What real use are real estate agents if we can sell our home ourselves?
In: Economics
I just hired a real estate agent to help me *buy* a house, and it was worth every penny.
What do they provide? Two words: expert knowledge.
Yes, I could buy my house myself. But first I’d need to:
* Analyze the local real estate market for reasonable pricing info.
* Set up mechanisms to track all local available houses.
* Develop strategies for what houses to prioritize, how quickly to make offers, what questions to ask, etc.
* Arrange visits to houses I’m interested in.
* Learn a whole lot about architecture, property damage, risk assessment, repair costs, building codes, etc.
* Choose a bunch of other specialized firms to hire: a title company, an assessor, an inspector, a separate termite inspector, a mortgage lender, possibly a surveyor, etc.
* Conduct negotiations with the seller about repairs, pricing, etc.
* Review all of the contract language in both the offer document I create, as well as the documents the seller creates, to ensure they meet legal standards.
* Arrange the final legal details, conduct the purchase closing, and maybe do some final negotiations with the seller concerning anything that didn’t get addressed to my satisfaction.
That’s all just off the top of my head.
A seller basically has to do all of those same things, except in reverse. Sure, they only have a single property to deal with instead of comparing a bunch of them, but there’s still a ton of details to work out.
So I could independently solve each of these problems, probably including hiring a good half dozen experts to work through specific issues.
Or I could hire a realtor, agree to pay her 10% of the purchase price, and watch the magic happen as she does all of this stuff for me with expert professionalism. Like she’s done it 200 times before (which she has). Like it’s her full-time job (which it is).
Is selling your house without a realtor easier now than it used to be? Absolutely. Are realtors useless? Absolutely not. Is it worth your money in your particular case? Only you can make that judgment. But if I ever sell my house, I’m definitely hiring a realtor.
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