Save $1000’s - be FOR SALE BY OWNER (FSBO)

A great way to save money when selling your home is to market your home yourself. Usually a realtor is paid a commission to market your home to prospective buyers. An average commission ranges from 3-6 percent. On a $300,000 home you could expect to pay a commission of $9000 to $18,000 dollars. That is a lot of money to give someone for a job you could easily do yourself. Typically a real estate marketing website would charge between $100 and $500 for the service of placing your home, with pictures and perhaps movies, on their website. Some sites will do more for you than others, and some sites will charge you more than others.

If you decide to market your home for resale without paying commission you need to establish a budget. If you were to commit 1% of your $300,000 home, that is $3000, then you would have a significant budget to work with. Here are some items I would suggest that you invest your marketing budget in:

• A high quality digital camera for taking pictures of your home and property. ($300-400)
• A real estate marketing website that will allow you to upload several pictures along with video. ($100-500)
• Newspaper classifieds. ($30-50 per week) – Some papers have run till sold.
• Home Staging Service ($200-400)

These items are all great ways to get your home seen, and have people want to buy. If you were to market your home as FSBO for 12 weeks with the above budget you would only have spent about $2000. And, you would have a high quality digital camera to keep. If you already have a good camera that is money you would save.

There are many real estate websites available to help you through your journey of selling your home without absorbing the commissions charged by a realtor. Snap Up Real Estate provides a full Internet marketing service including: Unlimited picture uploads, 5 movie uploads, marketing to Google and Yahoo included, and helpful articles and advice for only $150. The best part is that you can try our service for free for 14 days to get a feel for how our site works. Selling your home does not have to be an event where you give 3-6 percent of the selling price to a realtor. You can keep the profit for yourself with a small investment in online and print marketing. If you have questions or would like to get started selling your real estate, feel free to contact us.

Bart Zirnhelt, Snap Up Real Estate Operations Manager
Phone: 250-434-4372
Email: Bart@snapuprealestate.com