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Conduct your own ‘CMA Lite’
When selling your home without an agent, one of the first tasks is to conduct your own CMA, a streamlined version, or “CMA Lite.” This involves rolling up your sleeves and diving into some research to understand your home’s value in the current market. While it might seem daunting at first, this step is crucial in setting a competitive price that attracts buyers while ensuring you get the best return on your investment.
Start with an online home value estimate
Check out a few online tools to get a quick estimate of your home’s value. HomeLight’s home value estimator pulls in all the public data, like tax records, your home’s last sale price, and recent neighborhood sales. It’s a great way to get a feel for what your home might be worth.
Using a short questionnaire, homeowners in North Carolina can share a few details about their property, such as the level of work it needs, the type of home, the year the house was built, and if they plan to sell soon. With these insights, home value estimators can provide a preliminary estimate of home value in less than 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.
Gather your comps
Comps are recently sold homes comparable to yours in characteristics, such as size, age, condition, and major features. The most reliable comps are going to be those within the closest radius possible to the location where you’re selling a property.
Since you won’t be able to access data from the MLS without a real estate license, you’ll need to look at major real estate websites to collect your data.
Conduct your own comps analysis
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, make dollar adjustments based on characteristics that add value (pools, new floors, an extra bedroom) versus those that detract from it (a busy street, deferred maintenance, less square footage).
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.
For a single-family home, an appraisal will likely cost $500 to $600 — well worth it to avoid possibly over- or underpricing your house by thousands.
Richter cautions FSBO sellers that private appraisals may differ from bank appraisals. “I tend to see that those come in much lower than actual market value,” Richter says. “Meet with a couple of professionals to get the best possible market analysis and valuation of your home.”
3. Photograph your home
Listing photos can make or break your chances of attracting buyers. It can draw them in for a closer look or turn them away before they even set foot inside.
To give your listing an edge, consider hiring a professional real estate photographer. While a “basic” package may cost about $200 to $400 per hour, a “premium” package for a more luxurious home can run up to a thousand dollars. Richter says professional photos can make or break a deal.
“Professionals capture an actual image of the home, versus just a couple of snapshots. It makes a huge difference,” he says. Richter also recommends getting drone photos to showcase the surrounding area.
Using aerial photography, videography, 3D tours, and virtual staging can significantly enhance your property listings by showcasing spaces in a dynamic and engaging way.
Drone photography typically costs $75 to $150 for properties under 1,000 square feet, while a package that includes both drone photos and video usually ranges from $250 to $500 and covers up to 10 images and a video up to two minutes long.
