In a premier location such as Brookline, Newton and Chestnut Hill, you can almost always sell your home yourself. While you may be able to sell your home, you most certainly will not be able to market it properly and know if you got the best price for it.
Newspaper advertising and signs account for less than 5% of all buyers, yet it is the activity most heavily relied upon by owners attempting to sell their own homes.
Despite the professional expertise a good Realtor will bring in preparing and staging a home for sale, pricing homes properly, marketing property and driving buyer traffic to a designated home, showing property, handling objections, managing a transaction, keeping things on track and bringing it all to a close, owners are always tempted to try to avoid the fees associated with all these services.
Despite the fact that buyers who wish to do business directly with sellers are expecting to save the same fees the sellers seek to save, and expect to negotiate the sales price to reflect that, homeowners are sometimes tempted to go it alone without professional assistance.
Despite the fact that for most of us, our home is a substantial portion of our asset portfolio, and while we almost always seek professional guidance with other substantial financial investments, the temptation to handle a home sale alone with the hope of saving commission dollars sometimes leads owners to ignore their better interests.
Before you try to sell your home yourself, here are some things to consider:
Advertising and signs are not the best ways to sell real estate. Real estate companies spend money on those things to make their phones ring, not to sell your property. Targeted marketing plans designed to reach the best buyer pools for your particular property offer the best chance for highest and best price.
Over 70% of all buyers are beginning their search for properties on the internet. Web presence is a substantial factor in reaching a wide audience.
In low inventory communities, capitalizing on the high demand of a particular property is an opportunity to establish new price points by encouraging buyer competition. In order to do that, you need access to various buyer pools and only a Realtor with a broad reach is able to do so effectively.
Often the best purchasers are relocating from out of town. With limited time and high motivation, these are often your best and highest purchasers because of circumstances. Almost always, relocating buyers have chosen Realtors to assist them with their purchase and they are not scouring the newspaper ads for their next move.
Many, many purchasers are uncomfortable dealing directly with an owner, and prefer a skilled professional to negotiate the transaction. Buyers often feel that sellers cannot be objective, and are more likely to intentionally or not, make misrepresentations. Buyers often feel self-conscious about fully examining a property in the sellers' presence-- afraid of appearing intrusive may neglect to look in closets, etc. or investigate as thoroughly as they would have done with a Realtor. In fact, most buyers who want to deal with an owner directly, wish to do so to argue and insist in most cases on a reduction in price of at least the commission would be.
A professional Realtor can save you money by recommending certain repairs to market your house properly and dissuading you from costly mistakes. Further, all studies indicate that Realtors net sellers more money for their homes than when they sell them on their own.
Handling buyer objections and moving purchasers toward a sale is a skill honed well by a qualified Realtor.
There is a tremendous amount of anecdotal informaion in a given community about real estate, and neighbors and family may be well-intentioned but often ill-informed. A professional Realtor has access to real information, unavailable to a homeowner.
Homeowner ads bring a great many lookers and curiosity seekers who aren't necessarily qualified to buy. Realtors are skilled at qualifying buyers and ensuring that frivilous appointments and intrusions are kept at a minimum.
Financing a home is a very complex process and keeping a transaction together through home inspection, purchase and sale, and bank appraisal is challenging in a market where homes are sold at premium prices and buyers are skittish about economic conditions. A good Realtor manages the inevitable real estate roller coaster smoothly and bears the distress for the homeowner.
Full property disclosure is not only an important ethical practice, it also prevents legal troubles down the line and more important, may pre-empt surprises and disappointments further along in the transaction. Again, many prospective purchasers may be more cautious about feeling fully disclosed by an owner.
If you still are interested in selling your home yourself, I'd be happy to speak with you more about it, and answer any questions you might have. Please feel free to contact me.
- NUMBER1EXPERT™ 
