Every Home Seller Should Be Working With An Experienced Real Estate Agent
WHY? Because not having an experienced agent can end up costing you a lot of money. Many sellers - especially first time sellers - do not realize the complexities that can go into real estate deals. In the digital age of Zillow and Trulia, many sellers assume that they can sell their home on their own. While it is certainly easier to offer a home for sale by owner now than it was in the past, you are still much more likely to achieve your desired result, and in a faster timeframe, by working with an experienced agent. If you are on the fence about working with an experienced agent, consider the following:
The Listing
Anybody can take pictures and post them to a website. But a good listing requires much more. The listing is the most important part of the selling process. Most buyers will view multiple listings, choosing only a select few to visit in person. Therefore, if your listing does not catch the buyer's eye, he or she will never even see your house. The listing starts with price. An experienced real estate agent has access to tons of data, including recent sales, market trends, and general experience in the industry. Working with you, a real estate agent can generate a comprehensive comparable market analysis, to make sure that your listing price is in line with other comparable properties that have recently sold in your market. This can be tricky to get right. Every house is different. Prices vary from neighborhood to neighborhood. Location matters. Only an experienced real estate agent can accurately measure your specific house against all of these other variables. It is important, for obvious reasons, not to price your house too low! But it is equally important not to price your house too high. A house that is over priced will generate less showings, causing it to sit on the market for longer periods of time, and ultimate, make the house less attractive to potential buyers, even if the price is lowered at a later date. Buyers will see that a house has been on the market for several months and that the price has been lowered several times and wonder, what is wrong with this house that nobody wants to buy it? To learn more about a comparative market analysis, click HERE.
In addition to appropriately pricing your house, an experienced real estate agent will help you craft a listing that is optimized to generate the most amount of interest. An experienced real estate agent will take professional photographs, may suggest and coordinate professional staging, and will be sure to highlight all the best details of your home. Remember, if potential buyers are not impressed by your listing, they will never schedule a showing. A good listing should contain much more than a couple of photos taken from your smart phone, and a generic description of square footage and rooms. There is an art to creating the perfect listing, and it is one that Poulin Realty Group has mastered over time!
Exposure
Once you generate a listing, you have to make sure that potential buyers actually see it. While casual shoppers may be looking to online websites such as Zillow, most serious buyers will be working with a buyer's agent. Real estate agents generally do not look for leads on the internet. These websites are slow to update, and often display incomplete or outdated information. As a result, experienced buyer's agents generally look to the MLS (multiple listing service) to find potential homes for their buyers. An experienced real estate agent will get your home listed on the MLS, where it will be seen by many more potential buyers than will notice a for sale by owner sign in the yard.
Showings
Showings are not just driven by quality listings and maximum exposure. They are also usually funneled through the buyer's agent. In other words, buyers will look at listings that are provided to them by their agents when deciding what showings to schedule. If the buyer's agents are not presenting your listings to their clients, their clients are not going to schedule showings for your home. Sadly, many buyer's agents shy away from showing for sale by owner homes. Most buyer's agents are compensated through a commission split with the seller's agent. This means a buyer's agent may not be able to make money by helping their client buy a home that is for sale by owner. While we do not condone this practice at Poulin Realty Group (we believe our job is to show potential buyers the best possible homes, even if they are listed FSBO), it is nonetheless a problem that exists in our profession. If you choose to list your home FSBO, you must accept the fact that many less than scrupulous buyer's agents will push their clients in a different direction, costing you showings and potential buyers.
As a seller working without a real estate agent, you must also realize that you will be responsible for taking calls from interested buyers, answering questions, and scheduling showings. This can be time consuming. An experienced real estate agent will take these tasks off your plate, so you can focus on other things, including your own job from where you generate income.
The Negotiation
Negotiations can be tough. We all have an innate desire to be friendly, to avoid conflict, and most importantly, to be liked. Sometimes, however, in order to get what you want, you have to be tough. An experienced real estate agent can act as the "bad guy" in the negotiation, demanding the terms that you need, while insulating you from the fallout. An agent can help by speaking for you in tough transactions and smoothing things over to keep them from getting too personal, preventing the bad blood between a buyer and seller that can often kill a deal.
Roadblocks to Closing
Finally, even once you manage to get your home under contract, there are many roadblocks that can derail the deal. These include repair requests, contingencies, missed deadlines, etc. An experienced real estate agent will help you navigate and extinguish these problems as they arise, keeping your deal on track to close on time. After all, time is money. For every day that your closing is delayed, you are making mortgage payments on your old home, and potentially delaying the purchase of your next home.
Call us today for more information. It is risk free, no obligation, and if you don't like what we say, or if you decide to go with another firm, you will never hear from us again. What do you have to lose?
What Can You Expect if You Hire A PRG Agent?
We Will:
- Protect your financial information
- Negotiate the best possible sale price and terms for you
- Take professional quality pictures of your home, and arrange for professional staging if necessary
- Professionally craft your listing to highlight your home's best feature
- Expose your home to the maximum number of potential buyers through the Multiple Listing Service
- Help track all important deadlines, and walk you through the contingency and repair process step by step
- Draft all important documents such as counteroffers, sales addenda, and seller disclosures
- Arrange and handle all showings around your schedule
- Make the home selling process as simple as possible for you, so you can worry about other things