Homeowners often choose to sell their home alone to avoid having to pay a Realtor commission in order to save money, but selling your home on your own may actually end up costing you more than a Realtor’s commission in the long run. Both buying and selling your home is a huge emotional and financial burden that should involve a real estate agent. Below are some of the problems you will run into.
Less Access and Convenience
A real estate agent will have access to other properties listed by other agents that you as the seller may not. If you are selling your home alone, you are responsible for soliciting phone calls from interested buyers, answer all questions, and schedule appointments. If you tend to have a busy schedule or don’t get back to a potential buyer quickly enough, they are likely to move on. You may also face times when you are rushing to get back home to an appointment to find that the potential buyers didn’t show up. A real estate agent would handle all of your appointments and potential buyers so that you wouldn’t have to.
Poor Negotiation 
Are you good at confrontation and negotiation? If you aren’t working with an agent, you will have to learn how to respectfully negotiate if a buyer offers you a price lower than your selling price. A real estate agent handles all negotiations and makes sure that you are receiving a fair offer for your home and will negotiate for a higher number if you don’t feel the offer is fair. Your agent will represent your interests without turning off potential buyers who want to argue about the price.
Dealing with Contracts
If you sell your home on your own, you will have to draw up the contracts to ensure that all conditions are met. If you aren’t familiar with purchase contracts, you may end up missing including things that should be in the contract and suffering because of it. A real estate agent deals with these contracts often and knows which conditions should be used, when these conditions can be removed and how to use this contract to protect you when selling your home.
You May Not Save Money
Many sellers don’t hire an agent to sell their home because they believe they will save money, but it is highly unlikely that both the buyer and seller will benefit from not having to pay commissions. Unless both the buyer and the seller agree to half the savings of not employing an agent, you both cannot save on commission, meaning you may not end up saving money at all and will end up spending extra time and money that goes into selling your home alone.
If you're thinking about selling your home on your own, reach out to me first to make sure it is a logical choice for your specific situation.
