If you’re looking to sell your house or investment property in Fort Worth without using a real estate agent, we have a lot of tips here for you.
After all, paying 5-6% of the sale of a property in a commission is a lot of money. Most people who want to sell by owner are looking to save the money they would have to pay in commission. But before deciding to sell by owner we recommend you fully understand the process and the amount of work you will have to do.
How Do I Sell My House Without An Agent in Fort Worth?
The options you have for selling your house without an agent in Fort Worth are:
- to sell to an investor/cash buyer
- hire a real estate attorney to facilitate a sale to a known buyer
- handle the sale yourself. (FSBO) For Sale By Owner.
Option #1 Putting your house on the market (FSBO) For Sale By Owner
Let’s talk about commission. You may be thinking that you will be saving yourself 6% in commission fees if you sell your home FSBO. However, sellers customarily pay the commission for the seller’s agent and the buyer’s agent. In most sales, roughly half of the commission you pay as the seller goes to pay for the buyer’s broker. So the work you put in to sell your home yourself will often only save you the money for the seller’s side of the sale.
However, the buyers have already signed a contract with their agent saying they are responsible for paying the buyer’s agent commission even though the seller usually pays for it. So there may be some ability to negotiate the buyer’s side of the commission as well. You may want to consider offering 2.5% to buyer’s agents who will bring their clients to show your property. Sure, it’s a lot of money. But, if you’re pricing your property including that commission, you can always negotiate a better deal for a purchaser who comes without an agent or one who is willing to cover their buyer’s agent’s commission.
However, offering 2.5% commission for the buyer’s agent will motivate buyer’s agents to bring buyers to come see your property. If you don’t leave room for the buyer’s agent’s commission, you’ll likely be excluding most of the buyers in the market in Fort Worth.
Tips For a Successful FSBO Sale (and How to Avoid Paying High Commissions in TX Without an Agent.)
You can advertise your property on sites like:
- Zillow (Free -For Sale By Owner)
- Facebook Marketplace
- ForSaleByOwner.com
- Nextdoor.com
Or, you can list your home with a flat fee multiple listing service. (MLS) in order to reach the widest group of people buying homes possible. The multiple listing service is where 86% of sellers list their homes. It’s the main database that all the brokers in Fort Worth use to access information for their clients on the houses, condos, land and investment properties for sale, along with data on the sold prices. Compared to the cost of a newspaper ad, the MLS is an inexpensive way to market your property to a very wide audience.
A flat fee MLS service will allow you to save some money on commission and give your property the visibility it deserves.
All the major real estate search sites like Realtor.com, Zillow, Yahoo Homes, etc. get data from the MLS. Chances are good that when you submit your listing in Fort Worth to the MLS, information on your property will end up on most of the major sites within a few days.
With a flat fee listing service you’ll have options for a number of different services ranging in price from $300 to $5000.
Do some research when looking for a flat fee MLS service. Check reviews and also check with the Better Business Bureau. Here are some established flat fee MLS listing services with good reputations:
- FSBO.com
- Unreal Estate
- ISoldMYHouse.com
- Houzeo.com
- Flatfeegroup.com
Price It Right! Research your home’s market value. Saving money on commission and selling your home FSBO will require you to have the expertise to price your home correctly (not too low or too high) Pricing your home too low will cause you to lose money. Pricing your home too high will result in your home sitting on the market too long which will likely lead to a lower final sales price.
Market Your Home With Skill. You’ll need to do a great job of de-cluttering and home staging before you have a photographer take pro shots and video of your home’s interior and exterior. You’ll want these awesome photos and videos for your advertising. Advertising a gamble. Sometimes open houses in Fort Worth TX can be a great way to sell a property, and sometimes they’re a waste of time. Same with newspaper ads, craigslist postings, fancy signs – sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t. But you’ll probably need to do some of these things to make sure your property is seen and competitive.
Putting up fliers and signs around your neighborhood can generate some calls, and there are a lot of free websites where you can post information. But often just putting up flyers and having an open house isn’t enough to sell if your house doesn’t appeal to the average home buyer.
