How selling your home by owner works in Texas

The short version

Selling a home without a listing agent means you set the price, market the home, show it and negotiate with buyers yourself. Everything else about the sale works the way it does in any Texas sale: the buyer and seller sign a written contract, a title company acts as the escrow agent and handles the closing, and an attorney prepares the deed.

In the order it usually happens:

1. Get your title ready. Who is on the deed, loans and liens, heirs, a divorce, solar panels. Getting your title ready
2. Set a price. Texas doesn’t publish sale prices, so you price from other evidence. Pricing without sold prices
3. Gather your disclosures. The seller’s disclosure notice for most homes, and the notices your home’s records call for. The seller’s disclosure notice · MUD and PID notices
4. List the home and show it. Photos, a truthful description, and showings by appointment.
5. Decide what you’ll offer a buyer’s agent, if anything. When the buyer has an agent
6. Take offers and sign a contract. Nothing binds anyone until both sides sign.
7. Earnest money and the option fee go to the title company within 3 days (¶5). Earnest money
8. The option period: inspections, repair talks, and the buyer’s right to walk away. The option period
9. Title and survey: the title commitment, and the survey or a T-47 affidavit. The survey and the T-47
10. Closing at the title company. What happens at closing

Before you list: title, price and paperwork

Title first. Everyone on the deed signs to sell, and a married owner’s spouse signs to sell a homestead even if their name isn’t on the deed. An owner who has died, a divorce, a home-equity line, unpaid taxes or financed solar panels each add steps, and a title company is the one who decides what it needs to close. Those steps are the slowest part of most sales, so they are worth finding before a buyer is waiting.

Then the price. In Texas a deed doesn’t have to state the price, so there is no public list of what homes sold for, and the appraisal district’s value is a tax estimate as of January 1. Owners price from an appraisal, a licensed broker’s opinion, and the homes for sale around them.

Then the paperwork. Texas requires the seller of most homes to give the buyer a written disclosure notice about the home’s condition. A home built before 1978 needs the federal lead-based paint disclosure; a home in a municipal utility district or a public improvement district needs that district’s notice; a home in a homeowners association comes with the association’s documents. Buyers can read these before they make an offer.

Listing and showing the home

A listing needs good photos, the facts about the home, a truthful description and a way for buyers to reach you. Describe the home, never the kind of buyer you hope for: federal and Texas fair-housing laws apply to sellers too (see fair housing).

Showings are by appointment. Owners commonly ask for the buyer’s full name before a showing and, when the buyer is borrowing, a lender’s pre-approval letter, and have someone with them. The safety page covers showings, and how to tell a real buyer from a scam.

Offers and the contract

Most Texas home sales use the contract the Texas Real Estate Commission (TREC) publishes: the One to Four Family Residential Contract (Resale), form 20-19. An offer usually arrives as that contract filled in: the price; how the buyer is paying — cash, or a loan with the Third Party Financing Addendum, form 40-11; the earnest money; the option fee and the number of option days; who pays for the owner’s title policy; the survey; the closing date; and anything the buyer asks the seller to pay toward the buyer’s costs.

Price is only one line. Two offers at the same price can leave you with different amounts once the title policy, the buyer’s costs and any agent’s fee come out, so owners compare offers by what they keep. You can accept, counter or decline. The contract’s effective date is the day the last signature and acceptance are final, and every deadline counts from it. A Texas real estate attorney can prepare the contract or review it before you sign.

From contract to closing

• Within 3 days, the buyer delivers the earnest money and the option fee to the escrow agent named in the contract — the title company (¶5).
• During the option period, the buyer has the home inspected and may ask for repairs or a lower price. Any change you agree to goes in a written amendment (form 39-11). Until the option period ends, the buyer can end the contract for any reason.
• Within 20 days after the title company receives the contract, the buyer gets a title commitment: what the title company will insure, and what it needs first (¶6). The buyer can object to problems it shows; the seller then has time to cure them.
• The survey: the contract says whether you furnish your existing survey with a T-47 affidavit or someone orders a new one (¶6C).
• The buyer’s loan: the lender appraises the home and approves the loan within the days the financing addendum gives. The buyer must get the lender’s Closing Disclosure at least 3 business days before closing.
• Before closing, the title company orders your loan payoffs and, when there is one, the HOA’s resale certificate; agreed repairs get done.

Closing day

At closing you sign the deed and the title company’s papers, the buyer’s money arrives, the title company pays off your loans and the other costs on the settlement statement, records the deed, and sends you what is left. Possession passes when the contract says — often at closing and funding. Afterward, the buyer receives the owner’s title policy.

Where a professional helps

• A title company is the neutral escrow agent: it holds the earnest money, searches the title, insures it, and runs the closing. The contract names it; the buyer and seller agree on which one.
• A Texas real estate attorney can prepare or review your contract and answer questions about your situation. An attorney also prepares the deed.
• An inspector — usually hired by the buyer — reports on the home’s condition during the option period.
• An appraiser gives an opinion of value, for a lender or, before you list, for you.
• A licensed broker can list the home on the agents’ listing service, or handle the whole sale, if you decide you want that.

What ListedBy does, and doesn't

ListedBy is where you list the home, show it and hear from buyers, for a flat fee and with no listing commission. The listing fills itself in from your county’s appraisal roll, you prove you own the home with a code mailed to the address on that roll (or to the home, with your recorded deed), and a person reviews every listing before it goes live. The net sheet shows what you would keep at any price.

ListedBy is not a real estate broker, a law firm or a title company. It doesn’t represent you or the buyer, doesn’t give price opinions, and never holds money for a sale: earnest money goes to the title company.