How to Sell a House By Owner: 2024 FSBO Guide

Disclaimer: While this is a general guide, rules concerning FSBO sales and yard signs may vary state-by-state or even from MLS to MLS, while each state has its own regulations for what sellers are required to disclose to buyers. HomeLight always recommends that you look into the local regulations for your area and when in doubt, consult with a legal advisor.

FSBO is a method of selling your home without the involvement of a listing agent. In a FSBO scenario, the seller assumes the responsibilities that would normally fall to their agent, such as pricing the home, arranging showings, and negotiating the deal.

In an agent-assisted sale, the seller typically pays a commission amounting to around 6% of the sale price, which is then split 50/50 with the buyer’s agent. That 6% is deducted from the seller’s proceeds at closing. By selling FSBO, a seller can eliminate the cost of the listing agent commission (so around 3%), though they may still need to offer a buyer’s agent commission.

Buyer’s agents will expect compensation for the work they do to bring a buyer to a sale, such as arranging showings and helping to tee up and qualify the buyer. Plus, when a seller isn’t working with an agent, the buyer’s agent may end up carrying more of the weight to get the deal to the finish line.

Finally, a FSBO sale does not mean that a seller won’t need any professional assistance. Not all states require sellers to hire a real estate attorney, but FSBO sales typically warrant legal and professional oversight of some kind to avoid an abundance of legal risk.

Most people who sell by owner will need to hire an attorney to review and prepare key documents and make sure paperwork is filled out properly, such as the seller’s disclosures.

Why sell a house by owner?

Sellers who opt to go FSBO often do so to avoid paying agent commissions — especially if they’re selling to a relative, friend, or neighbor.

To get a firsthand perspective, we spoke with Heath Fields, who recently closed on a $450,000 home sale in Knoxville, Tennessee — his third FSBO experience.

We also spoke with Tracey Todd, a top real estate agent in Gainesville, Florida, who sells homes more than 67% quicker than the average area agent.

Todd says FSBO sellers he encounters want to “make as much money as possible, and they feel like they can do it faster by cutting out the middleman.”

However, 2023 data from NAR shows that “FSBO homes sold at a median of $310,000 last year, significantly lower than the median of agent-assisted homes at $405,000.”

Let’s lay out some pros and cons to help you decide if selling FSBO is the route for you.

In spite of the cons, we’ll help you navigate the challenges of FSBO if you’re committed to selling your house without agent assistance.

Steps to sell a house by owner

Let’s review the FSBO process step by step.

1. Prepare your house for sale

Whether you’re selling with an agent or FSBO, at a minimum you’ll want to get your home into respectable shape before any showings to increase your chances of receiving a fair price. Here are a few standard tasks to add to the list:

Indoors

• Declutter floors, shelves, and surfaces throughout the home.
• Make small fixes and repairs, like a leaky faucet or broken door handle.
• Lightly update with new light fixtures, faucets, or cabinet hardware.
• Refinish hardwood floors.
• Repaint bold walls — or those that look dingy — in a neutral color.
• Reduce furniture in crowded rooms. (You might want to consider a temporary storage unit.)
• Stage the home with final touches like fresh-cut flowers or a basket of fresh produce.
• Use rugs to define spaces and place them strategically.
• Deep clean until the house is sparkling.

Outdoors

• Mow the lawn and pull weeds.
• Apply fresh mulch liberally.
• Upgrade your landscaping. Consider a new walkway, flowerbed, or shrubs.
• Add a fresh coat of exterior paint.
• Install a new garage door if yours is looking old or not working properly.

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.

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.

Without an agent, you’ll miss out on the complexity of a full CMA and the know-how to interpret it.

However, with a little time and money, you can set a competitive price yourself.

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 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 your home’s 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.
• Filter by “sold.” Yellow ovals should appear on the map surrounding your house.

• 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, year built, and — crucially — the “sold in last” (time period) category.

• 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, Todd recommends 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 appraised value. For a single-family home, an appraisal will likely cost $355 — well worth it to avoid possibly over- or underpricing your house by thousands.

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 detract 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.

