on your asking price. He or she will appreciate the ex¬tra marketing exposure, and your buyers will have some ready information on whether they can afford the payments on your home. You may even work out an arrangement for any prospective buyers to call this mortgage lender for a prequalification by phone, and for the lender to call you with feedback before going further.
See Figure 8.1 for a handy list of things to do when selling on your own.
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