What real use are real estate agents if we can sell our home ourselves?
In: Economics
In markets like this, some people like to use a realtor because they don’t want to deal with the 50+ people who might want to see the house.
There was a story in Canada about a home that went up for sale and had 700+ people who wanted to look at the house.
In a market like this, you’ll make more selling it yourself, but for some people, they’ll accept less money to not have to deal with all those people
We live in California and we bought a house we lived in which theoretically wouldn’t require an agent. We hired an agent and negotiated a fixed fee with her. She had access to all the correct contracts snd paperwork, negotiated on our behalf, advised us on strategy and price and connected us with a network of contractors to use post sale. We originally tried to use a lawyer to work through this with but they were much nicer expensive and much less knowledgeable. They were more focused on executing various contracts than on offering any advising or strategy.
As with most things these days you don’t NEED to hire an expert but they can save you a ton of money and liability in certain situations.
We live in California and we bought a house we lived in which theoretically wouldn’t require an agent. We hired an agent and negotiated a fixed fee with her. She had access to all the correct contracts snd paperwork, negotiated on our behalf, advised us on strategy and price and connected us with a network of contractors to use post sale. We originally tried to use a lawyer to work through this with but they were much nicer expensive and much less knowledgeable. They were more focused on executing various contracts than on offering any advising or strategy.
As with most things these days you don’t NEED to hire an expert but they can save you a ton of money and liability in certain situations.
To keep the Escalade market flowing, as well as park bench, grocery cart, and billboard marketing industry support, they are one of the last great Glamour Shots clients.
I guess it was designed to prevent fraud like you selling your house to yourself in order to wash money.
Having bought and sold several homes with and without realtors over the years, I would suggest first-time home buyers and perhaps buyers in a new city/market go with a realtor, to leverage knowledge and networks. By that I mean you can take advantage of their knowledge of which neighborhoods are desirable, which communities offer the amenities that are important to you, and maybe which contractors and home inspectors you can use, provided they offer you a variety of options for each and aren’t just getting kickbacks from the contractors for referrals.
Beyond that, the internet really seemed to make realtors obsolete for us. And I watched that shift happen in real time. I was able to pull comparable homes and recent sales in my market and figure out what the average price per square foot and level of finish was. I hired a real estate attorney to help negotiate contracts and offers, and after getting hooked up with or finding my own home inspectors and contractors that I trusted, I was able to navigate those aspects as a buyer and seller myself.
Before the internet easily offered the tools to price and market your home as a seller and find listings as a buyer, realtors were essential. Now, their utility is far more limited.
I guess it was designed to prevent fraud like you selling your house to yourself in order to wash money
I guess it was designed to prevent fraud like you selling your house to yourself in order to wash money
Networking and advertising to sell a house is a lot of time and effort. Many people who make a living selling homes (flippers, renovators, investors whatever) need to sell a home within a time frame or the margin isn’t early as high. If they really try to roll up their sleeves and sell it themselves, it can tack on weeks or months.
Plus with all the paperwork and prep (things like furniture arrangement) they’re actually doing a lot of work. Plus their knowledge about lease agreements is super valuable, and can get you a higher selling price or rent, since they’re probably more experienced than the person selling the home.
You CAN sell the house yourself, but the REA is like a marketplace.
Kind of like trying to sell a lamp yourself vs putting it on eBay. You put your photos up (like a viewing), you’ll reach a wider audience and put in a middle person that takes some stresses out of the money handling (for a cut)
It’s a convenience thing really. People pay for not doing the legwork themselves.
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