Alright, I already know what some of you may be thinking: “Of course a realtor doesn’t want people selling homes themselves—they don’t get paid when that happens!” While that can be a fair analysis in many cases, I assure you it is not the reason I urge sellers to reconsider this decision. If you don’t have much experience in real estate, you may overlook the time, effort, and knowledge it takes to get the best possible deal done. The overall evidence suggests that sellers not working with a real estate professional more often experience a prolonged selling process, lower sale prices, and a better chance for a rocky transaction. One of the many overlooked disadvantages when selling a home is simply finding the right buyer. Marketing to appropriately qualified buyers has been proven to be more difficult for those selling their home for sale by owner (FSBO) versus listing on the MLS with an agent. Without MLS, you can almost consider FSBO homes to be the “speakeasies” of real estate, meaning, these homes are more difficult to find if you’re unsure where to look. I did an analysis on Zillow listings in St. Louis, which concluded that homes listed by agents had nearly 400% more views in the first 2 weeks than homes listed FSBO. This is due to a specific ‘For Sale By Owner’ filter that is not automatically selected like agent listed homes are. This is just on Zillow, one of a plethora of listing sites that your property won’t be on, unless you take the time to manually recreate your listing for each site. Another challenge is getting the most value out of your home as possible. Homes sold for sale by owner, on average, sold for nearly $100,000 less than those sold with a realtor’s help. On top of that, a noticeable number of these same sellers also tend to offer more costly incentives, such as repair costs. Nearly 75% of sellers who attempt to sell their home themselves way too often waste a lot of time and effort, and still end up paying out some sort of agent commission in the end. While the idea of saving money on the realtor’s commission is appealing, it is important to weigh the evidence and consider all options. Using a realtor could potentially save you even more than just the commission. Unless you understand all the possible problems that could arise, and the real estate market itself, you may find yourself biting off way more than you can chew.
