Welcome to our for sale by owner page.  Please remember to bookmark this page or write down the web address so you can easily find it later on when you need it.  Trust me, you'll be glad you did.  We have the absolute best FSBO service available.  We have developed a platform that enables you to maximize the final sales price of your home, reduce the amount of time it takes to sell your property, and keep your expenses to a minimum.  Our page also provides a lot of free advice and tips that could be instrumental in the sale of you home.  Be sure to check in regularly as we're always adding more information for homeowners. 

www.realworksrealty.com/fsbo

RealWorks Realty offers many FSBO options to homeowners when it comes to selling:

Option 1: $249 MLS option (includes professional photography services for your listing.)

Option 2: Discount Broker / Full Representation (Pay only 0.5% listing commission.)

Feel free to contact us anytime with any questions you may have.

Click to check service availability in your area.
 

Option 1: Only $249 to list your home in the MLS.

Each listing includes:
- Professional photography session.
- All templates for real estate forms, purchase agreement, and California required disclosures.
- 8 hours of professional Broker support.
- For sale sign and lockbox (optional).
- Advertising in the MLS and all major and minor real estate search websites (over 24,000 to date).

Get started today!  Click here to order now. 

We will:
1. Advertise your home in over 24,000 real estate search sites, maximizing your local and national internet marketing exposure.
2. Connect you with all potential buyers that are interested in viewing, have questions about, or ready to write an offer on your home.
3. Pre-approve all buyers making an offer to purchase your home so that you can be assured that they qualify and are able to close escrow.
4. Provide you with free templates, contracts and forms for your sale, including the residential purchase agreement and all mandatory real estate sales disclosures.
5. Automatically forward you all email and phone inquiries from home buyers interested in your home.

You will:
1. Coordinate all showing appointments.
2. Coordinate all negotiations and contracts associated with the sale of your home.

Additional services:

- Sign rider with owner's phone number. (Give buyers direct access to your contact info.) $45
- Transaction coordinator services. We handle all paperwork and review all documents for accuracy and completeness. $395

Advertising your home in the MLS is the quickest and most effective way of selling. Get started today.

You select how much commission you want to offer a cooperating buyer's Agent, if any.

Option 2:  Discount Broker / Full Representation.

We maximize your final sales price for you.
- We'll create an aggressive marketing campaign.
- Handle all contract negotiations.
- Handle all paperwork and review all contracts and disclosures for accuracy and completeness.
- Prepare a market analysis to help you determine the highest and best listing price for your home.
- Provide you with expert advice from a seasoned Broker with over 14 years of real estate experience. 
- Pay only 0.5% to receive full service representation.
- Includes all services from option 1.

How to sell your home for sale by owner.
August 14, 2017 - By Cesar Rueda, Real Estate Broker since 2005.  Owner of RealWorks Realty

The following are great guidelines to help you complete a successful FSBO transaction.  After 14 years of working as a Realtor, I have fine-tuned the home selling process to maximize results and minimize costs.  Whether you decide to obtain these services from me, or anywhere else, they are the essential steps when it comes to selling your home.

Please Read Our Legal Disclaimer.  (Click Here)

List of the essentials tasks in order of importance:

1. Professional Photography:  The single most important thing that you’ll need are professional photographs.  If you research what every single top Agent has in common, you will find that they all use professional photography.  Period.  Don’t use an IPhone to photograph your home.  Don’t use an unskilled person from Craigslist claiming to be a pro.  Spend a few days researching the portfolios of a handful of professional real estate photographers to see who is truly exceptional at their job.  Get a few quotes from the people who stand out, and hire one of them.  In Los Angeles there are so many skilled photographers that can do the job, charging anywhere from $150 to $1,000.  (There is no reason you should have to spend more than $200 for really good photos.)  Having a great set of photos is the first thing any home buyer will notice.  It can be the difference between selling your home for top dollar, or keeping your home on the market for several months and not having any responses. 

I know a seller that’s an investor.  He handles a lot of FSBO transactions.  He had his home listed for several months.  We had previously worked together on a few transactions.  The property had fallen out of escrow and he was now looking to relist it.  The first thing I said to him was “you need some new photos.”  To which he replied “don’t worry about it.  I’ve used those photos before and we got a couple of good offers.”  I said fine.  About 45 days went by with nothing.  Finally I convinced him to get new photos.  Within one day of publishing the new photos, he receive a full price offer and opened escrow. 

