Selling Your Home Yourself: Part 1 – Where to start

Have you ever looked at real estate signs on the side of the road and privately thought, “I could do that”? You’re right. Selling your home yourself has become a much easier prospect in the past few years with the advent of TradeMe, and with some care and information, almost anyone can do it.

The benefits are you save on agent’s fees and some advertising costs, and can organise open homes for times that suit you rather than the agent. However, there are still costs associated with selling a home.

So where do you start? The first thing to do is to take an objective look at your property and decide whether there are any projects you need to undertake before putting your house on the market. 

Non negotiables

Next, get a good lawyer. They will explain the sale process to you, prepare your Sale and Purchase agreement, and most importantly, make sure you’re legally protected during every step of the process. This is one area you can’t make a saving – you must be prepared to spend money on legal advice.

Next, it would be useful to get an independent valuation of your home, which will cost around $500 (depending on the size of your house). This has several benefits. Firstly it will tell you what your home is worth in the current market, which will help you set the price. Secondly, if someone offers an amount that’s drastically lower than your asking price, you can justify your price with reference to your independent valuation. When I was selling, I had a developer offer $30,000 less than the asking price. I told her I had a valuation that was much closer to the asking price, and she paused and said, “Oh, you’re smart.” We were then able to negotiate a higher price.

Another step is to obtain a LIM (Land Information Memorandum). You can get this from your local council and it will cost around $300. This is optional, but it can be to your advantage to make this investment. Being able to present a LIM with no problems on it to potential buyers can increase their confidence in your property. Also, most buyers make the sale conditional on a satisfactory LIM. If you can present it as soon as someone is interested, it eliminates that condition (good for you) and saves interested buyers from having to pay for the LIM (good for them). The council can supply the LIM via email, so you don’t have the cost of printing out dozens of pages; you can simply email it to interested parties.

Once you have all your documents in order, you are ready to move on to the all-important step of grooming your house for sale.