subject: Tips For Selling Your Home Yourself [print this page] Many people are making a decision to try selling their homes on their own. Naturally, each seller has his or her own reasons for undertaking the project, but most homeowners are motivated in part by saving money on a typical real estate commission. Marketing a home has become easier since it's possible to do so online, and it certainly doesn't take a professional real estate background or license to find a buyer, but once a homeowner locates an interested buyer then he or she had better have some selling home by owner forms on hand.
Legally, the lease or sale of real estate is different than the lease or sale of other items, such as a car or truck. One significant thing that is different is surely that any agreement regarding the lease or sale of real property (that is what lawyers call real estate) must be in writing. You can certainly make a verbal agreement or an electronic agreement with a prospective buyer, but until it shows up on a document that you and that buyer have signed it is not a valid agreement to sell real estate. And that is why the proper selling home by owner forms are so important.
Many people ask an agent for some forms, even if they have no intention of listing their home with that agent, or any other agent. That is not really appropriate because it's the way agents earn their living, and it also involves the agent in the sale process to some degree. Unless you are planning to pay an agent for helping you with at least some of the tasks involved in selling your home, please do not obtain legal forms from that agent. These days there are a number of alternate arrangements to the standard real estate commission that is calculated as a percentage of the final sale price, and you are very likely to find plenty of agents that are willing to perform certain tasks for you in the process of selling your home.
An alternative to involving a real estate agent to obtain your selling home by owner forms is contacting an escrow or title company. You'll eventually need to work with a title company whenever the time comes to close a sale on your property, so it's a good idea to get your relationship started ahead of time. Asking for legal forms is a perfect way to meet people at the title company in your area and also to obtain forms. You cannot expect the title company personnel to explain the forms to you, however, or any of the legal consequences of filling them out incorrectly. That is the job of a licensed attorney or real estate broker.
If you choose to obtain forms from a title company in anticipation of closing your transaction there eventually, be sure to inquire as to whether there are other forms that you might need, too. A sales contract, sales agreement or purchase agreement is the basic document on which your price and terms of sale will be specified. It may be four legal-sized or even more regular letter-sized pieces of paper because there are a lot of details that should be included. Some of those details are standard for your geographic area, so it's important to bear that in mind if you are contemplating the prospects of downloading forms off the internet.
Selling home by owner forms are not hard to find, but you will want to make sure that the forms you use are specific to your local area, that you use all the forms required, not just a sales agreement, and that the forms include everything needed for you to get the closing process started at your title company.