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. “Putting in the time to have professional pictures taken of my home was worth it,” says Fields. 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:

• Use a good camera with a wide-angle lens.
• Pay attention to lighting.
• Include a photo of every room.
• Take multiple pictures of living areas, kitchens, and bathrooms.
• Try shooting different angles.

4. Create a detailed, compelling listing

Along with stellar photos, you’ll want to craft an informative and compelling listing. Leverage both the listing description (a paragraph or two highlighting key features) and the property details to show potential buyers all about your home and what makes it desirable.

Tell a story with your description

Draw in potential buyers with a powerful listing description that tells a story about your house, including details like:

• Your home’s most unique and desirable features, like a breakfast nook or sunroom.
• Recent upgrades like a kitchen or bathroom remodel or new roof or HVAC system.
• High-end appliances, materials, or finishes.
• Outdoor features like a pool or patio.
• Neighborhood features and amenities.
• Nearby parks, walking trails, restaurants, and attractions.

Lastly, and this is crucial: specify in your description whether a buyer’s agent will receive a commission from the proceeds. Most agents don’t want to show their clients properties from which they’d receive no commission. You can decide not to offer a buyer’s agent commission, but recognize that doing so could limit your buyer pool as buyer’s agents typically expect to be compensated for their efforts.

Don’t skimp on the property details

Aside from writing the description, you may be prompted to enter information like:

• Age of the home
• Square footage
• Architectural style (i.e. split-level, rancher, craftsman)
• Appliances included
• Exterior building materials
• Flooring types
• HOA fees
• School zone information
• Lot size

Many real estate agents and potential buyers really do read this “fine print” on your listing, so you’ll want to include accurate details and plenty of them.

5. List your home online

It’s finally time to post your home online. While you can create FSBO listings for free on popular search sites, you’d have to painstakingly post site by site, and your listing wouldn’t reach the majority of buyers and agents.

To give your home the most exposure, pay to have your home put on your local MLS (multiple listing service) — a platform agents use to share properties with one another as well as major real estate sites. Posting there will feed your listing to buyers’ agent databases and to common sites buyers use.

Although normally only licensed real estate agents and brokers can access and post listings on a local MLS, you have two options to gain access: paying an agent to post for you or using a flat fee MLS company.

Pay an agent to list your home on the MLS

A local agent may be willing to list your house on the MLS for a flat fee, without any other involvement in your real estate transaction. If you decide to go this route, make sure you ask whether the fee includes updating your listing if necessary.

Leverage a flat fee MLS company

There are a variety of paid FSBO websites that provide MLS services to FSBO sellers, enabling them to bypass the traditional agent and get their home included on the MLS.

Whatever you choose, read the fine print carefully: some sites may have hidden fees or even take a percentage off your sale — a detour you’d rather avoid on the FSBO route.

Not willing to pay for the MLS?

If you’re determined to save money by foregoing the MLS, creating a free FSBO listing on Zillow may be your top option. You can post videos and unlimited photos, and get fairly wide exposure via Zillow and the Zillow-owned Trulia.

6. Market your home

Time to spread the word. So, beyond listing on the MLS, what else can you do to market your home?

Place a FSBO sign by the road

Consider getting a custom yard sign with your contact information from a site like Vistaprint. Note that some MLSs may have rules about whether you can post a FSBO yard sign while your home is on the MLS.

Share on social media

Fields says that “having great relationships with people on social media who shared the listings” was a key factor in his FSBO success. So be sure to share your home across social media — and ask your friends to share, too.

Hold an open house

• Share details on Facebook and Nextdoor.
• Update your MLS listing with the open house details (if you’re able to as part of paying the flat fee), or update your DIY FSBO listing.
• Place open house signs at nearby intersections.
• Tidy up the house before potential buyers come through.
• Pass out info sheets with the address, bullet points about the house, your contact info, and perhaps one photo.
• If you can, collect visitors’ info, and then follow up after the open house to ask if they have any questions.

7. Manage showings

Welcome to the busiest phase of the process. In fact, according to Todd, a major reason some FSBO sellers switch to an agent is that “they underestimated the time and energy they would have to spend managing the noise.”

