Why Selling Your Home Should Not Be a Do-It-Yourself Project
It is tempting to sell your home yourself, mainly because you might be able to save money if you don’t have to pay for a real estate agent’s commission. However, there are costs associated with for-sale-by-owner home sales and these costs may easily exceed what you save in realtor fees.
First of all, you may have to spend a lot in advertising for you don’t have the contacts that a real estate broker has. Your ad may have to run for weeks, even months, before you finally make a sale.
You may also have to waste a lot of time and effort showing mere house browsers around. If you had a realtor, you’d have an expert who can tell with a great degree of accuracy when somebody is a serious house buyer or is a mere curiosity shopper. The realtor could therefore save you from wasted house tours.
When you don’t have expert counsel to look out for your interests, you actually risk getting less for your home. For instance, your buyer may be able to extract concessions from you that you wouldn’t have given if you had somebody counseling you against them. Remember, you may not have a realtor but your buyer will probably have one so your buyer will have expert advice; you won’t.
There’s also the added burden of preparing the paperwork for house sales. Since you do not have a realtor’s help, you may end up committing costly mistakes (you may be fined for not paying the correct amount of taxes).
Finally, there remains the fact that most serious buyers steer clear of for-sale-by-owner home sales. Homeowners who sell their home themselves are typically perceived as unstable. Buyers may think that you’re emotionally attached to your home and are therefore prejudiced about its true value.
Those who do approach you for a deal are going to demand a lower price than what you’re asking for. To their way of thinking, since you’re not paying for a realtor’s commission, you can certainly afford to reduce your asking price. They won’t understand that you did not bother to hire a realtor because you need the savings. Buyers of for-sale-by-owner properties always smell a bargain, even when there’s none to be had.