How Do I Sell My House Without an Agent in Fargo?
If you’ve been following this blog, in the past few weeks, we broke down why realtors — on average — charge too much for their services. When you work with a listing agent, in order to just break even, that agent needs to increase the value of the property by at least 3% (their cut). The average home value in Fargo is $240k. That means they need to sell the house for an additional $7k, and the research simply doesn’t support the idea that working with a realtor boosts home values by such a significant amount.
It’s possible that the realtor sells your house for an additional $3-4k, but you still end up losing $3-4k on closing costs that you otherwise wouldn’t have to pay if you sold the house yourself. The entire incentive structure is a bit wonky.
So, how exactly do you go about selling your house without an agent in Fargo?
Luckily it’s easier than you think. (And, even if you find that you can’t do it on your own, you lose absolutely nothing by giving it a shot).
Things You Need to Know/Do Before Listing Your House as a FSBO
But what are some things you need to know before you list your house?
- Get a rough idea of how much your home is worth. You can find estimates all over the internet, from the Zestimate to Redfin’s Home Value Estimator, to get a range of how much you think your house is worth, or you could hire a professional appraiser to determine how much you should sell it for. A professional appraisal is going to cost $300-400 — a far cry from a 3% commission on a $240k home.
- Take professional photos. Chances are you know someone who is into photography who can take some expert photos of your home for a small fee (or even for free). If not, look for someone on Fiverr or Craigslist. Worse comes to worst, you can do them yourself.
- Measure out the rooms. Calculate how much total living space you have. This is one of the biggest factors in determining how much your home is worth, and a lot of online calculators simply factor your value by taking the average “price per square foot” of homes in the area over the past few months and multiplying that number by public records of your above-ground square footage. That means your house might actually be worth a lot more than what the websites think — or, unfortunately, a lot less.
So, if you’re wondering, “How do I sell my house without an agent in Fargo,” rest assured that you have plenty of resources to get you started…
Top Resources for Listing Your House
1. List Your Own House as a For-Sale-By-Owner on Zillow
Zillow has an online form for putting your house up as a FSBO. You simply fill out that online form and get started.
After that, your house will be listed on Zillow. According to Statista, an online traffic tracker, Zillow is the most popular real estate website by far. It receives roughly 36 million visits per month, so you should have no trouble attracting prospective buyers just because you aren’t on the MLS.
Additionally, Trulia is a partner site to Zillow — and Trulia is the second most popular real estate website in the US, with 23 million monthly visitors.
But, with that said, you can still get on the MLS pretty easily…
2. Pay a Realtor a Flat Fee to List Your Home on the MLS
The MLS attracts a lot of motivated buyers and sellers, so it’s the primary reason why realtors are able to sell your home so quickly.
Instead of paying a commission that varies upon the sale price, you can pay a small flat fee that puts your house on the MLS, and this flat fee is invariably a lot less than the $7k that you would pay a listing agent, but the benefits are very comparable.
3. Sell Your House to an iBuyer
iBuyers refer to any real estate company that buys your house online. If your property is in need of a lot of repairs that you don’t have the time or energy to fix it up and then list it, consider selling to one of these services.
If you want to avoid the headache of the entire renovation and real estate sales process, we can give you a fair market offer on your property in as little as a few days. We fix up houses in Fargo and then rent them out, improving the quality of the real estate in the community (and, of course, earning us a profit). Regardless, even if you aren’t interested in selling, we’d still love to help with any of your Fargo real estate needs, so feel free to contact us about buying or selling.
Conclusion: How Do I Sell My House Without an Agent in Fargo?
So, how do you sell your house without an agent in Fargo? First, use any number of home value estimators online to get a rough idea of how much your house is worth. If that number is all over the map, though, and you can’t decide on a listing price, consider hiring a professional appraiser. Then do some other basic preparation: measure out the rooms in your house, calculate total above-ground living area, and take professional photos.
Next, you’re free to list your house on Zillow. Once you list on Zillow, it immediately becomes live on Trulia, as well. Between those two sites, there are about 50 million monthly users (assuming there’s a significant overlap between the audiences).
If you still want to, pay a flat fee to list your house on the MLS. There are a lot of motivated buyers and sellers on the MLS, so it’ll help you get the house on and off the market.
Finally, consider selling your house online to an iBuyer. We’ll take zero commissions and give you a fair market offer. This is a particularly good option if you’re selling a distressed property and you don’t want to make repairs.