Selling your home without an agent: step by step

Selling without an agent means doing the agent’s work yourself and buying the parts you cannot or will not do. The deal itself is the same: same contract, same tax, same liability for defects afterwards.

Here is the whole sale in the order it happens, from valuation to tax return. Each step opens with the short answer. Still weighing the alternatives, the comparison is in agent or sell privately. The buyer’s side of the same deal is in buying a house without an agent.

May you sell your home without an agent?

Yes. No law requires a home deal to run through an agent. The Estate Agents Act (2021:516) governs how an agent must behave when one exists, not that one must exist. A house sells validly with a purchase contract meeting the Land Code’s formal requirements. A tenant-owner apartment sells with a transfer agreement under the Tenant-Owner Apartment Act plus the association accepting the buyer as a member.

What the agent otherwise does is value, market, hold viewings, run bidding, write contracts, gather documents and book moving day. None of that is reserved for agents. The agent’s real edge is routine: they have done it a hundred times and know where it usually goes wrong.

Two differences are worth knowing before you decide. An agent holds a statutory duty of impartiality between you and the buyer, giving the buyer a safety you cannot offer. And an agent carries liability insurance. Selling privately and writing a contract with errors in, that is your problem. So a lawyer for the contract is the part of the agent’s service hardest to skip.

Step 1: How do you price right?

Price from final prices for similar nearby homes, not from what you need to get out. Final prices show what buyers actually paid and are the best measure of market value. A listing’s asking price is a starting point for bidding, not the same thing as the market value.

Start by watching final prices in your area for a few weeks. Look at homes of the same size, condition and location, and note the gap between asking and final price. The final price usually lands within roughly ten percent of the asking price, either way, and in many parts of the country it’s common today for it to land a bit above. How valuation works, and why two valuers can land differently, is in how a home is valued. The gap between valuation and what is actually paid is explained in valuation vs final price.

Wanting a written valuation, you can order one from an agent or valuer. It normally costs 1,500 to 4,000 kronor, and many agents value verbally free hoping for the instruction. If the buyer borrows, the bank values independently, so above all your figure needs to be sane, not exact.

A common mistake is pricing high for negotiating room. A private listing without bidding loses buyers instead of attracting them. Set a price you can defend with final prices, and be ready to explain how you reached it.

Step 2: Which documents do you produce?

You need the same documents an agent would have gathered: proof of ownership, drawings, energy certificate, running costs, and for tenant-owner apartments the association’s annual report and statutes. Produce them before the listing, because serious buyers ask for them immediately.

For a house: property register extract showing title, mortgages and easements. The energy certificate is legally required selling small houses and must exist by the viewing at the latest. Building permits for extensions, a summary of running costs for the last year, the latest assessed value, and preferably a floor plan.

For a tenant-owner apartment: the association’s latest annual report, statutes, the monthly fee and what it includes, plus a flat-register extract showing you as the registered holder and whether the apartment is mortgaged. The board or manager hands that out.

Your own transfer survey on a house is voluntary but almost always pays off. It costs 5,000 to 15,000 kronor, gives the buyer safe material, and cuts dispute risk over hidden defects ten years out. Defects in the report are by definition not hidden.

Step 3: How do you list and show the home?

List with good photos, factual copy and a clear price, in as many free or cheap places as possible. Photos decide whether anyone clicks; copy decides whether they come to the viewing.

Professional photography costs 2,000 to 5,000 kronor and is the single best investment in a private sale. What the copy should say, and what you may not write, is in how to write the home listing. Hemnet doesn’t take listings from private sellers. A connected agent posts the listing, and it costs 3,000 to 30,000 kronor depending on the package and the town, on top of the agent’s fee. On SökHem, the home is matched against buyers who described looking for exactly what you sell.

You run the viewing yourself. Hold a booked viewing instead of an open one, so you know who comes and can receive one at a time. Bring printouts of the documents. Answer questions on condition and defects honestly, because what you say now protects you later: a defect the buyer was told about can never become hidden.

Think about safety. Ask viewers to identify themselves when booking, lock away valuables and medicines, and be two at home if possible. Sounds excessive but is standard with agents for a reason. Write down who came, so you know whom to follow up with the day after.

What you do in the home before photos and viewings moves price more than many think. What it costs and what it usually returns is in home styling: cost and value. Preparation at large is in preparing the sale.

Step 4: How do you handle bidding and negotiation?

Without an agent, bidding is negotiation you run yourself, and nobody is bound by anything until the contract is signed. That cuts both ways: you may refuse the highest bid, and the buyer may pull out the day before the contract.

Decide in advance how you handle several interested parties. Simplest is asking everyone to bid in writing, by email or text, with amount, any conditions, and wished moving day. Tell everyone what the highest bid is and give them a chance to raise. That is also how bidding with an agent works, and you can follow the same principle. An alternative with big interest is closed bidding.

Bids are not just amounts. A buyer with pre-approval ready and flexible moving day is worth more than a higher bid from someone who must first sell their own home. Ask every buyer about pre-approval before taking their bid seriously.

Once agreed: write down price, moving day, inclusions and any conditions in an email both confirm. Not binding, but it becomes the contract’s foundation and prevents misunderstandings.

Step 5: What must the contract contain?

For a house, Land Code chapter 4, section 1 requires the contract written, stating the purchase price, holding a declaration transferring the property, and signed by both you and the buyer. For a tenant-owner apartment, Tenant-Owner Apartment Act chapter 6, section 4 requires a written agreement with both signatures, stating which flat and the price.

