How to Sell Your House by Owner (FSBO) in PA & Lehigh Valley

If you’re planning to sell your house in Allentown, the Lehigh Valley, or anywhere in PA, you may be considering a For Sale by Owner (FSBO) approach. While FSBO may seem like a good idea to sell your house without a realtor and save on agent commissions, there are many pitfalls that come with it.

Today, we’ll share with you everything you need to consider before selling your house without a realtor in PA.

Repairs & Costs

In order to maximize the resale value of your Pennsylvania home, you will need to get your home “ready to market”. This means doing any repair and cosmetic enhancements so your house looks at its best before showing it to potential buyers. Be careful not to do too much “patch up” work, because these may be revealed when the buyer elects to get a professional inspection done; and you may be liable to fix these again. It is very important that before you even begin doing any work, you have a clear budget for the repairs you identified and a buffer for additional things that may be uncovered during your repairs.

Be prepared for some additional stress and noise in your house while repairs are happening. Depending on the size of your project, you may have workmen in and out of your house, power tools and their associated noise, not to mention, a lot of dust to clean up!

Other than the repair costs, it’s important to consider the closing costs and fees associated with selling your house in PA. You’ll need to pay for things like title insurance, attorney fees, and other closing costs. These costs can add up quickly and reduce your overall profit when selling your house FSBO in Pennsylvania.

A local Lehigh Valley home buyer, such as us at iBuyLehigh, can give you a free, no-obligation assessment to detail the total repair costs needed to get your house ready for sale. In the process, we will give you a cash offer for your property in its current condition and explain, line by line, how we got there based on the projected repairs required and associated costs of selling. This will allow you to get a fair evaluation with no hidden costs and determine if it’s worth the time and expense to do the repairs yourself.

Time is Money

When selling your house in PA the traditional route, whether through an agent or FSBO, there is no guaranteed closing date. The date is determined by the number of interested buyers, the time spent on needed repairs before listing, whether you have a successful inspection, if any additional repairs are needed, if the buyer changes their mind at the list minute, buyer’s loan not being approved, and many other potential reasons. 

Coordinating repairs with different contractors can be a very time consuming task and project schedules can regularly get extended. Most homeowners do not have the experience, nor time, to do this. 

Furthermore, each day you own the home your in incurring additional carrying costs. These are additional expenses, such as taxes, insurance, mortgages, utilities, and others that add up very quickly and continuously eat away at your profit. Each potential delay can cost you more money, and, in turn, hurt your overall profit when trying to sell your house by owner in PA.

Marketing & Paperwork

Firstly, when selling your house by owner in Pennsylvania, the paperwork can be exhausting – there will be lots of forms and agreements that need to be customized, filled out, signed, countersigned, reviews, edited…you get this gist. To make it worse, if there are any errors/accidental omissions, you may be legally liable for damages.

You’ll have to handle all the inquiries, showings, and negotiations on your own, which can be time-consuming and stressful; especially if you have many buyers that aren’t serious that are wasting your time, or trying to give you a low ball offer.

Worse yet, on average, houses sold FSBO sell for about 25% lower than comparable properties on the market. Due to the potential issues mentioned, FSBO listing in Allentown, and across the PA, are becoming less popular and represent less than 10% of total sales of homes.

If you’re considering selling your house by owner in Pennsylvania, or specifically Allentown, PA, it is important to consider all of the time, paperwork, headache, and hidden costs. It could be a lot of effort, for not much reward.

We can help Sell your House without Agent in PA

At iBuyLehigh, we can make the process much easier and give you the result you want without the hassle, lost time, and additional costs. More than likely, you want to sell your house by owner in PA because you want to avoid hefty realtor commissions.

When working with iBuyLehigh, you sell your house directly to us, so there are no fees; plus we avoid most of the common issues faced when your try to sell your house without a realtor in PA. We can give you a fair, all-cash offer to buy the house directly from you, in whatever the existing condition is and close whenever you want. It’s that easy and convenient.

We have helped numerous Lehigh Valley home owners sell their house on the exact date that they needed to. Whether it was because they were moving out of state, to a new house, or just needed to get out of the house as soon as possible. At iBuyLehigh, we guarantee we can close on the date YOU need, without having to worry about anything else.

We’ll guide you through every step of the process and help you evaluate your options to see what will best reach your goals. We want to ensure that you are fully comfortable with your decision and making the best choice for you and your family.

You can fill out the form or pick up the phone and give us a ring anytime at (484) 549-0019.