Selling your house privately may make complete financial sense to you when moving somewhere new. After all, selling without the help of a real estate agent means you can keep all proceeds of your sale. Otherwise, a percentage would typically be your real estate agent’s commission. As desirable as extra money can be, you may steer away from selling your house privately for these reasons:
Pricing Inaccuracies
Your property is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay. Local real estate agents can access pricing tools that the general public doesn’t. These tools estimate pricing based on market data, your home’s features, and recent renovations.
If you can’t use these tools to determine your property’s worth, you risk listing it for too much or not enough. However, you can use free online property valuation to determine your home’s worth. You can also use our online agent finder to locate your most suitable local agent.
Paperwork Challenges
The average house transaction can involve a great deal of paperwork. Real estate agents navigate it daily, so they know what’s required, while the average homeowner isn’t.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by how many contracts, disclosures, and closing documents exist in real estate transactions. There’s even the potential to make costly mistakes. When you list through a real estate company, you can leave all the paperwork to real estate agents and lawyers.
Fewer Selling Platforms
The average homeowner can access a few property listing websites to advertise their property for sale. However, real estate agents typically have access to more. Being limited in where you can promote your house for sale may attract fewer interested buyers than if you signed up with a real estate agent.
As some sellers will know first-hand, this can slow the sales process. Fewer interested buyers means it may take longer to find a buyer willing to go through with the sale.
Less Marketing Knowledge
If marketing isn’t your area of expertise, selling your house privately may be challenging. You might not know how to take the best photos, write the best script, or advertise it in a way that appeals to your target market.
When your property isn’t getting adequate exposure, it may take longer to sell. In contrast, real estate agents typically understand all the ins and outs of marketing a home. They can host open houses, advertise them on their websites and newspapers, list them on house-selling platforms, and include them in mailbox marketing materials. This multimodal approach may mean your house sells faster than you thought possible.
No Negotiation Skills
You know how much you’re willing to accept for your house. When you work with an agent, they try to achieve top dollar while understanding how low you’re willing to go. They use their negotiation skills with buyers to negotiate offers, counteroffers, and contingencies. Their goal is to ensure your happiness while simultaneously satisfying a buyer.
Negotiations may be much more challenging in a private sale. You may not have refined negotiation skills, which means you risk losing a buyer if you can’t reach a satisfying agreement for all.
Time
Buying and selling properties is already a time-consuming activity. You must hunt for a new house and perform repairs around your home to get it ready for sale. You must also find time to pack while working, caring for your family, and running errands. Adding a private house sale on top of that can sometimes be too much for the average person to handle.
When you lack time in the average working day, outsourcing your house sale can make more sense. Real estate agents typically handle everything from marketing and open houses to negotiating and organising the sale and purchase agreement. You must continue your everyday life until that ‘sold’ sign goes up.
Limited Buyer Access
When you’re in the market to buy a house, you contact a real estate agent, who shows you a range of properties on their books that potentially fulfil your requirements. Any time they take on a new listing, they often already have a list of potential buyers in mind, which can sometimes mean that your house sale is swift and straightforward.
That’s typically not the case when you sell your house privately. You aren’t in the house-selling industry, so you likely don’t have buyers in mind. You must start from scratch when developing a list of interested parties.
As tempting as it can be to sell your house privately when it means you can keep your entire sales price, it’s not always the best option. Real estate agents can price your property right, market it to the right people, and handle the entire sales process.
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