My Hattiesburg

10 Questions to ask your real estate agent

I found an excellent article that gives you 10 questions to ask your real estate agent when listing your Hattiesburg home for sale.

Q: How are you going to advertise my home?
A: Your home will be in newspapers, the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), our realty website, neighborhood postcards, open houses. In addition, our realty company is on billboards, sends mass mailings/emails so we are constantly driving traffic and eyes to your home.
TIP: How often are these things being done? Are we talking daily? Are you onsite for the open houses or is there some lackey standing in for you on the weekend? Where specifically am I going to be in the newspaper? What newspapers? What websites? Who specifically is following up on leads?

FSBO, where you become the agent

FSBO is one of the fastest growing ways to sell your home today. Many people consider selling their Hattiesburg home FSBO (For sale by owner) to bypass the realtor fees that come with signing with an agent. Most shy away from it because they want to find the most buyers and get the best price for their house. FSBO doesn’t have to be a daunting task that is only for the marketing major. With the internet, almost anyone can sell their own home with a little work and a good housing market like Hattiesburg is experiencing.

55% of home buyers found their home through the internet.

23% of home buyers, purchased their home through FSBO.

That number will certainly grow in the coming years as more and more FSBO sellers advertise on the internet, and FSBO sites that help you sell your own home are popping up all over the U.S. Suddenly, instead of $3000-$5000 commissions, you spend $300-$500. Marketing your home yourself takes time, effort, and risk, in exchange, you save money. Want to learn more? We urge you to read articles and books on the subject before selling your own home. There are things everyone should know about the process before starting it. Here are some informative books on selling your own home that will walk you through the process step-by-step.

The For Sale By Owner Kit (For Sale By Owner Kit)

The For Sale By Owner Handbook: FSBO FAQs: From Pricing Your Home Right And Increasing Its Curb Appeal To Negotiating The Contract And Hassle-free Closing

We will continue to take deeper looks into the the topic of FSBO as time goes on. It’s a subject that is certainly getting attention in the national market, and we think will soon be a major factor in the Hattiesburg real estate market as well.

Thinking of moving west?

Many home owners in Hattiesburg frequently decide they want to move west to the Oak Grove area or east to Petal and it’s growing number of subdivisions.  With the current real estate market the way it is now, it’s hard to judge what’s going on in the market.  The U.S. real estate market seems to be slowing down, with home sales dropping, but Hattiesburg seems to still be on the rise with hurricane evacuees and many new businesses moving in the area.  If you’ve purchased a home in Hattiesburg, when is the best time to sell?   The Real Estate Journal tries to answer this question in it’s current article.  Click the link below to read more.
Timing The Sale of a Home When Neighborhood Turns for the Worse

Does Uncle Sam need to know about your Hattiesburg home for sale?

MSN Real Estate has a nice article on when to report your home sale and when you don’t have to. With the prices of Hattiesburg homes for sale right now, it’s a great article to read to make sure squeeze every bit of tax-free profit out of your real estate. From the article:

You qualify for tax-free profit on your home sale if:

1. You owned and lived in the house for two of the five years leading up to the sale; and
2. You did not sell another house — and claim tax-free profit on the deal — in the two years leading up to the time you sold this house.

Read more

9 Steps in Selling Your Home: Steps 1-4

Step 1: Get Pre-Approved
The first thing you need to do is to make sure you will be able to get financing for your new home after you sell your current home. You may want to refer back to the posts on buying a home.

Step 2: Check Mortgage Payoff
You can call your lender to get the payoff amount. Usually a teller can look it up on their computers but you may want to see the loan officer just to make sure you get correct information.

Step 3: How Much is Your Home Worth?
So how do you determine the market value of your home? If you have a real estate agent he or she can do a fair market analysis to determine your home’s value. However, if you don’t have a real estate agent you will need to go to your county court house and try to look up your neighborhood and see what the houses in the area that are similar to yours sold for. Based off that information you can determine about what your house is worth. It is way easier to let a agent do it.

Step 4: Estimate Your Cost in Selling
Here is a list of some of the bigger things you will need to account for when estimating the costs in selling your home:

• Real estate commission if you use a agency
• Attorney’s closing fee and other professional closing fees
• Advertising costs, signs, newspaper ads, and fliers if you sell by owner
• Any fees paid by the seller in you general area (example: surveys, inspections)
• Tax on the sale
• Your annual expenses, such as property taxes, home owner association fees, and fuel
  tank rentals.

Real estate agents deal with transactions on a daily basis and can offer a pretty close estimate on what your closing costs may be.