Has anyone sold a house before?

[deb_in_nc]

I've been wondering about the process. My neighbor told me last night that he would sell it "as is". My house is set up so that you could easily use it as single family or duplex. We've been using it as single family. He said that I need to find out what it's zoned for. Where do you find that out? I don't know anything about this as I've never done it before. Thanks in advance.

Debbie

[Lindaloo]

You can find out what zone it is in by contacting your local land records office. Have you ever had your home appraised? If not, you need to do so before contacting a realtor. During the selling process an inspector will inspect your home and require you to fix the problems he found before the buyer will purchase. That is probably why your neighbor would sell "as is" Unfortunately, if you do that you will not get what your home should be worth. No equity, nothing.

Good Luck!!

[isobar]

Deb - Are you selling it yourself without a realtor? If so, I would reconsider until you have more knowledge and experience about the whole process. I've only seen it successfully done once by a friend of ours. Most folks get impatient and frustrated and end up listing with a realtor anyway, after of course spending $$ on advertising, etc.

Linda is right about not getting what it's worth if you sell it "as is". I would highly recommend fixing anything that will show up on inspection, because you will get your money back, and then some, once it sells. Remember, your buyer will also have an appraisal/inspection done (with their best interest in mind). Also, a few cosmetics will go a long way (cleaning, painting).

Your town or county clerk can direct you to the right dept to answer your zoning questions.

The fact that your home can be both single and multi-family can be a real selling point! All the best to you!

[Stephanie]

I would definately get a realtor that knows your area to help with those details. It is a very frustrating process but if you don't want to do that, I would AT LEAST have a lawyer that will prepare and review contracts for you. There should be some websites too that can give you an idea of what's selling in your neighborhood and what the asking price is.

If you can get away with selling it only with "conventional" financing and not VA or FHA I would do that as well. There's not as many inspections that would require you to repair something before it can be sold to the buyer.

[BEER980]

We are in the early stage of selling ours. Right now we are cleaning up everything before we list it. deb_in_fl try to look up your county property appraiser online. Ours is http://www.propappr.marion.fl.us . Try to substitute your county for marion in the address. Try to remove as much of your stuff before you have buyers walk through. Things like photo's, unused pots, junk in drawers and extra furniture if possible. You want the house to seem bigger then it looks and not have your image in it.

[coriolis]

I've only ever sold a house in Monopoly.

[deb_in_nc]

coriolis- . Me too, until now.

I finally looked on realtor.com. That is a LOT of stuff to do. I don't think I ever want to sell another house again as long as I live. This is terrible. Well at least I've been packing up stuff already. I don't really have anything in the garage except some Christmas decorations. We're having a yard sale Feb. 7 & 8. Anything not bought will go to The Lord's Place.

When I was saying as is, I was talking about painting on the outside. That's all it needs out there. We were going to paint and clean inside. I figured we could knock off a few thousand and they would get the color they wanted, instead of the color someone else wanted. Then I wouldn't have to touch my 401K.

Debbie

[Miss Mary]

Hi Deb - we sold a condo once, on our own. We were looking at existing homes to buy then and had accumulated many sale sheets, called Multiple Listing sheets? Forget now. So we printed up our own, took a picture of the condo, and added it to the paper. It took a long time to sell it, but then again condo's are much harder to sell than homes. My husband was set on saving that 7% commission. But the odd thing was the buyer had a realtor so we had to pay half the commission, to her realtor. Oh well. My end of it was keeping our condo immaculate. We rented storage space and kept all our junk there. When you opened every single closet it was very tidy, somewhat bare. We had read that you should either give away a lot of your stuff or store it elsewhere. The buyer wants to see roomy closets. And no clutter. I kept clean towels just for open houses, we never used them. We put the diaper pail outside, LOL. Opened all the windows a few hours before the open house. I also bought the cookie batter premade refridgerated rolls, and made a batch before each open house. All these suggestions were in a book we had read. Now the trick was keeping our condo clean during the week, for anyone who wanted to come back. But we managed okay.

We now have a 4 BR, 2.5 BA home. OMG, to do all that again would take months of prep. We'd probably list it with a Realtor too, just to not have the responsibility again.

Hope that answers some of your questions. Don't know anything about the zoning.

Mary

[Stephanie]

coriolis- . Me too, until now.

I finally looked on realtor.com. That is a LOT of stuff to do. I don't think I ever want to sell another house again as long as I live. This is terrible. Well at least I've been packing up stuff already. I don't really have anything in the garage except some Christmas decorations. We're having a yard sale Feb. 7 & 8. Anything not bought will go to The Lord's Place.

When I was saying as is, I was talking about painting on the outside. That's all it needs out there. We were going to paint and clean inside. I figured we could knock off a few thousand and they would get the color they wanted, instead of the color someone else wanted. Then I wouldn't have to touch my 401K.

Debbie

I wouldn't worry about the paint outside. If there's some touching-up you can do I would do it, but don't go crazy. The buyers are more looking for the "potential" in the house than what's there already.

It is alot of work selling a house, especially the paperwork, etc. To me, as long as I have a realtor that knows what he/she is doing, then it's worth the commission. It's stressful enough just getting everything straightened up and packed AND looking for another place to live.

Good luck Debbie and let us know how things are going!