Read this article before you decide to Sell your Home Yourself
8 things home sellers risk when they sell without an agent
A seller has to consider the amount of time and endless
follow-up devoted to selling a home
JUL 26
Key Takeaways
·
Poor and incomplete presentation of a listing when selling is
setting the stage for a home to be incorrectly perceived and potentially
undervalued in the marketplace.
·
Ultimately, unguided decision making when handling the single
largest transaction someone makes can result in a rocky real estate process
with issues that could have been avoided.
Selling a home without
a real estate agent is
like handling your own legal matter. You may only know enough to be dangerous,
and worse yet, you don’t know what you don’t know.
In that situation, one risks costing themselves time, money and,
most importantly, an advantageous outcome.
The same goes when sellers sell their home without an agent.
Here are eight things sellers risk when they forego
representation:
1. Knowledge
What you don’t know can absolutely hurt you, and it can come
back to bite you even worse. A real estate agent's knowledge is priceless!
Agents know what the internet doesn’t tell
consumers, and they can provide insight that consumers can’t get online.
Agents know how to make
sense of the data and the entire selling process
so that sellers and their home are fully prepared before hitting the market.
2. Time
Everyone’s time is
valuable, but do sellers truly have time to attempt to play the real estate agent role?
Are sellers available to show their home in a safe manner, and
is it accessible on a moment’s notice?
How will sellers handle showings when they are on vacation for a
week and there are cash buyers in town? Can you say lost opportunity?
Do sellers have the time to devote to scheduling and managing
showing appointments? What about feedback? Do sellers know what questions to
ask and the best way to reach agents to elicit a response?
Are they able to aptly respond to agent and buyer questions,
concerns and objections in a manner that will help overcome the hesitation to
move forward?
Are sellers able to offer solutions to buyer-perceived obstacles
with the property? Can they furnish expert resources such as architects,
contractors, designers, engineers or other experts?
3. Presentation
Image is everything when
it comes to real estate. You never get a second chance to make a first
impression, and the same goes for putting a property up for sale.
Do sellers know how to properly prepare their home for sale, and
do they know what it needs or doesn’t need?
Are they able to stage it
or bring in someone who can? What about professional photography,
drone, video and 3-D? Are they able to orchestrate photo and video shoots with
ease and know who to contact? What about photo styling and having an eye for how
a space will translate on camera?
4. Marketing
How are sellers going to market their property? Do they know who
the buyer demographic is for their home and/or neighborhood? How do sellers
reach buyers?
Do sellers have access to predictive analytics or know how to
strategically promote the listing to other agents in the community and on
social media?
What kind of print media is appropriate for the property, and
how will sellers have that created and printed? What agents are most likely to
have buyers for the home?
Are they local or regional, or must sellers reach out nationally
or internationally?
In real estate, the world doesn’t seem so vast as agent networks
are strong, and six degrees of separation often ensues when an agent in New
York City reaches out to his or her agent contact in China about a buyer for a
property.
So the sellers received an offer. Now what? How do they respond?
What do they look for in that purchase agreement?
What terms and conditions could be disadvantageous to the
sellers? What costs should or shouldn’t they incur? Do they know how to
negotiate to keep the buyer in the game versus walking away?
How do they strike a delicate balance between protecting their
interests as a seller and working with the buyer toward the goal of putting an
agreement together?
Here’s where what sellers don’t know can hurt them the most.
6. Inspection and repair know-how
This is one of the most
difficult parts of a real estate transaction, even for real estate professionals.
Do sellers know what inspections they
should expect?
How should they handle items that are flagged as needing repair
or replacement by an inspector? What kinds of repairs are usually done by a
seller?
Do they have a roster of repair people at the ready who can come
out on a moment’s notice?
Hint: It’s
typically not who you find in the Yellow Pages or by doing a Google search.
If sellers don’t know better, they could find themselves making
an improvement, not a repair on their home for a new buyer.
7. Transaction management
So the home is under contract with a buyer. What do sellers do
next? Do they know who they need to be in contact with?
Who is going to be handling the closing? What items should they
be following up on? How will they handle challenges like the property not
appraising for the contract sales price or the deal potentially derailing due
to home inspection issues?
What happens if the buyer’s financing is shaky?
8. Closing finesse
Do sellers know what the closing protocol is in their market and
what the expectations are? When do sellers have to be completely moved out of
the house?
In some markets, that means by the day of closing, and in
others, the seller has possession for a few days after closing.
What condition are sellers expected to leave the home in? How do
they handle unexpected, last-minute issues that may arise: the movers damage
the home when moving belongings out, the air conditioner is on the fritz, or
worse yet, the moving crew doesn’t show up when they are supposed to.
Selling a home without an agent is
like throwing caution to the wind along with the commission.
Consider Listing Your Home with ROB BAXLEY!
Contact Rob: 916-208-3896
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