Beyond formal requirements the contract must regulate deposit, moving day, payment, inclusions, who carries costs until moving day, and what happens if the purchase does not complete. If the purchase must depend on something, for example the buyer getting a loan, it must stand in the contract. For tenant-owner apartments the purchase must always be conditioned on the buyer being accepted as a member, or the transfer is void under chapter 6, section 5.

Hire a lawyer for the contract. It costs 3,000 to 8,000 kronor and is the one part of the agent’s fee you should not try to save. What you need to control in detail, including the duty of disclosure, is in law in private home sales. To limit your defect liability there is the disclaimer clause, which usually lowers price.

The deposit, normally ten percent, is paid when the contract is written. Without an agent there is no client funds account, so decide in the contract whether it goes straight to you or sits with a lawyer or bank. Also write what happens to it if the buyer pulls out.

Step 6: How does moving day run through the bank?

Moving day happens at the buyer’s bank, which pays out the buyer’s loan, settles your loans, and transfers the difference to you. You sign the deed of purchase, hand over keys, and the bank draws a settlement statement showing every amount. This is routine for banks even without an agent.

Contact your own bank weeks before moving day and ask for a redemption statement: exactly what settling your loans on moving day takes. The buyer’s bank needs it to transfer the right amount. With mortgage deeds in the house they follow the property and release when the loan is paid.

The deed of purchase is the receipt that the full price is paid. For a house the buyer uses it to register title at Lantmäteriet, due within three months. Title and new deed costs are the buyer’s, not yours. For a tenant-owner apartment the association must learn the transfer happened and update the flat register.

The home must be move-cleaned and emptied on moving day. Read power and water meters together, and write readings into the settlement statement or a separate record. It takes three minutes and stops the most common fight after a private deal.

What does selling privately cost versus an agent?

Agent fees usually run 30,000 to 200,000 kronor. Selling privately, you replace that with single services rarely totalling over 20,000 kronor. The gap grows with price, since the fee is a percentage and your costs are fixed.

Take a 3,000,000-kronor home. The agent’s fee is 45,000 to 105,000 kronor. Your own maths: written valuation 1,500 to 4,000 kronor, photographer 2,000 to 5,000, listing 0 to 2,000, lawyer for contract and settlement 3,000 to 8,000, moving day through the bank usually free. The sum lands around 7,000 to 19,000 kronor. Adding a transfer survey on a house adds 5,000 to 15,000, but an agent would usually advise you to pay that yourself too.

What an agent mainly adds is reach and experience running bidding, which can lead to a higher price, especially with many buyers competing. Whether that covers the fee varies. On a 3-million home the price needs to be roughly 1.5 to 3.5 percent higher for the fee to pay for itself. The whole cost picture, with and without agents, is in what selling a home costs.

What happens with tax?

Profit is taxed at 22 percent whether you sold with or without an agent, and you declare the sale the year after you signed the contract. Every expense of the sale itself is deductible, so save receipts for valuation, photos, listing, styling and lawyer.

Profit is sale price minus purchase price, improvement expenses and selling expenses. How the calculation runs, with examples, is in capital gains tax on home sales. Buying a new home, you can request deferral up to the ceiling Skatteverket states. The declaration itself, form by form, is in declaring a home sale.

Skatteverket learns about the change of ownership whether or not you use an agent: for a house through the title registration at Lantmäteriet, for a tenant-owner apartment through a control statement from the association. That isn’t enough to work out your profit, so declare it yourself. You do that the year after the contract was signed, even if moving day falls in the following year.

Checklist: selling a home without an agent

The steps in order. Take them one at a time.

Before listing: area final prices reviewed and price set. Documents produced: property register extract or flat-register extract, energy certificate, running costs, drawings, annual report and statutes for tenant-owner apartments. Survey done on houses. Home cleaned, cleared and photographed. Redemption statement ordered from the bank.

Listing and viewing: listing published with price, area, fee or running costs, and moving day. Booked viewings. Printouts of documents. Every known defect told and noted.

Negotiation: every bid in writing. Pre-approval checked. Agreement on price, moving day and conditions confirmed by email.

Contract: written or reviewed by a lawyer. Formal requirements met: written, price, transfer declaration, both signatures. Tenant-owner apartment: membership condition, application sent to the board. Deposit paid and regulated.

Moving day: time booked at the buyer’s bank. Move-clean done. Meters read and noted. Deed of purchase and settlement statement signed. Keys handed over. Insurance cancelled from moving day.

Afterwards: every receipt saved. Sale declared the year after the contract, deferral requested where relevant.

Legal basis

Formal requirements buying real property sit in Land Code chapter 4, section 1, conditional purchases in chapter 4, section 4, and seller defect liability in chapter 4, section 19, with the ten-year limit in section 19 b. Title registration is regulated in chapter 20 of the Land Code. For tenant-owner apartments the Tenant-Owner Apartment Act (1991:614) applies: transfer formal requirements in chapter 6, section 4, voidness on refused membership in chapter 6, section 5, and membership rules in chapter 2. Defects in tenant-owner apartments are judged under the Sale of Goods Act (1990:931). Agent duties, not applying to you selling privately, sit in the Estate Agents Act (2021:516). Tax rules live in Income Tax Act chapters 45 and 46 and are described by Skatteverket.