Home Sales in Des Moines
July 1, 2008 by Sandy Renshaw
Filed under Business, Community, Editor: Sandy Renshaw, Iowa
According to several realtors and mortgage brokers I know in the metro area, home sales are better than we hear about in the news. After all, fear sells more soap than good news.
There’s many options to sell your house. If you choose to do it yourself, there is a new website - Hawkeye FSBO - that lists real estate in Iowa that is for sale by owner. This is a free listing. Check it out! I talked to the owner of the site and he created this site because he noticed there are a lot of FSBO homes for sale around town but not a simple way to find them online.
What is involved in selling your own house? A post titled “For Sale by Owner in Iowa” by Matt Gardner on the Iowa Law Blog may answer some of those questions. It’s probably a good idea to retain the services of a good real estate attorney to help you through the legalities.
Listed below are links to Amazon for books about selling your own home. I didn’t realize so many people are choosing this option. Have you sold your own house or purchased a home that was for sale by owner? How was the experience? Would you recommend it?
Writer: Sandy Renshaw is a self-employed communications consultant. You will also find her blogging at Purple Wren.
Sandy Renshaw is Sandy Renshaw is a self-employed communications consultant. You will also find her blogging at Purple Wren.
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If you are buying a house and financing with the seller instead of with a bank, you also need to be sure you know the consequences. One person I met a few years back was paying money to one brother under an agreement that that brother would pay all relevant property taxes and other items. After several years of this arrangement, the other brother commented that he had not been receiving any payment from the first brother for a while, plus the taxes were going unpaid. In this case the buyer was able to get legal help to sort everything out and formalized going forward but he could easily have lost his investment in the house.