Did you know? Selling a house is a time-consuming process. Doing it by yourself, is much more time-consuming than you think. This is know as a For Sale By Owner (FSBO). Processes like reviewing legal documents, handling negotiation, and more, it’s an highly involve and detailed procedure that needs a lot of experience and expertise to efficiently navigate.

For this specific reason, we’re seeing a decline of people selling their own house from 19% of all  home sales to just 8% last year. 

In depth, here are the specific things you need to think about before putting that “For Sale” sign up in your property:

1. Making a Good First Impression

Though it sounds so easy, there’s a lot of things to consider or practices to follow to ensure that your property will make a good impression out of potential buyers. Here are some examples:

  • Do you need to take down your personal art?
  • What’s the right amount of landscaping to boost your curb appeal?
  • What wall colors are most appealing to buyers?

Doing this work on your own may result to investing a lot of capital and hours on the wrong things. To ensure that top dollar profit, let’s make sure that we’re not wasting our capital. An agent can guide and help you with the things you need to do based on the current market trends and conditions that can save you a lot of time and effort. Since there’s not a lot of housing inventory, you don’t want to delay your listing by focusing on things that will not increase your bottom line. These conditions may not last long so lean on an agent to help you get the advantage of having a hot seller’s market.

2. Having the right price

Although we have a hot seller’s market right now, having the right price on your property is still necessary. A Real Estate Professional have that mission-critical information on what sells and how to maximize your profit. Their experience when it comes to what price is right for your property really comes in handy. They use data from recent comparable homes that have sold in your area to make sure that you’ll get the maximized return.

In a FSBO, you’re operating without this expertise, so you’ll have to do your own homework on how to set a price that’s appropriate for your area and the condition of your home. Even with your own research, you may not find the most up-to-date information and could risk setting a price that’s inaccurate or unrealistic. If you price your house too high, you could turn buyers away before they’re even in the front door, or run into problems when it comes time for appraisal.

3. Maximizing Your Buyer Pool (and Profit)

There’s a belief that FSBOs nets more profit than sellers who use an agent. But that’s not always the case, one of the factors that drives profit up is effective exposure. Simply put, real estate professionals has several connections that can get your house more buyers. May it be social media followers, agency resources, and proven sales strategies, an agent can reach far more network than the usual FSBO. The more buyers that view a home, the more likely a bidding war takes place. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the average house for sale today gets 5 offers. Using an agent to boost your exposure may help boost your sale price too.

4. Navigating Negotiations

As a FSBO, you’ll have to handle all of the negotiations. Here are just a few of the people you’ll work with:

  • The buyer, who wants the best deal possible
  • The buyer’s agent, who will use their expertise to advocate for the buyer
  • The inspection company, which works for the buyer and will almost always find concerns with the house
  • The appraiser, who assesses the property’s value to protect the lender

As part of their day to day lives, a real estate agent is experienced in negotiating every aspect of a real estate transaction and how to take actions on potential snags that may pop up along the way. When appraisals come in low and in countless other situations, they know what levers to pull, how to address the buyer and seller emotions that come with it, and when to ask for second opinions. Navigating all of this on your own takes time –a lot of it.

With the added disclosures and regulations that are now mandatory, the list of legal documents that you need to handle as a seller is growing plus there are also terms and requirements that are hard to understand. Having a trusted agent can help you through this process and make sure that you’ll avoid potential legal missteps

Summary

Selling your house on your own is a lot of responsibility. It’s time consuming and requires an immense amount of effort and expertise so having a trusted agent by your side is definitely an option. Let’s connect if you want to have that expert opinion.