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YOU'RE thinking of selling your house without an agent. But can you really pull it off? Go through this checklist of 30 questions - if you answer yes to 26 or more, go ahead and sell your your own home. Otherwise rather play it safe and use an agent. Also see page 32 for more information on what agents can do for you.

1. Do you know how to write accurate, catchy advertisements that will attract a response from genuine buyers?

2. Do you have access to For Sale/Sold Signs to erect outside the property? A quarter of the buying market buys from a board outside a home.

3. Do you know how to qualify clients - ascertain how much deposit they have when available, if they have their costs, etc.?

4. Do you know all the legal ramifications that go along with a sale?

5. Have you thought about how you are going to follow up on each visitor?

6. Do you know how much to set aside for the cost of advertisements, bearing in mind that you will not enjoy the huge discounts that the agents enjoy by virtue of their regular advertising and the contracts they have negotiated?

7. Have you made provision for someone to be at the house at all times when you need to go out?

8. Do you know the value (not the advertised price) of other competing properties in order for you to be totally objective concerning the value of your own home?

9. Do you know how your home competes with these other homes and in what way it is better or falls short?

10. Do you know how to show off your home to its best advantage while at the same time being totally objective and not emotionally biased?

11. Can you cope with constructive criticism? Even if you can, buyers seldom offer it to sellers, whereas they will not mind saying to an agent, "If only he was prepared to paint the three bedrooms, I would buy it", or something similar.

12. Do you understand and know all the various terms and conditions that go into making a sale? Do you know what questions to ask?

13. Do you have time and expertise to hold showhouses? Do you have banners and direction boards, etc.?

14. Can you advise buyers of transfer costs and bond registration costs? Do you know what costs are involved and when they are due and why they are due?

15. Are you aware of a buyer's bond/income ratio? Do you know how to ascertain whether he or she can afford your home or not? Will you be comfortable asking prospective buyers how much money they earn? (Many buyers are not actually sure how much they can buy for, which wastes a lot of time and effort.)

16. Do you know how to draw up a legal and valid contract, i.e. offer to purchase, that will cover all your interests sufficiently without frightening the buyer to death? If not, have you budgeted for your attorney to draw it up, as he will charge for drawing up a contract? Agents do not!

17. Are you available to answer all the telephone calls that might arise from the advert? These will probably happen during work time during the week. Are you aware of the right questions to ask over the phone? Otherwise you might lose many a prospective buyer who, if only he had called personally to see the home, would have bought it.

18. Do you know the various costs that a seller can be liable for? Some are not that obvious.

19. Do you know what improvements or alternatives could maximise the potential of your home? Do you know what is particularly appealing to buyers?

20. Are you skilled enough to negotiate with prospective buyers if they want to make stupid low offers? Will you be comfortable in this area without a third party to negotiate on your behalf?

21. Are you aware of and sufficiently skilled in the various types of financing in order to close what might appear to be a non-starter type of sale?

22. Are you in a position to help prospective buyers obtain finance if they need it? Are you able to help with completing loan documents if buyers have no time left to contact the bank before returning home? (Out of town buyers often have a limited amount of time to buy before returning home.)

23. Do you have access to important considerations such as municipal valuations, Deeds Office transfers, multi listing statistics such as MLS, network listings and the Institute?s R.P.P.I. (Residential Property Price Indicator) or C.T.I. (Computerized Transfer Information)?

24. Are you aware of all municipal regulations concerning zoning and subdivisions, in case prospective buyers are interested on the condition that they can subdivide?

25. If no-one responds to your advertisements, do you have an existing client base that you can draw on to provide you with buyers? Do you have contacts in other areas in order to receive referral clients?

26. Do you have access to the sales data for the last couple of months - what is on the market competing with yours, what has been sold and what has not been sold? Do you know how to draw up a CMA on your own house - where you would get your information from? Do you even know what a CMA (Comparative Market Analysis) is?

27. If you receive an offer from a buyer who has a property to sell, are you in a position to help with the other sale or do you have contacts that you can put the buyer in touch with in order to speed up the sale?

28. How do you cope with rejection? Are you objective enough to alter the price if the home does not sell? Or will you become dejected and withdraw it from the market only to have to go through the revolting process again in a year's time?

29. Do you have access to bank checks such as Credit Inform, ITC and Joint Banks to check up on whether your buyer is genuine, if he has a judgement, etc.?

30. Are you aware of your timeframe - when you need your property sold, your occupation date, the date you need the funds etc.? Compiled by Jill Corfield, a property trainer from Durban, and provided by PCL Property Group in Somerset West.

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