Selling your home is a big decision and an even bigger commitment. At first the thought of selling your home by owner aka (FSBO) might seem like a tempting option. Who wouldn’t want to save a little money especially on such a big sale? Right?
It is important to understand why having a real estate agent assist you with the sale of your home is a much better idea than trying to sell your home yourself. There are countless reasons to support the aid of an agent and we have narrowed it down to just a few of the most important.
How Much Time Do You Have?
Selling a home is a lot of work. There is a mountain of paperwork involved just with the sale of the home not to mention the additional paperwork that is involved when someone is putting their home on the market for sale by owner.
Even if you don’t count all of the paperwork involved there is still so much to be done. You’re looking at doing a thorough cleaning of the house as well as decluttering. You might also be looking at painting or making sure any necessary repairs are done before putting the home on the market.
Don’t forget about staging the home or the amount of time it takes to go through and get clean beautiful pictures for your internet listing of the home. An agent can help you angle the pictures to make sure the rooms don’t appear smaller than what they really are. For an internet listing pictures are everything!
After all of that is done then you will need to have an appraisal done to properly assess the value of the home and then list your home up for sale and start to host open houses. All of this is a lot of work and you still haven’t even started negotiations or inspections as well as all of the closing paperwork.
If you are working your regular job during all of this time it is going to be very very difficult to do both without letting things slip through the cracks either with your work or with the sale of your home.
They Have the Know How
Don’t get railroaded by a potential buyer’s agent. When you sell your home with the help of a real estate agent, they aren’t just helping you by saving your time or by helping with the legal process. They are representing you in a huge sale that is one of the largest sales you will ever make. Other real estate agents can potentially take advantage of someone who is selling their home on their own.
There are many benefits to hiring a real estate agent. One of the biggest benefits would have to be their knowledge in the field. Knowing how to represent you and your home is just the beginning. Having an agent that is knowledgeable about how the process works is just as important as an agent who can navigate and work with other agents in order to make sure that you are receiving the best possible deal for your home.
Negotiation
Most people who have negotiated can tell you that it is a very difficult skill to master. Real estate agents have a lot of experience when it comes to negotiating with potential buyers and other real estate agents. This is possibly one of the most important if not the number one reason why you should hire an agent to represent you.
In negotiating there is a very fine line that you must walk in order to make sure that the deal goes through without one or both parties feeling like they are being insulted or being taken advantage of. Being able to walk this line in order to make sure that you get what you want out of your sale and that the buyer feels like they are also getting a fair deal is tricky. That is why having a real estate agent is crucial during the negotiation period of your home sale.
Legal Process
When anyone decides to sell their home there is a legal process that you must go through in order to make sure that your sale goes through legitimately. You can’t just place a for sale sign in your yard and accept the first cash offer that someone tries to give you.
There is a legal process that you must go through to insure that the sale of your home is done in a legitimate way. While dealing with the negotiations any agreement is not legally binding until both the seller and the buyer both sign the offer to purchase. This is simply a contract that states what both parties have agreed to and any contingencies.
It is around this time that you will need to have another appraisal done. It is always recommended to have an appraisal done when you first decide to put your home on the market. If the appraisal at this point is far off from what your home was originally listed as it can cause further issues with needing to go back to negotiations or can even cause the sale to fall through.
That is why it is important to get a quick and accurate appraisal before putting your home on the market. You will then need to prepare for closing of your home sale. This involves inspections as well as the final walk through.
This is another step of the process in which it is really important to have a real estate agent on your side. Making sure to dot the i’s and cross the t’s really helps make all the difference when you are dealing with such a large and complicated sale.
