How to Sell on My Own

The single biggest reason FSBO homes sit unsold is a price set by feelings instead of data. Buyers don't know your payoff, your renovation budget, or your Zillow notification history — they know what three similar homes down the street sold for last month. Pull recent, truly comparable sales (same subdivision or school zone, similar square footage and condition) before you land on a number.

A home priced 5-10% over market usually doesn't sell for 5-10% more — it just sits, picks up a stale listing smell, and eventually sells for less than it would have at the right price on day one. If you want a second opinion, a licensed appraiser can run comparables for you — a standard single-family appraisal typically runs $400-$600.

A yard sign catches the neighbors. Buyers actually search online first — which means your listing lives or dies on the photos. Hire a real estate photographer for a few hundred dollars; it is, without much competition, the highest-return purchase in the entire process. Phone photos taken at 6pm with the blinds half-closed cost you real dollars in final sale price.

Beyond photos: a clean, accurate written description (square footage, recent updates, school zone), and getting the listing onto the places buyers actually look. FSBO sites exist, but most buyer traffic still flows through the MLS and the big search portals it feeds. Worth considering: many brokers will list your home on the MLS for a flat fee — often just a couple hundred dollars — under what's called a Limited Service Listing Agreement, with no commission required.

Every showing request is someone you don't know asking to walk through your home. A simple scheduling link (several are free) beats a group text with your cell number in it, and it keeps a record of who actually came through — useful later if anything about the property gets disputed.

Plan for the awkward reality that you may need to leave your own house on short notice, more than once a week, for however long it takes. Buyers also tend to talk more freely when the seller isn't standing in the kitchen — something to weigh if you're hosting the showings yourself. It's also fair to ask for a pre-approval letter or proof of funds before you even schedule the showing — a simple way to weed out the curious neighbors from the people who are actually ready to buy.

Before accepting an offer, ask for a mortgage pre-approval letter (not just a "pre-qualification," which barely means anything) or proof of funds for a cash purchase. This one step quietly filters out most of the offers that would otherwise fall apart 20 days into a contract.

It's not rude to ask — it's standard practice, and any serious buyer's agent will hand this over without blinking. A buyer who resists providing it is telling you something.

In Texas, the standard residential contract includes an option period — typically 7 to 10 days, starting the day after the contract is signed by all parties (the execution date). During this window, the buyer pays a small, separate option fee (often a few hundred dollars) directly to you for the unrestricted right to terminate the contract for any reason, no explanation required.

This is when the buyer's inspection happens. If they walk during the option period, they forfeit the option fee to you but get their earnest money back. If they walk after it ends without a valid contractual reason, the earnest money is generally at stake instead — which is exactly why the option period deadline matters so much on both sides.

If your home is in an HOA, Texas law requires you to provide the buyer with a resale certificate — a document from the association covering dues, any assessments, rules, and whether the property is in good standing. Most HOA management companies charge a fee (commonly $200-$400) to produce it, and it can take anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks, so order it as soon as you go under contract, not the week before closing.

The standard Texas contract has a specific addendum for property subject to mandatory HOA membership — skipping it, or delivering the certificate late, can actually give the buyer a termination right they wouldn't otherwise have.

Title companies need a survey to issue title insurance without a survey exception. If you have an existing survey and nothing has changed on the property (no new fence, pool, or addition), you may be able to reuse it by signing a T-47 affidavit swearing nothing's changed. If anything has changed, or the buyer's lender won't accept the old one, you'll need a new survey — typically a few hundred dollars and a few days to schedule.

Worth sorting out early: it's a common, easily-missed line item that can hold up closing if you discover the need for it in the final week. Who pays for a new survey, if one turns out to be needed, is something to negotiate and spell out in the contract up front — don't leave it as an assumption on either side.

The execution date — the date the last party signs — is the anchor point the entire contract counts from: option period, financing deadline, title objection deadline, closing date, all of it. Mark it the day it happens; don't estimate it later from memory.

The buyer's title objection deadline is when they can raise issues found in the title commitment (liens, easements, boundary problems) and require you to resolve them before closing. Missing or mishandling any one of these dates is one of the most common ways FSBO deals unravel — a shared calendar with every deadline written down in plain English saves a lot of last-minute scrambling.

A title company (or attorney, depending on how the contract is written) handles closing: they run title, prepare the deed, hold funds in escrow, and record the transfer with the county once everything is signed and funded. Ownership officially transfers when the general warranty deed is signed and recorded.

As the seller, budget roughly 1-3% of the sale price for your side of closing costs beyond any mortgage payoff — an owner's title policy is often seller-paid by local custom, prorated property taxes, the HOA resale certificate and transfer fee, your portion of escrow fees, and recording costs. Since you're not paying a listing commission, that's real money staying in your pocket — just don't assume "no commission" means "no costs."

Texas doesn't require a real estate attorney to sell your home — the standard TREC contract forms are written to work whether or not either side has an agent. That said, a title company can facilitate the transaction, but they represent the transaction, not you personally.

It's worth the few hundred dollars for an attorney's time if anything is non-standard: an estate or trust sale, a title issue turns up, a buyer wants to add unusual contract language, or you just want someone in your corner reading the fine print before you sign.