The Pitfalls of Selling Your Home Alone

Many homeowners think that selling a home alone without the help of a Realtor will help simplify the process and will save them money in the end. The fact of the matter is, selling your home on your own isn’t easy work. You may lose a substantial amount of money when you try to sell your home alone because you are unfamiliar with the market or put too much on your plate. A Realtor can not only save you money, but can also save you time and stress so that you can make the transition from one house to the other as smoothly as possible.

Putting Your Home on the Market

Putting your home on the market requires more than a for sale by owner sign in your front yard. There is a lot more to it. Many homeowners learn about multiple listing services, which is an index of homes that are on the market and then pay to have their home listed. When calls don’t start flooding in asking about the home, many sellers wonder what the problem is. The problem is that it takes more than a listing to get Realtors to visit your home with their clients. When you work with a Realtor he or she may be able to network with others to be sure that your home is getting as much exposure as possible, all for the price of the sales commission. A Realtor will also have other avenues to explore with listing your home on the Internet and locally.

If you want to sell a property on your own you will have to not only keep that property in show condition, you will also have to be accessible for appointments when convenient for potential buyers. Showing your property can be exhausting and you may do the home an injustice if you cannot downplay the negative aspects of the home and accentuate the positive features.

The Value of Your Home

Many sellers lose money when they attempt to sell their home on their own because they do not know the market value of their home. A Realtor knows all of the current market values (whether they are rising and falling) and can help you get the most for your home–no matter what the market situation is.

Many sellers unintentionally under price their home because they do not have a professional helping them, or overprice it, which keeps all of the serious buyers away! A Realtor can help you price your home so that it not only sells, but so you can make a profit. This is one of the most important things as a real estate investor is the profitable return that you are working to earn on each of your properties. By doing some research and asking questions, you can save yourself the time and get more money at the same time.

Reputation

Most people that are in the market for a home go with a Realtor; 80% of buyers work with a Realtor because the Realtor has a good reputation and they need help maneuvering the real estate market. If you put a sign in your yard, in the newspaper, or on bulletin boards in various areas buyers have no idea who they are dealing with. Though a buyer may be able to get a good deal on a home that is for sale by owner, they are leery of working with someone that they don’t know and may or may not have real estate experience.

Home Selling Wrapped Up

As you can see, there is a lot of reason to work with a Realtor instead of trying to sell your home on your own. While a Realtor may take as much as 6% of the selling price, this is peanuts for all of the work and stress that they are saving you from. The legal paperwork, home inspections, showing the property, and marketing with their connections to sell your home as quickly as possible is what a Realtor does. When you try to take on all of these responsibilities on your own, unfortunately you have a good chance of failing or losing money.

Selling your home is difficult enough when you think about all that comes with it, but it doesn’t have to be overly stressful. A Realtor can do all of the dirty work associated with selling your property so that you can go about your everyday life, and still sell your home in record time. Knowing the market, knowing the real estate business, being able to focus your attention on your other properties, and having connections in local real estate are all things a Realtor can handle. In the end, it makes all the difference to have someone on your side, assisting you through the process.