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Autumn foliage adds color to New Jersey landscaping, but Murphy says fall cleanup is a must. She reminds sellers of the importance of “raking the leaves and trimming the bushes.”
2. Set a realistic and 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.
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.
“There’s nothing more important than the price that you set because when you choose your price, you’re basically choosing the category of where you’re putting your home,” Murphy explains. She says FSBO sellers often make the mistake of pricing their home too high so there’s room for negotiation, but then the house ends up in the wrong category and is not marketed to the right buyers.
While multiple offers produce a sense of urgency that drives the price up and removes some contingencies, overpriced homes may be overlooked by potential buyers. With a smaller pool of buyers, FSBO sellers risk getting lowball offers. “They price too high and they often make way less than they should,” says Murphy.
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 New Jersey 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
If you want to further reduce guesswork, top agents recommend paying an appraiser 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. The cost for an appraisal in New Jersey typically ranges from $350 to $500 — well worth it to avoid possibly over- or underpricing your house by thousands.
Murphy says an appraisal is particularly helpful for FSBO sellers in New Jersey. “Otherwise, they haven’t gotten an opinion from a professional at all,” she explains. This can lead to inaccurately pricing your home and cost you thousands in the long run.
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 detracting from it (a busy street, deferred maintenance, less square footage).
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.
“A pool definitely increases the value lately,” says Murphy. While this wasn’t always the case, in recent years, New Jersey buyers have been looking for homes where they can swim and relax by the pool in the privacy of their own yard.
According to Elwell, “Buyers prefer gas over oil for the most part.” So if your home has gas heat or you have the capability to connect to natural gas, your home could be worth more.
On the other hand, Murphy says a small lot size or a busy road can reduce the value of your New Jersey property.
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 $150 to 200 an hour, don’t cut corners since nearly all buyers start their search online. Without high-quality professional photos, Elwell says you could miss out on “that window of opportunity to get them interested in the house.”
“Listing photos are extremely important because they’re your first impression and you want to stand out against your competition,” Murphy adds.
But if you do go the DIY route, make sure to:
