Should you sell your property privately? By Jonathan Broekman
There are two main ways to sell a property, sell through an agent or sell privately. While many agents will tell you not to go down the private sale road, I would say try it…
After being in the real estate industry for 30 years, I’ve seen some of the weird and whacky things people have done with their homes, and still managed to sell them. I know real estate, so when I say you got to try selling privately it’s because I know the private sector just as well.
A seller asked me yesterday who is considering giving his house to a private sales agency how did I felt about it. Many agents would say don’t go down that road, but I said, no you’ve got give it a try.
It’s not surprising that the seller was surprised at my response. Real estate is a very competitive business, to put it mildly. Agents sniping houses isn’t unheard of, houses being over-evaluated isn’t unheard of either, so why would I say, you got to try selling privately?
We at Homes of Distinction use private property sales agencies to source many of our properties. Once sellers have seen little to no activity with the sale of their home, or they’ve had a bad experience, they will generally come back to an experienced real estate agent.
There is no way a private home sale agency can provide the same services in selling a home that an experienced established real estate agency can, for the same price. The question is this, what do we offer above and beyond a private home sales agency that gives us the distinction in our name, what does that commission actually pay for?
Going back to the person who asked me the question, I was able to tell him about our email invites on the Friday, the SMSs on the Sunday, the social media advertising, the online and paper advertising, and then the buyer database and 30 years of experience, that’s what you’re paying for, but that’s just getting buyers to view the house in order to sell. Sellers who are considering taking on the challenge of selling their homes themselves need to realize what happens after you get feet through the door. Real estate agents know what signals to look for, we know how to tell the serious buyers from the browsers, and we know how to counter buyer objections.
The last reason is that a buyer is not easily fooled. If somebody is trying to sell privately they’re trying to save the agents commission, that’s the first thing the buyer is going to knock off the price. So at the end of the day, you’re not going to achieve the same price during the negotiating and the haggling to try and push the buyer up from his first offer, the question is, are you skilled at doing that?
At the end of the day, if you want to have a go at selling privately, be aware of what gets cut out, when you cut the agents commission out.
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05 Mar 2018
Author Lillian Rencken