To manage the logistics of showings:

• Respond to inquiries ASAP.
• Set end times if you need to fit multiple showings into one day.
• Remove or secure valuables.
• Make sure the home is clean and tidy for showings.
• Follow up with buyers’ agents after showings to get their feedback.

Should you be present for showings?

If you’d rather not be present for every showing, consider using a lockbox with a code to let buyers’ agents enter the house. This is standard industry practice among agents. To ensure you’re working with someone legitimate, use Google to check their real estate license number.

With unrepresented buyers, plan to be on the property for the showing. During a showing, we recommend you:

• Point out a few highlights of the house.
• Let buyers look without hovering.
• Be prepared to answer questions.
• Avoid the temptation to tell all; let the house and listing do the talking.

8. Evaluate offers and negotiate a deal

You’ve got your first offer — congratulations! Before signing anything, here are some key considerations:

• Vet potential buyers by requiring a mortgage pre-approval letter or proof of funds.
• Require everything in writing.
• Remember you can counter-offer and negotiate.
• Look for a good real estate attorney.

9. Close the sale — with professional help

Todd recommends every FSBO seller hire a lawyer to minimize risk and settle the legal documents. Real estate attorney fees vary widely depending on location and how much help you want, but it’s well worth the cost for professional guidance in closing one of life’s largest  legal transactions.

FSBO mistakes to avoid

On your FSBO journey, watch out for these major pitfalls:

• Missing out on the MLS.
• Forgetting or refusing to pay the buyer’s agent commission.
• Over- or underpricing.
• Letting your house sit on the market too long. According to Todd, lack of activity is a common reason FSBO sellers come to him for help.

Lastly, “don’t get greedy,” Fields cautions. In his case, he turned down a full-price cash offer the first day thinking he might get more. After another month, Fields accepted and closed on a different full-price cash offer — wishing he’d saved himself that extra month of work.

Alternatives to selling by owner

If you decide you don’t want the hassle or pressure of FSBO, you have other solid options.

Enlist the help of a top-rated real estate agent

Ultimately, the services and price gains you can get with an experienced real estate agent may put more money in your pocket than FSBO.

Todd tells the story of a FSBO seller-turned-client whose home sat on the market for 180 days. After lowering the price a total of $50,000, the seller asked for Todd’s help. A walkthrough revealed carpet in a bathroom and other little things the seller hadn’t improved.

“If you put about $7,000 to $10,000 back into your home,” Todd advised the seller, “we can list it for about 20 to 30 grand above what you previously had.”

Todd promised the skeptical client that if he was wrong, he’d reimburse the $10,000. Ultimately, after taking 30 days to make the recommended updates, the home “sold for $10,000 above what they had originally asked for, and it was under contract in 10 days.”

Interested in such expertise? HomeLight offers a 100% free agent matching service tailored to your needs to help you find an expert local agent. It takes only two minutes to receive your matches.

Request a cash offer

If you’d like to skip the sale prep altogether — plus avoid paying agent commissions — you can opt to sell your home “as-is” to an all-cash buyer instead.

For a low-stress experience, consider requesting a cash offer from HomeLight’s Simple Sale platform. Tell us a few details about your home, and in as little as a week, we’ll send an offer your way. If you decide to accept the offer, Simple Sale sellers have the ability to close in as little as 10 days.

Without leaving the Simple Sale platform, you’ll also be able to compare your cash offer to an estimation of what your home would sell for on the open market, so you can make an informed decision.

Ready to sell your home?

Unless you already have a buyer lined up, selling a house by owner requires a significant investment of time and effort. You’ll need to pull your own comps, capture excellent pictures, create a listing, market the house online, field inquiries, negotiate, and close the deal. And that’s after preparing the house itself.

You also have to consider that FSBO listings tend to sell for less than agent-assisted sales. An experienced agent who knows the area can make recommendations for targeted upgrades to help you maximize your sale price and get a premium offer. This can help to offset or, in some cases, more than make up for the cost of commission — while saving you time and headaches.

If you choose to go FSBO, you should have a good idea now of what to expect from the process. Otherwise, our internal transaction data at HomeLight shows that the top 5% of real estate agents sell homes for as much as 10% more than average, and we’d be happy to make an intro to some of the best agents near you.

Header Image Source: (karamysh / Shutterstock)