So you’ve mastered a few DIY projects and you’re ready to take on DIY’ing the sale of your home.  Here’s a few things to consider:

Hiring a selling agent is free. (more on this later)

Wait a minute, don’t real estate agents work on commission? Exactly. Real estate agents bear many of the costs you might otherwise have to pick up, like marketing your home, producing a video, professional photography, and disbursing that marketing worldwide on line and in print. After all, the distribution of media, getting your home in front of more buyers is what marketing is all about. And more buyers means your home will sell faster and typically for a higher amount.

If they can’t see it, they can’t buy it –

Sure, you can throw up a “For Sale” sign in the yard and upload some photos to Zillow but today’s tech-savvy buyers prefer to house-hunt in more methodical ways.  Realtors pay thousands of dollars to market properties and they have access to distribute that professional marketing all over the world. The right real estate office, “cough” Steamboat Sotheby’s “cough”, has access to the world’s most affluent clientele, driving online viewers to your property, where we get more qualified leads than Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com combined.

Is the price right?

So you may have gotten the picture that marketing is what sells homes. Well, another key factor to selling your home in a reasonable amount of time is pricing it correctly, which isn’t nearly as easy to do as you might think. Sure, you can go online and see what nearby homes have sold for, but are you really comparing apples to apples? An experienced Realtor will understand not only the big picture market but the micro-markets that are in every community. Many Realtors will have toured the recently sold homes, maybe even sold these homes themselves and will be able to perform a detailed market analysis which not only takes into account your home’s condition and any improvements you might have made, but will tell you just how hot (or not) the market really is.

Drowning in paperwork?

You will need to provide and be on top of all of the paperwork for a successful transaction.  Realtors are held to a high ethical standard and know exactly what contracts are needed and what needs to be disclosed.  If you neglect something crucial like a mandatory disclosure or inspection report, you might not only lose the sale of your home but you could be facing potentially serious legal reprecussions.

And of course, we all know how DIY’s go –

Professionals make everything look easy, and real estate is no different.

Yes, hiring a selling agent is free.  We only get paid when a home sells. That’s why I hustle to no end to sell your home.

Regards,

Charlie