Ever drive by a neighborhood and see a “for sale by owner” sign? Kind of makes you think… “Hmm, if I were to sell my house, could I do it myself?” We see a lot of these in our day to day business. We also get a lot of clients from people that tried to sell their house only to realize that it’s still a good to hire a real estate agent when selling a home.
Here are 5 reasons it’s still a good idea.
1. Knowledge matters – All of our agents are licensed which means they must pass extensive training courses and take continuing education classes. This knowledge and training is a weapon in your arsenal you cannot afford to go without. You may think you know the value of your home, but a professional is trained to not only know the value, but also market it in a way that will bring you top dollar for it. The difference in you selling it vs a trained professional could be thousands of dollars difference in price that you missed out on.
2. Marketing matters – You might be able to stick a for sale sign in your yard and get lucky, but chances are that is not going to be enough. Real estate agents know how to market a home. They have connections that aren’t available to the general public. They can get your home staged, photographed, and or video recorded in a way that you can’t. The time and money it would take you to figure all this out is worth a small commission and then some.
3. Time matters – More than likely you work at a job during the day. Are you going to have time to take calls, schedule showings, then be available all the time for the showings? Probably not. This is where an agent is worth their weight in gold.
4. Contracts matter – Have you seen a seller’s contract lately? We are talking about a minimum of a dozen pages or more. If you don’t know what to look for in a contract you could end up paying more in fees than you should. Leave this to the experts.
5. Connections matter – Your agent is going to know all the other players involved with a home sale. Lenders, title companies, inspectors, contractors, etc. Using their connections will save you time and money from having to go out and find the best companies for the various roles.
Conclusion
You may look at the cost of hiring a real estate agent and think it’s too expensive, but in the end you’ll be glad you did it. Unless you have endless amounts of time, know plenty of buyers, have experience understanding and negotiating confusing contracts, and want to risk losing money then hiring a real estate agent is still a good idea.
Let us show you how we can help!