If you want to see a great example of what real estate photographs should look like, feel free to visit: www.beautifulhomepics.com. It’s a side company I own.  We take photos for several homeowners, landlords, Air B&Bs, and of course, other Realtors.  Again, I’m not pointing this out to sell you my services.  (Although, of course I’d love it if you’d order photos from me.)  I’m telling you this because it works.  I used to only use professional photography for my full service listings and allow my FSBO sellers to provide their own photos.  Not anymore.  There is absolutely no point in using bad photos.  You’ll most likely need to drop your list price by $10,000 to $20,000 to make up for not using good pictures.  There are several places where you can find outstanding Photographers.  Find them and hire one.

2.  The MLS:  You have to get your listing on the MLS.  There is really no way around it.  If your goal is to earn as much money as possible on the sale of your home (which is why I imagine you’re looking into FSBO options) then you need to expose your listing to as many home buyers as possible.  Although it’s true that since you only have one home to sell, you really only need one person that’s willing to purchase it.  However, the more people that view your home, the more offers you will receive and subsequently, the higher your final sales price will be.  This is especially important in a housing market where we are reaching peak pricing, as we are currently experiencing.  It’s like a game of poker.  If you’re holding 3 kings in your hand, you’re going to feel a lot more confident about raising the pot.  If you have 2 strong offers, you’re going to feel much better about pushing your buyers to pay more money. 

By putting your listing into the MLS, you’re able to reach 100% of all potential buyers.  Zillow and Trulia combined make up approximately 31.5% of all browser based visits (excluding in-app) across PC and mobile devices. (Experian Marketing Services, July 2015, Zillow 23.4%, Trulia 8.1%) That means if you’re only relying on Zillow and Trulia to list your home, you could potentially be missing out on connecting with approximately 70% of all potential buyers.  That’s a lot of offers you’re not receiving.  You can only get listed on Realtor.com, and Homes.com through an MLS feed.  Zillow and Trulia are a great start, but you need to do much more. 

Besides great exposure, the other good thing about the MLS is that it blocks all those harassing phone calls from other Listing Agents looking to represent you.  If you’ve ever posted an ad selling a property as for sale by owner, you’re already aware of the seemingly endless calls, emails, and texts from Agents trying to get your business.  If you’re lucky 1 in 100 inquiries will come from an actual buyer looking to purchase your home, the vast majority of which will already be represented by a buyer’s Agent, and will be looking for you to at least pay out a selling commission.  Definitely something to consider when making your decision on how to proceed.

The MLS access we offer our customers is CRISNET.  As part of the Southland Regional Association of Realtors, it covers the San Fernando Valley, and all of Los Angeles and Orange County.  In addition to promoting your listing on every real estate search website, it also is the database Realtors use when searching for properties for their qualified home buyers.  If you decide to place your home in the MLS, and your property is located with Los Angeles, be sure that the for sale by owner website you sign up with works with either CRISNET or TheMLS.com (Los Angeles).  Otherwise, your listing will be completely invisible to any buyer's Agents working in LA or Orange County. 

3.  The Right List Price:  Pricing your home correctly is of paramount importance.  Today’s buyer is incredibly knowledgeable, especially considering how much information is available to them now via the internet.  Several fsbo sellers will try to list their homes anywhere from 10% to 30% above market price in hopes of making a great sale.  This just isn’t going to happen, especially now, when home values are reaching their peak levels.  (This strategy has a small chance of working when prices have been low for a while and are beginning to accelerate, but it will absolutely not work at this particular time.) 

To price your home correctly, you have to find ideally two or more homes similar to yours, within a 1 mile radius, within the same city / zip code and definitely must be within the same school district. These similar homes are what we call in the real estate business “comps.”  (Short for comparable sales.)  Think about how these comps match to your home.  Is your home in better condition, similar condition, or worse?  Visit the homes if you’re able to.  (If you need help gaining access to any property, you can always contact me, and I can get you access.  It’s no bother at all.  I’m happy to help.)  Once you determine how your home stacks up, you then price your listing accordingly.  If you’re really feeling that there’s something uniquely desirable about your home, feel free to list 3% to 6% higher than either the highest priced comp. 

