While it's admirable to try to sell your home on your own, its actually much easier & more profitable to use an Agent, despite popular belief.
How could HIRING someone be more profitable you ask? Let me explain in my '10 Reasons to choose an agent over Purple People or Other 'For Sale By Owner' services.
1. You actually DON'T save that much commission. These services offer 'commission' free but in reality, when you sign the contract you agree to pay a $4000.00 fee upon the sale of the home - guess what? THATS COMMISSION! Furthermore, this is only the service fee for the 'Selling' brokerage, this doesn't include the commission for the 'Buying Agent'! The 'professionals' who work at these 'For Sale By Owner' services will still suggest that you offer a minimum of 2% to the Co-operating agent in order to entice them to bring their Buyer Clients. This is fair considering they likely won't bring their clients without an expectation of getting paid, after all, we do work strictly off commission and the typical time spent with Buyers can range from several weeks to months ! So, in addition to paying $4000.00 'service fee' PLUS 2% to the Buyer Agent, you're also paying a 'listing fee' when you initially list, which is around $750.00; so whether you end up selling while listed with them or not, you have still paid them $750.00. Lets summarize this cost together now; on a home that is $500,000.00 you are paying with a For Sale By Owner Service $750.00 + HST, $4,000.00 + HST plus 2% which equates to $10,000.00 to the Buyer Agent = 15,367.50 ! Boom. You just paid commission. A pretty average amount of commission as well.
2. Getting more for the home, which means maximizing YOUR profit. Statistically speaking, Agents get much more for the home. In 2020, For Sale By Owner homes sold for 35% LESS than a For Sale By Agent homes, on average! Thats an incredible difference. For a home listed in the $500,000.00 mark - that means an ADDITIONAL 175,000! With an overall commission rate of 20,000.00, you're still making an additional 155,000.00 by choosing an agent. The fact is, we know what works and how to maximize your profits because YOUR happiness lead to referrals for us; which means more business. Therefore, we want to get you the best and most results possible. A happy client is a happy agent.
3. Reaching a larger audience; Agents are able to communicate your listing a lot easier to potential buyers who may or may not be actively looking on the MLS. Some Buyers are very passively looking for opportunities or options without scrolling through the MLS daily. The Services that offer 'For Sale By Owner' only post on their website & then the MLS, which means a potential buyer needs to be actively seeking out these listings in hopes to find something. An agent puts it in people's faces. We want to bring as much attention to the listing as possible to maximize Buyer Potential, and thus, maximizing the price paid for the home (the selling price). Putting a sign up, posting on a couple websites and HOPING someone finds, books a showing, and then buys your home is NOT pro-active, its incredibly passive. Real Estate is a very active business, remember that !
4. Avoiding Legal Consequences; Real Estate Agents take years to perfect & be familiar with the legal documentation required for a transaction as big as selling or buying a home. We realize that this is the largest transaction of most people's lives. at half a million dollars or more, you really don't want to be sued for damages, simple mistakes (which are so easy to make in such a large transaction) or any other reason. The agent you choose should have adequate knowledge and understanding of legal terms, legal ramifications and how to word things in a legal contract that are in your best interest and full protection legally. Things like which chattels will be left (things like taking a microwave that a buyer thought would be in the home upon closing can open yourself up to legal action against you), things like leaving the home in a certain condition, conditions (and what they mean, how long they last and if they are even in your best interest), how to waive or accept the waiver of such conditions, deposit handling, and what you may want to add or request upon a closing transaction to occur. While it is true that you will also use a Real Estate Lawyer, they only deal with title and closing day- actions (like key exchange). Most times, they don't deal with anything until 2 weeks prior to close. They also don't deal with communication between the seller and buyer/buyer agent. Not only will a Selling agent have already dealt with these issues before they become issues, but he/she will deal with the communication and rectification of such issues should any arise. All you need to do is wait for closing.
5. Real Estate is a Full-Time Job, we will never be 'too busy' or need to 'reschedule' a showing - with listing your home on your own, you would be surprised how many bookings you will be requested to show your home. These showings will happen all hours of the day & there are many times where the prospective buyer may only be available that one day & time. It is imperative in order to get your home sold & for the most money it can get, that you don't miss any showings what so ever. It can be very overwhelming for the average person to manage a full-time job, a family and recreational activities AND sell their home (staging, photos, doing the showings etc). It is really important to be available on the fly for Buyers. Real Estate agents (at least good ones) carve out time in their day where they don't book anything in case prospects need to see a home - Personally, I have one hour in the morning and one hour time slot in the evening available for 'last minute' showings. This has proved to be a very successful tactic when it comes to Real Estate for me. This way, when someone requests to see a home I'm listing, the answer is ALWAYS yes! This can be the difference in your home sitting on the market or being sold FAST!
6. Avoiding an emotional sale. This one is a very BIG point I need to stress to all those who are considering listing their homes on their own. Heres the thing, your home is sentimental, it holds value subjectively and many Home Owners get seriously offended when a buyer comes in and just wants to tear the whole thing apart. With For Sale By Owner, you will probably feel hesitant to sell to someone who doesn't see your home as special like you do. After all, you've developed many memories there and they haven't. Alternatively, an emotional plea from a Buyer would cause you to feel bad for them and choose their offer when it likely isn't the highest & least risk offer. But with an agent, you will avoid this because you will only look at the numbers & simply get the most bang for your buck.
7. Reducing the foot traffic of unqualified buyers (especially in COVID). Many times, with selling your home on your own, you will want to sell so you don't look at whether or not a buyer is even qualified. This could cause a lot of wasted time. Especially with COVID, why would you want people who can't buy the home in reality walking through the home. You don't. Agents do their due diligence and ensure that the prospective buyers walking through your home are qualified and pre approved for a mortgage! Don't waste your time.
8. Much less time on the market as compared to a FSBO situation; when listing with an agent you typically have your home on the market much much less than if you're selling on your own. There are many reasons for this, some of which include: active marketing, professional photos, staging, networking by the agent, negotiation skills, active follow up and much more! Leaving a home on the market too long can lead to the listing becoming 'stale' meaning many people will think something is wrong with the home, when in reality its just marketed inappropriately or poorly.
9. Having your home 'blacklisted' by other Agents. This sounds outrageous for those who aren't agents when in all Reality, brokerages like the Purple Guys or Property People are really difficult to deal with when you are an agent. With most brokerages, we, as agents, can book showings online, submit offers through emails, talk to our colleagues regarding the listings, negotiate via phone conversations etc. and with these for sale by owner services, we can't. They alter the way that we do things on a daily basis and feel most comfortable working. Further, there is very little room for any type of negotiations. The services don't get paid commission they just get paid flat fees so they really don't care. It's next to impossible to speak to a human during the process you only get voice recordings, voicemails and emails. It's 100% unideal.
10. NO STRESS!; Well, much less stress anyway ! Your agent will schedule, organize, arrange and take care of everything for you. Personally, I aim to make the process as EASY for my clients as possible.
So, if you're looking to sell your home, at least consider interviewing an agent or two before choosing for sale by owner options because these consultations are usually free (I offer a free evaluation) and you can get a good idea of the price you should be listing your home at- where those services say they don't know what to suggest and you should just tell them the price. Its really just frustrating over all and a majority of my clients come from people who quit For Sale By Owner services and switched to me because they got so frustrated with the lack of customer service or response at all, how difficult the process was, the lack of traffic they got for their home and that it hasn't sold. MOST of those homes I sold within 1-2 weeks after re-listing them. AND at a higher price than they had originally wanted to begin with.
Thanks for reading guys :) As always, any questions, im happy to answer :)
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