Marketing and Selling Your Home For-Sale-By-Owner in Westchester County

If you’re selling your home anywhere in Westchester County, you’ve no doubt contemplated paying thousands of dollars in commission fees. The question is, would you rather pay a real estate agent to sell your house, or pocket the fees and sell your home yourself?

Going FSBO?

Going full steam ahead and putting your home for sale by owner (FSBO) is no easy task, but it’s a decision countless others have made. If you choose the DIY home selling method, be prepared to put a lot of time and effort into it.

You’ll basically have to act as your own real estate agent, accomplishing each task successfully to ensure that your home sells for the right price. So if you’re committed to selling your FSBO home, here are the roles that you will be filling.

Be an Exterior Landscaper, Interior Decorator and Professional Stager

When you’re preparing your Westchester County home to sell on the market, you’ll first have to stage it so that it brings across the best first impression to potential home buyers. The interior and exterior decorating of your home truly impacts the way your home sells.

Potential home buyers perceive that the outside of your home reflects what’s on inside, so you’ll also want to make sure that the way your home looks from the curb beckons visitors to take a closer look.

Jump into the role of a landscaper to spruce up your home’s curb appeal from the outside, and then move indoors to set the stage for your visitors. Here are the elements you should definitely consider when decorating your [cityname] home:

• scrubbing carpets to seem like new
• deep cleaning pet odors out of your home
• filling cracks in your driveway
• power washing the outside of your house
• decluttering your closets and living areas
• painting your rooms with neutral colors

Be a Professional Photographer

Once you’ve cleaned your house inside and out, it’s time to capture your home’s visual appeal. A picture is worth a thousand words, as the saying goes. Stunning photos of your home say more about your home’s beauty than a description ever could.

It’s not enough to professionally stage your home and depersonalize your living spaces. You need to make sure your hard work gets noticed in your home marketing materials or on the local Hudson Gateway MLS.

If you want home buyers to take notice of your property, you will need to take immaculate photos that show off your home’s best features. This means ditching your iPhone and upgrading to a professional camera. Savvy real estate agents also know a video tour of a home gives it even more exposure, especially when it’s posted to YouTube.

Become a Home Appraiser

If you’re going to find that sweet price — not too high, and not too low — you will need to research the current Westchester County real estate market. Really research it.

You’ll want to find out how much homes have sold for in your neighborhood in the last six months — especially those properties that are similar to yours in size, features, condition and floor plan.

The true market value of your home can come from a comparative market analysis. It will take all your property upgrades and your neighborhood’s property values into account when finding the value.

Be an Effective Home Marketer

Sticking a sign into your front lawn will probably only broadcast your home for sale within your neighborhood. When you’re selling your home yourself, you need to become your own online and print marketer to effectively reach the largest audience of the local and "New York City buyers coming North to Westchester County" home buyers possible.

Print brochures, host an open house, and broadcast your FSBO home on social media. This is where you can add the stunning home photos, descriptions of your home’s features and the appeal of your property and neighborhood.

Remember, you’re not just trying to sell your house locally. You’re attempting to reach home buyers from across the country or even the globe. This will take a great website optimized for these buyers so it offers tons of information about your home. Today’s real estate marketers are experts at web design, coding, search engine optimization, social marketing and content generation. You’ll need to fulfill these roles as well.

Be Your Own Representative

Real estate agents act with the home seller’s best interests in mind when showing potential buyers around a home. Selling your home yourself means that you need to act as the real estate agent, accepting all forms of feedback — both good and bad.

Some Westchester County home buyers may not be comfortable expressing their honest opinion of the wallpaper in your living room or the smell of kitty litter that you’ve grown accustomed to. They may also feel like they’re invading your personal space by touring their potential new house with you, the homeowner, next to them.

We all look at our home through rose-colored glasses. Listening to negative feedback is crucial to sell your home, but it’s not something that’s pleasant to hear.

Be a Security Guard

When you’re starting to show potential buyers your new home, you need to make sure that your property is secure. When someone shows up at your door, are they truly interested in buying home? Or are they burglars? You can’t know for sure.

And what if you’re not at home and someone requests a showing for that very moment? Real estate agents either elect to show homes for sale themselves or leave your house keys in a lockbox. But even if you put a combination lock on your home, it still runs the risk of getting broken into.

You need to act as your own security guard to protect the home that you still own and the belongings within it.

Other Hats You Need to Wear

These few aspects to the home selling process are by no means an exhaustive list. You also have to play the part of:

• home improvement expert
• successful negotiator
• professional cleaner
• effective communicator
• creative copywriter
• graphic designer
• office assistant
• home financing guru
• and many, many more…

I’ve Seen Enough!

Rarely do FSBO homes even sell successfully without the assistance from a real estate agent. Even if you consider keeping the single-digit commission fees, selling your own Westchester County home comes with a lot of headaches that you'll find may not be worth it.

At this point, you may be feeling overwhelmed, anxious and even fearful of the home selling process. But don’t worry!

Enjoy Peace of Mind with the Mark Seiden Real Estate Team

We take on all of these roles for you, and then some. So when you’re selling your Westchester County home, you can save yourself the stress and let us guide you through the real estate process, from listing to closing.

We are here to save you time, money and worry. Contact us to get started.