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In general, curb appeal is crucial. “If they do not like what they see from the outside, they’re never coming in the door — no matter what it looks like on the inside,” advises Brunette.
2. Do the homework necessary to set a competitive price
You’ve arrived at a critical moment in your FSBO process: setting a listing price. You don’t want to leave money on the table, yet you want to encourage activity on your listing.
In the Wisconsin market, “Pricing is going to make the difference between selling and sitting on the market for six months,” says Labus. “Pricing is still king.”
Not only that, but Labus notes that the listing price “will set the tone as far as whether buyers think that you are reasonable or not reasonable as far as selling your house. Pricing is so, so imperative.”
To decide on a competitive price before listing a home, an agent usually conducts a comparative market analysis (CMA). This is a highly-detailed study of “comps” — similar homes nearby that have sold recently, are pending, on the market, or were previously listed but taken off the market. Some may have even been pulled off the market without a sale.
Conduct your own “CMA Lite”
It’s time to roll up your sleeves and research.
Start with an online home value estimate
As a starting point, look at several online estimators for your home’s value. HomeLight’s Home Value Estimator aggregates publicly available data such as tax records and assessments, your home’s last sale price, and recent sales records for other properties in the same neighborhood.
We also add a new layer of information to our estimates using a short questionnaire. Tell us a few details about your Wisconsin home, such as:
- How much work does it need?
- What type of home is it (single-family, condo, townhouse, or other)?
- Roughly when was your house built?
- Are you planning to sell soon?
Using these insights, we’ll provide you with a preliminary estimate of home value in under two minutes.
Whether you use Zillow, Chase, Realtor, or Redfin to get a home value estimate, think of any online home price tool as a first step (not your only source of truth) — and recognize that the data used may be limited.
Narrowly filter your search for comps
When you’re ready to find comps, you can choose from sites like Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, or Realtor.
You’ll want to filter your searches to the area very near your house (within blocks if possible) and with similar characteristics. If you’re not finding any comps, expand your search map.
You’ll also want to filter results by details like:
- Listing status (look at recently sold, pending, and active)
- Number of bedrooms
- Number of bathrooms
- Square footage
- Home type (single-family, condo, etc.)
Beyond the above criteria, the more houses you find with floor plans and an age similar to yours, the better.
Use a site like Zillow to collect your data
As an example, let’s take a look at how to filter your search for comps on Zillow.
- Navigate to Zillow.
- Type in your address. If a pop-up with your home’s specs appears, close it with the “X” on the top right (or sometimes you must click “Back to search” on the top left).
- Filter by “sold.” Yellow dots should appear on the map surrounding your house, and you will see all the recently sold homes on the right
- Now, filter by the number of bedrooms and bathrooms and check the box “Use exact match.”
- Next, filter by home type.
- Next, select the “More” box. Here, you can specify square footage, lot size, and year built.
- While still in the “More” filter box, scroll down and select to view houses that sold in the last 30 days. If you find there are not many results in your area, try expanding to 90 days. However, the further back you go, the less relevant the comps.
- If necessary, click the plus or minus buttons to widen the search area.
- Once you’ve collected data for sold houses, revise or restart the search to view active and pending listings, as well.
Invest in an appraisal or pre-inspection
If you want to further reduce guesswork, some agents recommend an appraisal for selling house to provide a professional opinion of value for your home. An appraiser will combine recent property data, research of the surrounding market, and information collected from a walkthrough of your home to determine an appraised value. For a single-family home, an appraisal will likely cost $350 to $500 — well worth it to avoid possibly over- or underpricing your house by thousands.
In Wisconsin, however, Brunette says that FSBO sellers ordering their own appraisals is not currently a common practice. Instead, he recommends getting a pre-inspection: “At least get the home inspection so that you can therefore transfer the liability to the home inspector and not yourself when you’re filling out a condition report.”
Identifying major issues on an inspection before listing will also help you set a fair price in light of buyers’ anticipated concerns and repair requests.
Make sense of the research
Compare your home’s features against the nearby comps you collected. Hopefully, the houses you studied give an indication of an appropriate price range for your home. From there, you can make dollar adjustments based on characteristics that add value (patios, curb appeal, an extra bedroom) versus those that detract from it (a busy street, deferred maintenance, less square footage, any major issues revealed on the pre-inspection).
Consider the differences and similarities of comps with the appraised value of your home to choose a price that will encourage activity (too high and it may seem out of reach to many buyers) but will also maximize your profit.
Even without an agent, time spent studying the market and conducting your own “CMA Lite” can help you identify a competitive price. “The market tells us what the price should be for the house — not the owner, not the agent,” says Labus.
3. Photograph your home
Listing photos are powerful, either pulling in buyers for showings or keeping them away.
To give your listing an edge, consider hiring an experienced real estate photographer. While they may charge as much as $123 to $272 an hour, “professional photography of at least the exterior of the house makes a big difference,” Labus says. It could be one of the most important things you do to sell your home.
But if you do go the DIY route, make sure to:
