Hiring a real estate agent makes selling a house a lot easier. You’re also more likely to get the price you want and sell faster in an agent-assisted sale. Find out other benefits of using an agent to sell your home.
If you’re selling your home and thinking of not hiring a real estate agent, consider your decision carefully. You might know a few potential buyers, but that isn’t the end of a sale. There are many steps, procedures, and processes involved.
Yes, it’s true that doing all the work alone can help you save on the commission you would have paid a real estate agent. But real estate agents do much more than just show your home to people.
Hire a good real estate agent, and they’ll do everything from paperwork to networking. Here are five important reasons you need a real estate agent to sell your home.
Local Market Knowledge
One of the most important components to a successful sale is a deep understanding of the local real estate market. Home sellers who don’t manage to get the price they want fail to do so because they don’t have a good enough understanding of the housing market in their city.
When you hire a real estate agent, you gain the ability to tap into their understanding of the local market. You can quickly understand whether you’re in a buyer’s or seller’s market, what buyers are looking for, how listing prices compare to selling prices, and so on. Having all of this information can help you make decisions that maximize your margins through the sale.
Experience with the Home Selling Process
It’s one thing to understand the local market and a whole another to successfully sell a house using that knowledge. Real estate agents make that process a lot easier by breaking it down into a series of steps and helping you with each of them.
That goes well beyond preparing the house for sale and talking to interested buyers. Your real estate agent will let you know when you need to open an escrow account, hire an appraiser, sign particular documents, etc. By hiring an agent, you make sure that you stay on top of things without having to constantly obsess over what stage of the process you’re in.
Assistance with Legwork
Selling a house isn’t just about putting a “For Sale” sign in the yard and waiting for buyers to show up. There is a lot of work that needs to be done if you are to find a large pool of buyers and sell it for the price that you want.
A real estate agent will help you with a lot of that grunt work. A good agent will get high-quality photographs of the house, help stage it, organize open houses, interact with prospective buyers, evaluate offers, and guide negotiations. Having an experienced professional help with all of those things makes selling a home a smooth process.
Pricing Strategy
Pricing can make or break the sale of your home. You have to arrive at a number that’s both fair given the kind of house you’re selling but also appealing to local buyers. Striking that balance is harder than it seems.
Fortunately for sellers, real estate agents have a method for identifying the right listing price for homes. They conduct a comparative market analysis to study what similar homes in the area are sold for. This ensures that you set a price that is compelling to buyers right off the bat.
Paperwork and Legal Guidance
When selling your house, you have to do so in a way that complies with the laws of the land. Every state has its own requirements for home sellers when it comes to things like disclosures and appraisals. Your real estate agent will make sure you fulfill all your legal obligations based on you.
You will also have to deal with a ton of paperwork while selling your house. That includes documents like the deed, title report, property tax information, mortgage information, etc. The easiest way to know what documents you need to keep handy and how to fill out paperwork is by hiring a real estate agent.
Tapping into a Built-in Network
An oft-overlooked benefit of hiring a real estate agent is that you gain access to their network when you work with them. So you don’t have to worry about researching supplementary services that you will require such as home stagers, home appraisers, and so on. You can have your real estate agent recommend dependable, local businesses and quickly enlist the vendors that you require.
Negotiating with Buyers
If you have to get the price that you want for your house, you have to negotiate with buyers. Since it costs buyers nothing to hire a buyer’s agent, you will be going up against an experienced professional. In such a scenario, it’s important that sellers have their own agent representing their interests during negotiations.
Your real estate agent will protect your best interests. They won’t just address the asking price, but also the terms of the sale such as contingencies, closing costs, and moving date. It’s a lot easier to sell your house on your terms when you have a real estate agent representing you at the negotiating table.
If you’re looking to sell your house, the best way to do it successfully is by hiring a real estate agent. These agents have a proven track record of helping sellers get the best deal for their home.
Source: listwithclever.com ~ Image: Canva Pro