Lee Morof's Real Estate Blog

Selling homes for sale in southeast Michigan by owner takes a lot of time, energy and expertise.  You need to know how to set a fair market value for your home, promote your home to pull qualified buyers and negotiate the final terms and sales price. 

One of the most important skills you need to learn in order to find qualified buyers for your home for sale in southeast Michigan is how to sort out the lookers from the serious buyers.

Lookers are people who aren’t serious about buying a home.  At the least, they waste your time and energy.  At the worst, lookers could be a security problem.  They could be checking out your home to determine if you have valuables worth stealing.

Serious buyers are people who are interested in buying a home within 30 to 90 days and are pre-approved for a mortgage.  Spend your time and energy on these individuals.

So, how do you identify qualified buyers?  Before scheduling a time to show your home for sale in southeast Michigan by owner to potential buyers, ask them these four questions: 

1. Are you pre-approved for a mortgage?  If they’re pre-approved for a mortgage, they’re serious about buying a home.  If buyers aren’t pre-approved, suggest they contact a mortgage specialist and get back in touch with you when they have their pre-approval letter.  Mortgage specialists check the buyer’s credit score, income and debt ratios. They also verify that the buyer has enough money for down payment and closing costs.
2. How much are you pre-approved for?  Make sure they’ve been approved for a big enough loan to be able to afford your home for sale in southeast Michigan.  If your home is valued at $500,000 and they’re only pre-approved for $150,000, they cannot afford your home unless they can pay the difference in cash.  If the buyer is purchasing your home with cash, or using cash for a large down payment, ask the buyer for a bank statement to verify his or her funds.
3. Do you have your pre-approval letter?  Verify that they are pre-approved for the amount they say they are.  Ask the buyers to email or fax their pre-approval letter to you or bring it with them when they tour your home.
4. What’s your possession deadline?  Your move-out timeframe needs to be close to the buyer’s move-in deadline.  How close?  Close enough to negotiate the difference.  If they don’t want to take possession of your home for 6 months, and you need to sell immediately, they’re not a serious buyer for your home.

To successfully sell your home, you need to know if a potential buyer is qualified to buy your home.  The sooner you know this, the less time you’ll waste chasing after lookers and unqualified buyers.

Tired of going it alone?  If you’d rather have an experienced southeast Michigan real estate agent handle everything for you from finding qualified buyers to negotiating the sales contract, give me a call today at 248-514-2640 or email me at info@NorthWoodwardHomes.com.

Lee Morof
Associate Broker/Attorney  
RE/MAX Showcase Homes
Birmingham, Michigan
Call:  248-514-2640
info@NorthWoodwardHomes.com
www.NorthWoodwardHomes.com