Do You Need A Real Estate Agent To Sell Your House?
Posted on: 27 September 2016
There used to be a time when a real estate agent was a definite must when you wanted to sell your home.There was no other way to connect to buyers. In the Internet age, however, it is much easier to sell your home on your own, using the vast online resources to find information and then list your home. The question is, should you really take this journey on your own? Here are a few things to think about before making that decision.
Staging and Pictures
There is more to selling a home than simply listing it online and waiting for the calls to come in. The house needs to be appealing to potential buyers. While you certainly can clean the home and take pictures using your cell phone or digital camera, a professional real estate agent typically has connections to home stagers and photographers to make your home look like it was plucked from the pages of a magazine.
Stagers know how to de-clutter the home and de-personalize it so potential buyers really see the space instead of the family who already live there. There are also many agents who are able to do this task on their own, which ends up saving money in the end.
Selling the Home
When you sell a home on your own, you are going to field many phone calls from buyers wanting to know the details of the home and to book showings. You most likely have a full-time job already and really can't take the time away on a daily basis to get to your house for these showings. You also might find it difficult to really sell the home to buyers. This means talking about the school district with authority, having knowledge about the area in general and any new developments planned, and knowing details about the average house in the area, among other things.
Dealing With the Legal Details
While selling a home typically involves hiring a lawyer to deal with the land transfer process and title transfers, an agent is trained in the correct forms to fill out for the sale process and can speak with the lawyer to ensure the legal details are correct. An agent also knows the required taxes and any details the city needs to know to make the sale process complete. You can research this information, but many sellers who don't have agent training find this tedious and time consuming.
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