How to sell your home yourself in Arizona.

A real guide, not a sales pitch. Everything below is what I would tell a friend who told me they were selling without an agent.

Selling a home is more than putting it on Zillow and sharing on Facebook that you're trying to sell it. Here is a step by step process to selling your home on your own, no sugar coating it. Read the whole thing and decide for yourself if FSBO is right for you.

1. Get the price right before anything else

Online estimates are a starting point and nothing more. They are generated by a formula that has never seen your kitchen, does not know the age of your roof, any improvements you've made, and whether or not your house backs onto a busy road. Don't rely on an online estimate to price your home. It could cost you time and money.

Price off recently sold homes, not homes currently for sale. What your neighbors are asking tells you what they hope to get. What sold, and what it actually closed at, tells you what buyers are willing to pay. Look for sales in the last few months, as close to your home as possible, similar in size, age, condition and lot.

You can also pay an appraiser for an independent valuation, which costs a few hundred dollars and gives you a defensible number rather than a guess. This is an expense the buyer typically pays for after you accept an offer, so it's worth considering whether you should spend that money now or have an agent price it right for you.

2. Do the prep work before a single photo is taken

Buyers decide whether to see your home from their phone, usually in a few seconds. You only get one chance to make a good first impression.

Declutter, take down personal photos, remove marks on the walls, stains in the carpet or furniture, dust from baseboards and vents, just to name a few. You need to think outside basic house cleaning because buyers do notice. And once a buyer notices, they are going to question what else you've missed while caring for the home.

3. Get it in front of the people who are actually looking

Most buyers are working with an agent, and most agents search the MLS. If your home isn't there, a large share of the buyer pool will never see it exists.

What this means for you is that you have to spread the word everywhere else you possibly can, and then keep spreading it.

Share your Zillow link on social media and ask your friends, family and followers to share it too. The more views and saves your marketing gets, the more it tends to get shown to other buyers. Call your neighbors or knock on their door and let them know it's for sale. You never know if a neighbor knows someone looking to move to the area or the neighborhood. Skip any home with a do not solicit sign. Put a yard sign up, and make sure it's visible from both directions of travel.

Beyond that, consider building a simple landing page for the property and running paid social ads to it. That is how a listing gets in front of people who weren't already looking, and it's a real skill in itself. Budget for it, learn the targeting, and expect to adjust as you go.

4. Think about showings before having a potential buyer tour the home

This is a part that sellers underestimate and should be taken seriously. When you sell on your own, the people coming through have not been screened by anyone like a listing agent would, and you are the one opening the door.

A few things that help. Ask for a mortgage pre-approval letter before scheduling, which filters out a surprising amount of traffic. Don't show alone. Put away anything valuable, along with prescriptions and mail. And accept that you'll have to answer your phone and take calls at inconvenient hours, because the buyer who wants to see it at six on a Thursday is potentially a real buyer.

As an agent, I can't tell you how many times I have tried to call a FSBO on behalf of a buyer and they either don't answer or never call back. How are you supposed to sell your own house if you're unavailable to speak with potential buyers?

5. Take disclosure seriously

Arizona sellers have legal obligations to disclose known material facts about the property. This is not a formality, and it does not go away because you sold without an agent. Failing to disclose something you knew about is one of the few ways a closed sale can come back to you months or years later.

Get the current disclosure requirements and forms from a title company or a real estate attorney before you go under contract, and fill them out completely and honestly. When you are unsure whether something needs disclosing, the answer is usually yes. Ask a real estate agent or real estate attorney if you have questions or concerns about disclosures.

6. The contract is where it gets serious

Accepting an offer is not the finish line. It is the start of a process with deadlines attached to real consequences.

In most cases you'll be dealing with a due diligence period, an appraisal, the buyer's financing, and close of escrow. Each has a date. Missing one can cost you the deal or your leverage in it. A title or escrow company can handle the closing and is a genuinely useful resource, but they are neutral. They are not there to protect your interests or negotiate for you.

If you take one piece of advice from this page, make it this: if you're not going to work with an agent, have a real estate attorney review the purchase contract before you sign it. It is a few hundred dollars against the largest transaction most people ever make.

7. Negotiate the terms, not just the number

A higher offer is not automatically a better offer. What else is in it matters, often more: how the buyer is financing, how much they're putting down, what they're asking you to pay toward their costs, how long they want for inspections, what happens if the appraisal comes in low, when they need to close, and more.

Two offers can look ten thousand dollars apart on the top line and land in completely different places by the time you're at the table. Read the whole thing, every time.

The initial contract is hardly ever the last of the negotiations. Expect to negotiate again after due diligence and after the appraisal. Better to be prepared than not.

8. Know who is on the other side of the table

Most buyers who reach you will have an agent. That agent negotiates for a living, has done it hundreds of times, has no emotional attachment to your house, and has one job: getting their buyer the best possible outcome at your expense. That is not a criticism. It is the job.

They will also know, the moment they see the listing, that you are unrepresented. Some will treat that fairly. Others will read it as an opening. The hardest part is not the paperwork.

One thing worth deciding early is whether you're willing to work with buyers who have their own agent, and if so, on what terms. How buyer agent compensation is handled changed meaningfully in recent years, so get current information on this rather than relying on how it worked the last time you sold. A title company, a real estate agent or a real estate attorney can walk you through where things stand now.

A summary of everything you need to know

Most FSBOs run into one major issue: time and availability. A lot of the moving parts that require urgency happen during typical working hours, making it hard for sellers to keep up with. Being unavailable could be the deciding factor between a buyer writing an offer on your property or someone else's that they also loved.

So, should you do it yourself?

Sometimes yes. But you need to be honest with yourself about three things: whether you have daylight hours to give this, whether you are willing to negotiate against a professional, and whether you can look at your own house the way a stranger will. Most people can manage one or two of those. It is the third that quietly costs the most money.

The one thing I'd push back on is deciding based on the commission alone, in either direction. What matters is what ends up in your pocket after everything, and that depends on the price you get and the terms you agree to, not just the fee you avoid. That's a number worth actually running before you commit to a path.

This page is general information about selling a home in Arizona and is not legal, tax or financial advice. Requirements change and every property is different. Please confirm current requirements with a real estate attorney, title company or tax professional before acting on anything here.