Congratulations! You’ve made the decision to skip the fees and commissions and decided you are going to sell your house on your own. Where do you find all of the paperwork that you need to make this happen? You came to the right place! We are going to give you what you need to know in Texas to sell a house fore sale by owner (FSBO) without a Realtor!
How does J&A Home Buyers know what documents to use? We are cash buyers ourselves based in Katy, TX so we have gone through the process of purchasing and selling homes hundreds of times. Several of our team members are also licensed Realtors in Texas which means we know what Texas requires. We are firm believers in being open and transparent in what we make as a company. Whether we buy a home from you with a cash offer or we help you list a house we should be able to show you what we plan to make you and what value we bring for what we make. In an effort to help you sell your home we make information FREE.
Before the Paperwork, Are You Ready?
Before you start advertising your property and you get all of your paperwork ready it is important to know several key things:
A Comparable Market Analysis can help you answer some of these questions: Do you have an up to date understanding of what your local real estate market is doing? How many days is the average house selling? What are the prices for similar houses in your neighborhood with the same square feet, bedrooms, bathrooms, number of stories? Is your Master bedroom upstairs or downstairs? What are the photos like for houses that sold at top of the market? Do I have similar finishes in my house?
In Houston, TX and surrounding areas a comparable market analysis can be given to you by a licensed realtor who pays for access to HAR. This process doesn’t take us long so if you want us to run one for you contact us for your free, no obligation, CMA.
What Disclosures & Contract Paperwork Do I Need to Provide?
In Texas there are five disclosures we recommend you prepare prior to listing your property for sale.
Seller’s Disclosure Notice: This form is required by Texas to inform your prospective buyer of what the house was made of, what comes with the house and any issues that the house may have. It is important that you fill this out carefully and you ask questions if you don’t understand it. If the buyer finds out you were dishonest or forgot to disclose something after the sale you may be liable for damages. If you have historic issues with the house even prior to you purchasing it you must disclose these too. It will help you to show any invoices or warranties from repairs you have done to show that you properly mitigated the issues.
Lead Based Paint: The Addendum for Seller’s Disclosure of Lead-Based Paint and Lead-Based Paint Hazards is required by federal law for all houses that were built in 1978 or earlier time. Even if you have tested your house and know that it does not have any hazardous material this disclosure must be filled out.
Wire Fraud: Wire Fraud is a deal killer. Unfortunately scammers have gotten really good at figuring out who potential buyers and sellers are and have thought through several ways to trick people out of their money. Although this isn’t a requirement by Texas or the Federal Government we highly recommend you at least send this to your potential buyer and educate them on how to avoid wire fraud. It would be terrible for your buyer and you would have to restart your listing. You also want to make sure you are not giving your banking information to someone who pretends to be a Title company wanting to pay you. Be proactive and be aware at all times!
MUD Disclosures: Most of the greater Houston have private MUD district that helps provide water, waste water and other public services such as trash. MUD districts make money through monthly bills and they also make money via your property taxes. As such you need to disclose when selling a property which MUD district you are in and some of the financials behind that district so that new buyers are aware of the MUD taxes.
Home Owners Association (HOA): The Addendum for Property Subject to Mandatory Membership in a Property Owners Association is required for sale of a home that belongs to an HOA. This discloses all of the Associated HOA fees and rules that an HOA may have when a buyer is purchasing a property.
One to Four: All of the above are good for you to have filled out. A buyer can give you an offer in a number of different format’s in Texas. We recommend that you request them to give you an offer in the TREC One to Four Family Residential Contract (Resale). This will help ensure nothing is left for interpretation and secondly there are a lot of youtube videos and web resources on the Internet that help you answer specific questions that may arise on what the offer means.
Sell to J&A Home Buyers Directly
When you contact us for your free CMA we can also give you a free no obligation offer to purchase your house directly. A few things that makes our offers cleaner and easy to understand:
- No Fees
- No Commissions
- No Repairs needed
- No Licensed Inspections
- No Showings
- No Contract Contingency
- We give a competitive offer
- We pay closing costs
- We have several licensed realtors on our team that can help explain our offers and also ensure we follow Texas standard of ethics.
By selling to an investor like J&A Home Buyers you can skip all of the prep work, repairs, marketing planning, advertising costs, showings and many negotiations and low ball offers you will receive from the general market. Fill out the form on our website today to get your FREE market report and a no obligation offer. Our purchase process is extremely simple.