If millions of people sell their homes each year through an agent, that might suggest that private real estate sales aren’t the way to go. Of course it is not that simple and the premise that a person needs an agent is false.
It could be argued that even if an agent is required to sell a house, that agent will at least make the sale easier or more likely. I must say that there is no evidence to support that an agent will give you more money or a faster sale.
There are no industry figures comparing the two methods and even if there were, the results would be ambiguous at best. So, for better or worse, we can only reason on the matter and make an educated guess.
Pro-agent folks (mostly agents) would argue that only an agent has the marketing clout and inherent skill to achieve the highest possible price in the shortest amount of time. But is that statement accurate or, in fact, verifiable? A cursory look at the question would tell you that there are a lot of variables, for example, is the agent any good?
Are you acting in your best interest or in your own interest, ie a commission?
All agents freely admit that price is the ultimate determinant of saleability, not the ability of the seller.
Agents, when they talk to each other, always say that if a house is reasonably marketed and remains unsold, the main issue is price.
If one accepts that price is the problem, then one would also have to accept that a lower price (by not paying agents thousands of commissions) would help the house sell faster.
Houses sell houses and the best agents are the ones that show up. They grease the wheels and maybe make the process a bit easier. Some, in fact, can make it harder to sell.
At the end of the day, it’s only price and exposure that sell anything…and that goes for houses or hotdogs. Ah, I hear you say…but what about the fact that the hot dog shopper is hungry? That surely is a factor? Yes it is and so is the taste of the hot dog. But all things being equal, if two hot dog stands have similar food and are next to each other, the cheaper one will have more customers. Likewise, if a hot dog manufacturer has a superior tasting product, it won’t mean anything unless people hear about their superior hot dogs and that’s known as (exposure)
As you can see, price and marketing exposure are the only things that really matter and, until recently, real estate agents had a huge advantage in that area. But now the playing field is much more level and FSBOs can now have as much or more exposure than some agents. How can this be? Really easy. The average person, for sale by owner, only has one house that he needs to promote and can spend more time and resources on that product compared to the agent who may have a hundred properties that he is trying to do justice to.
Interestingly, it is that very fact that most agents will point to as proof that you need them. They will use the analogy of having a supermarket to attract buyers, while you don’t even have a corner store to promote your only product, ie your house. Now, I think that was possibly true to some degree years ago, but now, thanks to the Internet, private sellers can arrange their home sale like the big guys. By using a private listing FSBO and your own or the company’s sign, the average do-it-yourself seller can gain the marketing reach that eluded them in years past.
Now, that’s not to say that selling your own home is easy without an agent, but who’s willing to bet that it will be easy with an agent?
Whether it is easier or more difficult is debatable, but what is not debatable is the savings you can make by selling for yourself. The typical seller would save many thousands of dollars on the DIY sales route and those thousands are also often tax free.
The key in all of this is that if you are going to sell your own home, you need to service it in a way that gets you professional-level exposure. The best way to do this is to spend a small amount of your saved money on quality marketing.
We’re not talking about rocket science here. Simply set your price as accurately as possible and then tell everyone you can about your real estate…and that means more than just a For Sale sign in your front yard.