Should you use a real estate agent to sell your house? With home listings up 20% in Canada over last year, this question has come up for many people lately. There are pros and cons to either using a realtor or selling your house on your own.
Selling Your House With A Real Estate Agent
While the commission paid to a realtor can seem like a loss of profit when you sell, there are benefits to hiring someone to help you sell your home.
A real estate agent can give your house more exposure than if you sell on your own. Not only do they have access to list on MLS, they may also promote your listing in magazines for home buyers and on their own website.
By hiring a realtor, you also gain their experience in judging the price you should list for and ultimately what you should be willing to sell at. Their experience is an asset when it comes to finalizing the agreements; pointing out differences between multiple offers and helping you choose the best one.
By far, the greatest benefit of having a realtor on your side is during the negotiating process. Having a real estate agent that is a good negotiator can possibly cover their entire commission by not leaving money on the table when it comes to settling on a final price.
Selling Your House Without A Real Estate Agent
The obvious benefit is that you can save money by selling your house without a real estate agent. By not paying a commission, you have room to lower your price to stay ahead in a competitive market. Even after adjusting your price, you could be left with some additional profit on your home.
If you’re confident about being able to negotiate the deal and have the time to be available for house showings, selling your house without a realtor can be a great opportunity to maximize the profit from your house.
What Other Money Mavens Think About Using A Real Estate Agent
As our first group project, some of the Money Mavens wrote about the same topic today. Check out their opinions on whether or not they would use a realtor!
- JoeTaxpayer – Using A Real Estate Broker?
- Len Penzo – Real Estate Agents: Why You Rarely Get What You Pay For
- Green Panda Treehouse – Would You Take A Realtor To Sell Your House?
- Fiscal Geek – Should I use a Realtor to Sell My House?
- Sarasota Real Estate - How To SAVE $32,340 Selling Your Own House...Without A "High-Priced" Realtor!
- Real Estate Guide to Buy or Rent Whangarei Northland and Coastal Property in New Zealand
- The Mortgage Crisis and Investments in Real Estate
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Tom,
Are the “For Sale By Owner” businesses that will list your house for sale on MLS popular in Canada? These companies became very popular in the US during the housing boom. I think that they are a great value.
-Fred
TheDebtHawk.com´s last blog ..Money Tips – April 9, 2010
Fred,
FSBO is very popular during hot markets here too. Not as much need for a real estate agent when houses are selling within a week.
It could also take more time to sell your home without an agent, which could further diminish, if not eliminate, the savings from not paying the commission.
Roshawn @ Watson Inc´s last blog ..It’s Tax Time, Are You Ready?
I’d say that using an agent is more comfortable for most of people. The advantages of both ways are described very well in this article, but selling a house without a professional real estate agent can often become very complicated, exhausting and time-consuming, especially for someone inexperienced. And if the agent is really good, he will probably be able to sell your house for a better price – I mean, in most cases, you’re not going to save that much when selling on your own.
Jay
Vancouver Jay´s last blog ..New Guide – Home Renovations
Nice post, Tom.
While I advocate going FSBO, agents are fine for people who aren’t willing/able to take the time to do their own research and burn a little shoe leather selling their own home.
I’ve sold a home without an agent – after trying unsuccessfully to sell it with an agent – and it really wasn’t too bad. Real estate attorney’s can help you with negotiations and paperwork for pennies on the dollar when compared to amount the agents take in commissions.
All the best,
Len
Len Penzo dot Com
Len Penzo´s last blog ..Real Estate Agents: Why You Rarely Get What You Pay For
I don’t think that Realtor’s experience will play a lot while selling your house. Not for 5% of the price as comission though
I sold my first house with a realtor and realized how much I lost for a small benefit.
I just sold my current property in 2 weeks without a realtor (by using bytheowner.com). They are very professional and offer one of the best photograph technology I have seen.
Mike @ Green Panda´s last blog ..Money Mavens’ Take: Would You Take A Realtor To Sell Your House
I would say that it is better to get an aide from a realtor to sell my house. Realtors have more contacts and can easily look for buyer prospects.
[...] Treehouse – Would You Take A Realtor To Sell Your House? Tom at Canadian Fiance Blog – Should You Use A Real Estate Agent To Sell Your House? Paul at Fiscal Geek – Should I Use a Realtor to Sell My [...]
Hiring an agent only brings you people who are looking to buy a house with Agent as they don’t want to trust on FSBO transaction. But my experience with the agent resulted in sour relationship as they just want your money either you be a buyer or seller. I had both experience now and I can say they don’t care if you end up in buying a house that could have legal or other problem as they will show your the door and tell you that you did not ask so I did not tell. On the other side when you are selling they would want to get the commission by selling the house as soon as possible that might be in most case 1 day by listing the house at under price and if you can’t sell at the price you want they will always suggest to lower the price by saying it is not worth the price to sell. So if price is what sell then why an agent and not sell by yourself.
I think people are comfortable with an agent. There is a lot more to selling or buying a house than signing on the dotted line. Selling and buying houses is the realtors business, they have contacts and know what they are doing.
I like the unbiased description of the benefits of using an agent or not. I think one of the major factors in selling a house is also the paperwork, which can get a bit confusing for many individual sellers.
there have been a slew of FSBOs in Canada in the last 12-18 months…. some of the prominent ones:
bytheowner.com (probably the best)
propertyguys.ca
propertysold.ca
housemaxx.ca
and some other portals like
craigslist & kijiji
takloo´s last blog ..Canada Resale Housing – Rise- fall- rise- collapse
Clearly there are people who are sophisticated enough to buy or sell without an agent, but I think generally it is prudent to put us to work. We are in the middle of what is going on, and know if conditions are trending up or down, we know how to write an enforceable contract, and can handle the people who are overbearing.
Of course there will be people who have bad experiences with an agent, but from my experiences, I KNOW that it is not always the agents’ fault. There are a lot of unreasonable and unrealistic people trying to buy and sell real estate, and we can help to isolate our clients from high pressure people looking to steal someone’s home.
People certainly are free to try for themselves, but without the systems that agents have designed and paid for, there will not be many people coming to look at the listing, and if it does sell it will be for a lot less. One thing that I feel quite sure of is that if more people are going to try to sell there own homes, lawyers will be ecstatic.
Final point I will make is that agent’s system is relatively simple. We have a centralized database with easy access to information, while (as the above point elludes to) as it goes private we have a huge mess of websites and companies to navigate… What a freakin mess…