Should you Sell your Home yourself?

Should you sell your home yourself? Yes and no. Yes, you should leave the option of selling on your own open and no, you shouldn't rule out using the services of an agent to help you sell. There are a considerable number of advantages of using an agent to sell your home but their services do come at a price - up to 6% commission on the sale price! That's quite a sum, a precious $6,000 for every $100,000 your home is worth. Agents are not indispensable. With the advent of the Internet, a fairly sizeable number of owners have been able to successfully sell on their own. Statistics have it that 80% of home buyers begin their search for a home online. So, putting your home details on the Internet is one effective medium of advertising your home and reaching out to a large number of buyers.

So now, how would you go about doing the 'yes and no' at the same time? Well, agents may not tell you about this but there is a type of listing arrangement you can have with them, known as an 'Exclusive Agency Listing'. Under the terms of this listing, they would be the exclusive agents handling the marketing of your property and should they or another agent find a buyer for your place, your listing agent would be entitled to a full commission. This type of listing would also have the agent put your property on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service). The other side to this listing arrangement is that, if you find a buyer yourself, you don't have to pay any commission to your agent! So, the answer to yes and no lies in going for an Exclusive Agency Listing. You would be keeping the option open of finding a buyer yourself, through the Internet listings of your home, while on the other hand, should your listing agent find you a buyer, you would have to pay the commission but you're getting your home sold in the process.

So where should you advertise and list your home? There are plenty of websites which offer to list your property. Two well-known and frequently visited sites are ChoiceOfHomes.com and ForSaleByOwner.com. I suggest not listing on only one but listing on at least a couple of these sites, if not more. It doesn't cost much and especially when you consider the money you'd save in commissions from finding a buyer through these sources.

Happy Home Selling!

Sameer S Panjwani is the CEO and Founder of ChoiceOfHomes.com - Find Homes for Sale and Apartment Rentals.The website is a useful resource of Home Listings, Articles and Information related to real estate.

More than 40 states signed onto a proposed $25-billion deal with major mortgage servicers over faulty foreclosure practices. New York, Nevada and Delaware joined California in holding out for better terms.

More than 40 states signed onto a proposed $25-billion settlement with major mortgage servicers over faulty foreclosure procedures, but California, New York and other key states were still not among them.

California has until Monday to share in a multi-state deal with banks to obtain mortgage relief and reforms. Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris, who walked away from talks last year, says the door remains open.

With a Monday deadline at hand, California officials have resumed direct talks with the Obama administration about joining a multibillion-dollar, multi-state mortgage settlement with the nation's largest banks, a source said Sunday.

The talk show host pays $12 million for the 4,088-square-foot house with four bedrooms and four bathrooms. The ocean-view home sits on 1.26 bluff-top acres with beach access.

In one of the more talked-about transactions in town, actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have sold their Malibu beach house to daytime host and comedian Ellen De Generes for $12 million.

The four-bedroom, five-bathroom house built in 1920 for industrialist James Wigmore lists for $2,875,000.

A decorative cast stone entrance opens to this restored Spanish Colonial Revival-style house in Pasadena's South Orange Grove area. Built in 1920 for industrialist James Wigmore, the house retains such original details as coffered wood ceilings and arched doorways.

They don't believe they can sell their property for what it's worth, so they're spending money on making their homes more comfortable.

Do you fit any of these descriptions?

A biennial research report by the National Assn. of Realtors indicates that a handful of real estate agents and brokers and their clients either don't know the law or don't care to follow it.

When it comes to lawsuits, real estate agents and brokers tangle mostly among themselves.

The president aims to help about 3.5 million people with good credit who are unable to refinance at historically low rates because their homes are worth less than their mortgages.

 

The White House hopes to help millions of homeowners lower their monthly mortgage bill with a $5 billion to $10 billion plan to set up a streamlined refinancing program for people who are current on their payments.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index of 20 large U.S. cities fell 1.3% in November from October as foreclosures continue to drag down the housing market.

Three straight months of home-price declines in the biggest U.S. cities showed that foreclosures remain a significant drag on a housing market that is entering its fifth year of deterioration.

L.A. Clipper Chris Paul may be quick down the court, but he moves pretty fast when it comes to buying multimillion-dollar real estate too.