So you’re thinking about selling your own home, but you’re not sure where to start, or if you can do it.

Before continuing, please answer just one question… What do you have to lose if you try to sell your own home?

Given the fact that you could save anywhere from $6,000 to $24,000 in commissions, isn’t it worth a try? By doing so, you won’t hurt your future chances of selling with a real estate agent, if that’s where you’ll ultimately end up. In order to sell your home, there are two key underlying factors that must be met:

1. You must price your house correctly
2. You must find a qualified and interested buyer

There are a couple of ways to get the answer to number 1. You can get an appraisal on your home. That will cost $200-$600 depending on where you live. Many times this appraisal will include comparable sales of homes like yours in your area.

However, we’ll assume you’re trying to save money, so it might make sense to take advantage of some of the tools on the internet to give you a means of pricing your home. There are many sites available to help with this, but there are two prominent sites where you can get an approximate appraisal for your home, as well as comparable sales. They are listed below:

www.zillow.com
www.homegain.com

There, you now have the first half of the selling equation. Now you need to find a qualified and interested buyer. Once again, with your budget in mind, we will harness the power of the Internet. If you’ve never used Craigslist.com before, it’s a FREE site that allows people to sell just about anything. You simply need to create an account and then create your ad.

When creating your listing, be sure to include all relevant information about your home’s specifications. For example, # of bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage. footage, acreage, school district, etc. Try to include a paragraph describing your home that uses adjectives to bring “life” to your home and to attract potential buyers.

Another free way to promote your home is to send an email to everyone you know. You must advertise your intent to sell your home and include information similar to what you included in your Craigslist ad. Be sure to mention the recipient of your email who can forward the email. Maybe you could create some incentive like $500 for the final referrer.

You can accomplish all of this in one day and have your home listed with potential interest almost immediately. Why not give it a try. Set a deadline, say 3-4 months. If that doesn’t work, move on to traditional sales channels for marketing houses, like a real estate agent.

What do you have to lose… besides a great commission?