Selling Your House Yourself? This Is the Key to Success

If you're considering selling by owner, you need to read this first.

Hiring a real estate agent when selling a house is very common. Real estate agents provide lots of different types of support during the process including help marketing your home and advice on pricing. But this professional service comes at a steep price. You'll usually have to pay around 3% commission to your own agent as well as 3% commission to the buyer's agent.

You can avoid paying your own agent, though, if you sell your house yourself. You'll need to make sure you take the right steps to maximize your sale price if you decide to do that, though. After all, you want to be sure you get enough money to pay off your mortgage and hopefully walk away with extra cash to put toward your next place.

So what are the right steps? There's lots of different things you need to do, including making sure your house is listed on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) to get it in front of as many potential buyers as possible, as well as making sure you price your property fairly from the start to attract buyers. But, there's one key step that is especially essential if you want to make a successful sale.

A crucial move to find a buyer willing to pay a fair price

If you want to find a buyer and get a good price for your home when you are selling it yourself, the one key step you need to take is to hire a professional photographer.

See, you are going to need to include pictures with your real estate listing. And these photos are likely all that most people will look at when they decide whether to come see your home. If your pictures don't make the house look its best, many potential buyers are going to click on by and never even come to look at it.

Basically every home buyer uses the internet to find houses to view, so these pictures could make the first and perhaps only impression they get of your home. And taking great pictures yourself to show off a home's best features can be really hard. Professional lighting and a very high quality camera can make a big difference, as can training and experience, so you owe it to yourself to ensure you get quality photos taken before putting the house on the market.

How to find a professional photographer

If you want to find a professional photographer to take pictures of your home before you list it, there are a few different resources you could try.

Chances are good you'll need to work with a Flat Fee MLS service if you're selling your home yourself. These services list your property in the MLS for you, since only real estate agents can do that. You definitely want your home in the MLS because it's the most widely used resource for buyers looking for properties. If you are working with this type of service, they may have a photographer they can recommend.

If you have friends or loved ones who sold their home, you can also ask if they know who took the photos. Finally, if all else fails, you can contact your local art school to ask for referrals to photographers or search online for professionals who advertise that they do real estate photography.

By putting in the effort to find the right professional, you can make absolutely sure your home makes the kind of impression it needs to convince buyers to come look at it. Since that's a crucial first step to making a sale, you can't afford not to go through this process.