Warning: if there’s only one comp that’s listed way higher than every other home, whether it’s an active listing or past sale, do NOT use the one unusually high comp to help you determine your list price.  Most likely that home is an anomaly and will only hurt your sales process if you use it to determine your list price. It’s also important to note, if you live in the school district where the elementary, secondary or high school are receiving ratings of 6 or 7, and the guy across the street from you lives in a district that gets a perfect 10, you will not be able to sell you place for the same price as the guy across the street from you, no matter what the Zestimate tells you.  The right school district could mean the difference of $100,000 to $200,000 in many neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles, even if a home is located across the street, but just outside the district map. 

4.  Availability:  Having lots of availability in your showing schedule is very important but often overlooked by too many sellers.  You want to strive to have the home available for viewing 100% of the time.  Of course, in the real world, this isn’t always possible.  Best case scenario would be to have a vacant property, with a Supra Lockbox, where any and every Agent can show the home at anytime, without any notice.  If the home is occupied, or you do not feel comfortable with having a Supra lockbox installed to allow Agents free access, do your best to be flexible about allowing showing appointments. Push yourself a little to allow Agents to drop by even on short notice. If flexibility is not really an option, then at least plan for a specific day and time where you guarantee anyone can set an appointment.  You can publish something like “all showings are by appointment only.  Available appointment times are Wednesday 6:30pm to 7:30pm or Sunday from 2:00pm to 4:00pm.”  If you wish, you can also specify that it’s not an “open house” and that Agents and buyers must call to set an appointment for those specified times. Worst case scenario is having a tenant occupied home where the tenant is put off by having to move and will make the listing process a nightmare.  In most cases, it would be much more beneficial and cost effective to simply wait until the tenant moves out first before listing the property.  Yes, there’s a risk that you’ll be losing one or two months’ worth of rent.  However, that’s a lot better than having to lose $20,000 to $30,000 from the final sales price because the tenants were being uncooperative, or even hostile. 

5.  Preparations:  When someone visits your home, you want them to have a “wow” experience.  You should think about preparing your home as you would if someone were to come take photographs for an architectural magazine. Every room should be clean and clutter free.  All items should be neatly stored away. All stains should be cleaned off from the floors, walls or countertops.  If you have time and it’s within your budget, a new coat of paint throughout is a good idea.  Professionally clean any carpeting.  It might be a great time to fix any repairs you’ve been putting off.  Fix that leak under the sink, or running toilet. Make sure all doors open and close properly.  Replace any burnt out light bulbs.  Also, be sure to watch the smell factor.  Try not to cook overly fragrant foods full of too many spices.  Take out old garbage and keep the cat litter box clean.  

6.  Be a strong and smart negotiator:  Be aware that what the original purchase agreement you and the buyer sign will most likely not look the same after 17 days, when all inspections have been completed. You should know that the words “sold as-is” are completely meaningless.  So much so, that they are already included in the latest version of the California Association of Realtors' standard purchase agreement. (Page 8, Section 11. i.)  Don’t think you can simply insert “as-is” into your contract and you’re home free.  Far from it.   Know your purchase agreement and disclosures.  It’s like a chess game.  If you don’t know how to move the pieces around, before you know it, the buyer or Buyer’s Agent might be putting you in check.  Have in mind a list of concession you are willing to make after inspections are complete.  Be vigilant about getting the buyers to sign off on their contingencies.  If you agree to 17 days, be sure to send out the notice to perform by day 15.  If you anticipate that the buyer might be problematic, you might want to insist inspections to be completed within 10 days of acceptance of the purchase offer.  

7. Get an estimated closing statement from Escrow:  Just as real estate firms differ in pricing, so do escrow and title companies.  When shopping around for title and escrow services, you want to be sure you hire a company that offers competitive pricing and good customer service.  More often that not, an escrow company that is owned by and affiliated with a real estate Broker will be more expensive than an independent escrow company.  Gather a few quotes, and if possible, check references.  Once you've located an escrow company you like, request a copy of the estimated closing statement, also known as the HUD-1.  This will breakdown all costs associated with the sale of your home, including any transfer tax, outstanding property taxes, or liens against the home.  Make sure to inform the escrow company what title company you'd like to use.  Also, inform your escrow officer of any outstanding loan amount on your mortgage, and any real estate commission you're planning to pay.  That way you get a clear picture of how much money you'll be walking away with at the end of the day. 

For more information or to get started, feel free to contact us anytime.