Reviewed by Grant Leishman for Readers' Favorite

The Frugal Home Seller: Save Money, Spend Less, and Sell Your Home for Maximum Profit is exactly what the title says it will be – a “how-to” guide to selling your home yourself, and how to do it at a minimum cost, whilst maximizing the returns from the sale. Author Gary Marshall has parlayed his 35-odd years of real estate experience into this simple, checklist annotated instruction manual on how to go about doing that which many of us are terrified of trying but deep down know may well be a sensible and profitable option. Marshall will pinpoint the absolute most important factors in selling your home quickly for the right price and at a minimum expense to you in both money and perhaps, more importantly, stress. From setting the price, through pre-sale preparations, marketing, open-days, offers and counter-offers, settlement, legal documents, right through to closing, Marshall covers it all in his no-nonsense, blunt style. Most of all, he shows you how to do all this “frugally”. In fact, a whole section of the book is devoted to living frugally and the benefits he and his family have discovered through following this principle.

If you are considering selling your house, especially but even not necessarily selling it yourself without a real estate agent, I would say The Frugal Home Seller is an absolute must-read. Gary Marshall’s no-nonsense, straightforward style, coupled with his experience of showing and previewing over 10,000 homes in his lifetime, is absolutely invaluable. What I particularly liked was his ability to convey complex ideas and procedures that may seem like legal gobbledygook in simple layman’s terms. With the underlying theme of frugality and “the faster you sell, the more you save” being the keynote, this book certainly hits the target fair and square. Although written from an American perspective, much of the information and ideas are equally applicable to anyone selling a house, anywhere in the world. Marshall gives an absolute plethora of resources and websites where successful, yet frugal solutions to virtually any aspect of the house-selling process can be found. If you’re selling your house in America, this information is worth a veritable goldmine to you. He has done all the research, so you don’t have to do it. I really enjoyed this book and I am neither an American nor have a house to sell. This says something about the writer’s style and ability to convey his concepts with humor and effectiveness. I highly recommend this book.