In theory, real estate agents charge big commissions because they have to spend a lot of money up front to advertise your property. By advertising lots of properties at once, they expect to get more phone calls – and obviously, they’ll make good profits by selling lots of houses.
Certain properties might require thousands of dollars in advertising expenses before the right buyer happens to see the ad and call.
Communication is Key! Be available at your earliest possible moment to answer calls, emails and texts. If you don’t respond quickly you might lose a buyer. You also need to be prepared to handle negotiations yourself. Buyer’s agents will be looking out for their clients and may ask for contingencies or timelines that are atypical. Be ready to negotiate with skill in order to look out for your interests without scaring the buyer away.
Be Aware of Potential Scams. There are wire fraud and phishing scams that target FSBO sellers. An example of a scam is when sellers may receive an email from a fake title company that seems legit. But the wiring instructions actually send the money to a scammer’s account. If this happens good luck getting your money back! Another example of fraud is when a scammer claims they want to buy your house but can’t come to see it in person. They offer to send a money order as a deposit. Then later, they ask for their money back. After you send the refund, your bank discovers the money order was fraudulent and you can not get your money back.
Become Familiar With the Paperwork Involved. Or consider hiring a real estate attorney to help you. You’ll need to understand and know when to implement the proper documents such as the purchase agreement, disclosure statements, and closing or settlement statement. There are different legal requirements for home sales in each state. Here is a link to the disclosure laws in Texas for home sales. https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/selling-texas-home-disclosure-obligations.html
Be Safe! When selling FSBO you are basically opening the door to strangers. Some people may pretend to be interested in buying your house when they actually have ulterior motives. If your potential buyers don’t have a buyer’s agent, do you have a way to vet them to make sure they are legit and pre-approved? An agent will stay with their buyers during the showing and you probably should as well.
While selling FSBO can be a great way to save some money on commission statistics from the National Association of Realtors, show that FSBO homes in 2022 sold for much lower prices than homes sold with the support of a real estate agent. Some of the reasons are: Sometimes buyer’s agents are better at negotiating than FSBO sellers. FSBO sellers sometimes don’t set the price correctly in the beginning costing them lots of time and money. The home inspection report sometimes brings up issues that some FSBO sellers aren’t able to successfully manage without the buyer backing out.
Option #2 Hire a Real Estate Attorney to Sell to a Known Buyer.
Selling to a family member or a good friend can be tricky. Having a real estate attorney can really be helpful in that situation. While a real estate attorney won’t help you get the best price for your house like a real estate agent can, hiring a real estate attorney is far less expensive than what you would give up having a real estate agent. Real estate attorneys may charge between $150 -$350 per hour compared to 5 or 6 percent on the total sale of the home with a real estate agent. Laws can change from year to year. So be sure to check on the laws in your state. But In Texas at the time of writing this article a real estate attorney is not required. However, having a real estate attorney will take some of the pressure out of the sale for both parties. Unlike a real estate agent, a real estate attorney can be a mediator if a contract dispute arises and provide both sides with an unbiased legal perspective. They can help resolve any issues that might come up in the closing process. This can protect both sides from legal issues and help to make the process go smoothly giving both sides more peace of mind.
Option #3 Sell To An Investor/Cash Buyer
If you want to avoid paying any commissions, you can also sell your house to investors like us for CASH.
We pay fair prices for properties – and we can close fast (in as little as 3-5 days if you need to).
Sometimes we’ll purchase Fort Worth houses, fix them up, then rent them out… sometimes we’ll fix them up and sell them to other people looking for great homes in the area, and a lot of other reasons, too – but we love to hear from people like you who are thinking of selling anywhere in TX.
With a cash sale you can skip the hassle of having to deep clean, de-clutter, do home staging, painting and upgrading, marketing and advertising, showing your property, following up with potential buyers, and having open houses.
At Texas Best Homebuyers we’re investors who strive to be helpful in every real estate situation that we can. We love solving real estate problems and helping families get out of the tough situations. Our goal is to be the most helpful real estate company you come across. Some of our core values are to always be honest, respectful, humble, positive, helpful and to be a solution.
We close fast and pay cash in as little as just 3-5 days. Give us a call now at (817) 808-4911 or fill out the short form over here.